The Contemporary Revival of Nahḍa Music in Lebanon: The Role of Nostalgia in the Creation of a Contemporary Transnational Music Tradition

Abstract

This article focuses on the Lebanon-based movement Tajdīd min al-Dakhil (Internal Renewal) which is responsible for the revival of the repertoire, aesthetics, and performance praxis of the music of the Nahḍa (Arab Renaissance) period (1885–1933). It asks, why does the Nahḍa era play such a fundamental role in redefining Lebanese contemporary identity? What main characteristics of this period render this historical period a fertile locus for the contemporary postcolonial imagination? How does the revival of Nahḍa music manifest the prevalence of nostalgia within the “culture of ṭarab” that characterizes the processes of traditional Arab music-making and consumption? To address these questions, the discussion draws on original fieldwork interviews in Beirut (between 2013 and 2014) and traces a journey from mid-twentieth-century Lebanese traditional music (turāth) to the contemporary Tajdīd movement. I claim that this group attempts to disentangle Arab Levantine and Egyptian traditional urban music from what is commonly designated as “ṭarab music” which they perceive as a specific type of bourgeois aesthetics commonly associated with Lebanese ruling elites. To achieve this detachment, the Tajdīd calls upon the Nahḍa historical period—both factual and imagined—in which music turāth (heritage) was mostly defined in relation to the wider Middle East region. It is suggested that the emotional and identarian transformations brought by such nostalgic backward glances effectively allow the Tajdīd to address an ongoing postcolonial malaise etched onto Lebanese society and culture, creating a locus for reconciliation between past, present, and future yearnings.