Uzeyir Hajibeyli — the man who reconciled East and West in one score
Staged in Baku in 1908, “Leyli and Majnun” was the first opera in the Muslim East. Its author also wrote the theory of mugham.
Composers
Franghiz Ali-Zadeh — from mugham to the Kronos Quartet
The most performed Azerbaijani composer in the world today, translating mugham into the language of contemporary chamber music.
- Published
- Author
- Əkrəm Babayev
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Franghiz Ali-Zadeh was born in Baku in 1947 and studied in Gara Garayev's class. Her music is the contemporary answer to the question this series began with: how can mugham live inside European form?
Prepared piano and mugham
In “Habil Sayagi”, cello and prepared piano together imitate the sound of kamancha and tar — mugham functions here not as quotation but as a conception of timbre and time.
“Dervish” and her other chamber works follow the same principle: the instruments are European, the thinking is Eastern.
The Kronos Quartet
“Mugam Sayagi”, written for the Kronos Quartet in 1993, carried her name onto the international new-music stage. The quartet has since performed and recorded several of her works.
Today
Ali-Zadeh has chaired the Union of Composers of Azerbaijan since 2007 and holds the title of UNESCO Artist for Peace from the same year.
The question Uzeyir Hajibeyli posed in 1908 is still open a century later — and each generation answers it differently.
Photo: Presidential Press and Information Office of Azerbaijan, CC BY 4.0.
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