A History of Arabian Music

by Henry George Farmer

Until recent years almost everyone who has written on the subject of music of the Arabs has looked, in the matter of origins, to either Greece or Persia. However excavations in recent years on the sites of ancient civilizations have brought wondrous changes in our notions of the world's culture history

288 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1929

Reviews

[Abu Kamdar]

As much as I wanted to learn about this topic, and even though there were a few very interesting chapters that answered some questions of mine, the overall orientalist tone of the book made it very difficult to read. The author would generally put down practicing Muslims, referring to them as bigots, and in a few places insulted the prophet (peace be upon him).

There were also many chapters which I had to speed read through as they did not contain much valuable information, and were basically lists of the names of famous Muslim musicians of each century. Overall, this topic could have been covered much better.

[Benjamin Stahl]

I am deeply interested in Arabian history and culture, in Islam, in the Middle East. I also genuinely enjoy Arabian music. This book was an absolute snore-fest though. I won't lie: I skipped pages to get through it.

[Vel]

Gargantuan research effort (esp. pre-Internet); condescending orientalist tone (then again, it was 1929); reads like a long list of very similar names at times.

[Yousef Kurdi]

قرأت الكتاب المترجم بواسطة حسين نصار

في الواقع الكتاب يعتبر شامل عن تاريخ الموسيقى العربية منذ العصور القديمة و الجاهلية الى العباسيين و به معلومات ثرية لكن يعيب الكتاب عدم التنسيق في الطرح حيث لوهلة و انا اقرأ احسست بالضياع و لم اعد افهم ربما هذا عيب من المترجم وليس الكاتب و ايضا هناك عيب اخر و هو كثرة الاسماء و الشخصيات في الكتاب التي لا يتم التعريف عنها في الهوامش و كأنها شخصيات كل الناس تعرفها جيدا

عموما كتاب أنصح بقرائته لكن بروية و تركيز

[Jbondandrews]

I thought Henry George Farmer's book of a History of Arabian Music to be very fascinating. It was a pity that some of the musicians lives did not have more information to them. But what was presented made for a very interesting read.