Chapter 07
Twenty-Four Performances Across Lebanese Music
5 min
The sequence begins with radio and festival theatre, then moves through public poetry, early recording, war, sacred communities, Palestinian camp voices and contemporary Beirut. Every entry names a recording or performance that can be heard in full.
1. Fairuz — `Nassam Alayna el-Hawa`
Hear the concentrated voice against Rahbani orchestration. The song's association with departure and return grew through repeated household listening.
2. Fairuz and the Rahbani Brothers — *Lebanon: The Baalbek Folk Festival*
Two long tracks preserve staged dabke, songs and finale. This is modern festival theatre, not an anonymous village recording.
3. Wadih El Safi — `Andak Bahriya`
His long-breathed tenor creates another Lebanese vocal ideal. Follow the mawwal-like opening and the shift into song.
4. Tony Hanna — `Mijana`
Hanna's forceful delivery carries a village-derived refrain into commercial recording. Hear how the recurring response converts solo display into a social pulse.
5. Sabah — `Aal Bessata`
Bright diction and rhythmic control reveal a star persona built through technique. Compare her orchestral entrance with Fairuz.
6. Zaghloul al-Damour and Moussa Zgheib — the Beit Mery zajal duel (1971)
Two troupes, their choruses and a large audience sustain a complete public argument. The recording preserves the pauses, counters and crowd judgement that short clips remove.
7. Ziad Rahbani — *Bil Afrah* (1977)
Piano, jazz harmony and popular composition complicate the pastoral Rahbani image. Hear the album as a complete authored statement.
8. Muhyiddin Ba'yun — `Taqsim Sikah` (recorded around 1928)
The two-sided Baidaphon shellac makes Beirut's early recording world audible through buzuq, plectrum attack and poised silences.
9. Issam Hajali — *Mouasalat Ila Jacad El Ard* (1977)
Recorded during exile and circulated on a tiny cassette edition, the album connects acoustic song, jazz colour and the Palestinian-left political world around the war.
10. Marcel Khalife — `The Passport` (1983)
Mahmoud Darwish's poem and virtuosic oud turn documentation and dispossession into musical argument.
11. Katibeh 5 — *Welcome to the Camps* (2006)
Palestinian rappers in Lebanon describe camp life through their own voices. The title addresses an audience arriving from outside the conditions being narrated.
12. Osloob — *Free Scene* (2013)
Arabic rap meets oud, guitar and flute across a network of named collaborators. Production turns the camp route outward without erasing where Osloob began.
13. Antonine University Choir — *Les Melodies Maronites, Volume I* (2011)
Named conductors, soloists and institutional credits frame Maronite repertory as a living practice rather than anonymous ancient atmosphere.
14. Sister Marie Keyrouz — *Chant Byzantin* (1989)
A Lebanese Melkite voice opens a Byzantine route distinct from Maronite sound. Follow the rapid ornament and long cadential control.
15. Adiss Harmandian — `Nouné`
Hear Western Armenian popular song as part of Beirut's recording history. The direct vocal melody and dance-band colour open a community world without reducing it to duduk atmosphere.
16. Abeer Nehme — *Aroma of My Prayer* (2009)
Nehme moves among Syriac Orthodox, Maronite, Byzantine and Armenian Christian repertories. Hear each tradition as a named practice, not as one blended sacred mood.
17. Soapkills — `Herzan`
Minimal electronics and close Arabic voice open postwar Beirut. Space in the production is active, not empty.
18. Mashrou' Leila — `Fasateen`
Violin, rock rhythm and Arabic lyric turn marriage expectation into public indie song. Hear the arrangement before the censorship history.
19. `A` Trio — *Music to Our Ears* (2011)
Mazen Kerbaj, Sharif Sehnaoui and Raed Yassin improvise without edits or overdubs. Trumpet breath, prepared guitar and double bass build form from texture.
20. The Wanton Bishops — `Sleep with the Lights On`
Blues-rock riffs offer an English-language Beirut route. Influence becomes local through band practice, not invented ancestry.
21. Nancy Ajram — `Ah W Noss`
Mainstream Arab pop enters through concise melody, video-era star craft and a huge transnational audience.
22. Najwa Karam — `Ma Fi Nom` (2011)
Karam's powerful Lebanese-dialect attack enters a different mainstream from Ajram's compact pop. Percussion and repeated hooks make vocal force part of the dance arrangement.
23. El Rass — *Sikkat al-Rouh* (2025)
Eleven tracks and several regional collaborators make Arabic rap a field of political thought, faith, doubt and formal play.
24. Yasmine Hamdan — *I remember I forget / Bansa wa Betzakkar* (2025)
End with ten tracks in which dialect, memory and electronic collaboration become a present-tense album rather than a Beirut nostalgia exercise.
A practical six-stop route
In Beirut, begin with a current programme at Metro al-Madina or another active named venue, then follow the artist rather than assuming a permanent genre. Visit a record shop or archive with exact catalogue questions, and use Armenian cultural institutions in Bourj Hammoud for a community-specific route.
Check Baalbeck's official season before travelling to the Bekaa. Add Beiteddine or Byblos only when a current programme exists. For zajal and dabke, choose public billed events in the relevant town; private weddings and religious ceremonies are not default tourist access.
Frequently asked questions
A final return to the room
Lebanon's musical history is often told through voices large enough to stand for a country. The more revealing journey returns each voice to its room: Fairuz to writers, arrangers and radio; zajal poets to rivals and chorus; a camp rapper to the conditions named in the verse; an improviser to the silence another player leaves open.
After the final album, return to the Beit Mery duel. The evening lasts because nobody controls it alone. A poet proposes a world, an opponent bends it, the chorus tests its metre and the audience decides whether the line has landed. That shared act is a better ending than another national summary.
Questions about Twenty-Four Performances Across Lebanese Music
1. What does Lebanese music sound like?
It includes maqam-based art song, Fairuz and Rahbani theatre, zajal poetry, ataba, dabke, sacred chant, Armenian and Palestinian repertories, Arab pop, rock, electronic music and rap.
2. Why is Fairuz so important?
Her voice, the Rahbani brothers' writing and orchestration, radio repetition and festival theatre created songs heard across Lebanon, the Arab world and diaspora. She is central but never worked alone.
3. What is zajal?
Zajal is colloquial recited or sung poetry. Lebanese poetic troupes stage public challenges with chorus, tambourine, derbake and audience response.
4. Is dabke only Lebanese?
No. Dabke is shared across Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Palestine, with regional forms and histories. A useful credit identifies town, dancers and musicians.
5. What instruments should I recognise first?
Hear oud, qanun, nay, violin and riqq in the classical takht; mijwiz, shabbaba, tabl and derbake in folk and dance settings; then keyboards and electronic production in current music.
6. Who should I hear besides Fairuz?
Begin with Wadih El Safi, Sabah, Ziad Rahbani, Marcel Khalife, Yasmine Hamdan, Mashrou' Leila and El Rass. Each opens a different institution and audience.
7. How did the civil war affect music?
It divided Beirut, displaced musicians, suspended festivals and generated partisan broadcasts, exile careers, satire and new cassette archives. There is no single civil-war soundtrack.
8. Where can I hear music in Lebanon?
Use current artist and venue calendars in Beirut, official Baalbeck and Beiteddine seasons, and named public community events. Verify every listing because economic and security conditions change schedules.
9. What is a good first Marcel Khalife recording?
*Promises of the Storm* (1983) combines oud, voice and Mahmoud Darwish's poetry across five substantial tracks. Start with `The Passport`, then hear the album.
10. Which current Lebanese albums should I begin with?
Yasmine Hamdan's *I remember I forget* and El Rass's *Sikkat al-Rouh*, both released in 2025, provide sharply different electronic-song and Arabic-rap routes.
