Malek Jandali | Echoes from Ugarit | The Oldest Music Notation in History

Echoes from Ugarit by composer and pianist Malek Jandali () founder of Pianos for Peace () live in concert with the Syrian National Symphony Orchestra at the Damascus Opera House. The first piano & orchestra arrangement of the 3400 year old “Hurrian Hymn“, the oldest music notation in the world which was discovered on clay tablets in the ancient city of Ugarit, Syria. Although 29 musical texts were discovered in Ugarit, only this Cuneiform text was in a state of preservation to analyze and study its modern academic musical reconstruction. الموسيقار السوري مالك جندلي: من ألبوم: أصداء من اوغاريت - أقدم تدوين موسيقى في العالم Ugarit, Syria is the birthplace of alphabet and music notation. The interpretation of the music notation of Ugarit is a challenge and several “reconstructions“ have been published. The evidence that both the 7-note diatonic scale as well as harmony existed 3400 years ago flies in the face of most musicologists’ views that ancient harmony was virtually non-existent or even impossible. This has revolutionized the whole concept of the origin of Western music. This work is founded on the oldest music notation in the world discovered in the ancient Syrian city of Ugarit. The clay tablets contain a hymn to the moon god’s wife, Nikkal. Although hundreds of such tablets were discovered over the years, these very tablets contain words and notation of a song all composed in the same “maqam“ or mode (called nîd qabli). Further, they contained instructions for a singer accompanied by musicians, as well as instructions on tuning the strings of the instrument. This Ugaritic hymns was arranged into a melancholic piano work preserving its rhythmic structure and building a musical bridge to the past. The song of this woman’s marriage was filled with pain at not having children for her husband and her family. Apparently, the song is a lament, “the plaintive cry of an infertile woman“ seeking the answer to her barrenness from the moon goddess. Several musicologists and cuneiform specialists from several countries -- among them Benno Landsberger, Anne D. Kilmer, O.R. Gurney, M. Duchesne-Guillemin, H.G. Guterbock, E. Sollberger, D. Wulstan, VItale, H. Kummel, and E. Laroche -- have examined these five texts. A number of attempts have been made to reconstruct their musical significance, especially that of the Hurrian cult hymn. The results in the latter case are noteworthy for their wide divergence, yet the essentials of the music theory behind all these obscure documents seems well understood. The scholarly contributions of Dr. Richard Dumbrill to the translation and interpretation of the Hurrian song H6 are acknowledged with appreciation. The main goal of “Echoes from Ugarit“ is to shed the light on this very important historical fact to tell the world that Ugarit, Syria has the oldest music notation in the world.