The Musical Heritage Of Al-andalus

The Musical Heritage of Al-Andalus is a critical account of the history of Andalusian music in Iberia from the Islamic conquest of 711 to the final expulsion of the Moriscos (Spanish Muslims converted to Christianity) in the early 17th century.

The Musical Heritage of Al-Andalus is a critical account of the history of Andalusian music in Iberia from the Islamic conquest of 711 to the final expulsion of the Moriscos (Spanish Muslims converted to Christianity) in the early 17th century. This volume presents the documentation that has come down to us, accompanied by critical and detailed analyses of the sources written in Arabic, Old Catalan, Castilian, Hebrew, and Latin. It is also informed by research the author has conducted on modern Andalusian musical traditions in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria.

While the cultural achievements of medieval Muslim Spain have been the topic of a large number of scholarly and popular publications in recent decades, what may arguably be its most enduring contribution – music – has been almost entirely neglected. The overarching purpose of this work is to elucidate as clearly as possible the many different types of musical interactions that took place in medieval Iberia and the complexity of the various borrowings, adaptations, hybridizations, and appropriations involved.

Section One: Music in Iberia and the Mashriq up to 711

Chapter 1 – Music in Iberia to 711

Chapter 2 – Arab music to 711

Section Two: Andalusi Music to the Fall of the Umayyad Caliphate, 711–1031

Chapter 3 – From the conquest to the reign of ‘Abd al-Raḥmān II, 711–822

Chapter 4 – ‘Abd al-Raḥmān II and Ziryāb, 822–852

Chapter 5 – The final years of the Caliphate, 858–1031

Section Three: Music in the Medieval Mediterranean

Chapter 6 – Instrumentarium

Chapter 7 – Music Theory and Performance Practices

Section Four: The Musical Revolution in al-Andalus

Chapter 8 – From Ṣawt to Muwashshaḥ

Chapter 9 – Hebrew Muwashshaḥāt

Section Five: Post-Umayyad Iberia (11th–17th c.)

Chapter 10 – The Era of the "Petty Kings," Almoravids, and Almohads (11th–12th c.)

Chapter 11 – The Age of Minstrels (13th –15th c.)

Chapter 12 – Music of the Moriscos (16th–17th c.)

WINNER: PREMIO DEL REY BOOK PRIZE 2022

(American Historical Association)

"At once technical and accessible, Dwight F. Reynolds’s The Musical Heritage of Al-Andalus was the unanimous selection out of a strong field of entries for the 2022 Premio del Rey. Reynolds judiciously teases out the elusive history of music from the time of the Islamic conquest of Iberia through the Morisco era, touching on matters as diverse as instrumentation, theory, lyric, and performance among the traditions of Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Iberia and the Mediterranean world."

WINNER: EARLY MUSIC BOOK PRIZE 2022

(American Musicological Society)

“. . . The twelve chapters of The Musical Heritage of al-Andalus track the pernicious politics of “influence”; interreligious and intercultural negotiations beyond the traditional, narrow tripartition of Muslims, Christians, and Jews; gender roles and sexual identities; the development of “revolutionary” Arabic and Hebrew lyric genres in Iberia; and the complex intertwining of social status, ethnicity, enslavement, and music professionalization (alongside much more). . . Reynolds makes accessible a rich body of work that may be unfamiliar to the wider readership that the b