专辑简介

It was once said, that music is the only truly human language. Music knows no race or creed, it recognizes no nationality or bounderies, and it transcends all differences. It is the fusion, within ourselves, of the profane and the divine; of the tangible and the spiritual; of the anguish and euphoria of what means to be human.

In the Middle East, the cradle of all civilization, music was also there from time immemorial. It walked side by side with humans, as they built their civilizations, created their societies, and worshipped their divinities. In this region of the world, music wafted through the breeze as if it were a whiff of pine-infused mountain air from the heights of Mount Lebanon; as if it nestled through the palm dates of Mesopotamia; or as if it were lightly touched by the incense burning at the foot of the Great Pyramids. This music, as human and as universal as it were, had its own particular character. This character—or what Middle Easterners deftly allude to as “soul”—was passed down, through the aeons from generation to generation; adding a nuance, and refining itself with each transition down the line.

The influences from outside the Middle East are manifest everywhere one glances around, more so in its music and sounds. The eclectic nature of music in this region, the marriage of both Eastern and Western influences, has only added layers of beauty and splendor to an already opulent sound scape. The Lieder, or songs, included in this volume are but a reflection of this rich diversity and creativity. In them, the blend of high Arabic poetry, with its majestic resonance and the rhythmic qualities of the Arabic tongue; is finessed with music that is a true fusion of the “soul” of Eastern and Western music.

In these Lieder, the modern is woven into the fabric of the classical; the cerebral into the passionate; and the lyrical into the musical. The outcome is nothing short of an oeuvre, a truly exceptional opus which, much like the music it invokes, transcends barriers of place and time. It offers a loving homage to the human inside us, and there is no more fitting tribute and no better moment in time than now.