Azerbaijani folk music delights Beijing audience
- By Cui Can
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E-mail China.org.cn, March 19, 2018
Four musical artists from Azerbaijan gave Chinese audiences a taste of their incomparable Mugham folk music on March 18 at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing.
The performance started with a famous Azerbaijani musical piece that weds classical poetry and musical improvisation in a distinctive local mode.
Several joyous folk songs featuring the traditional Mugham sound were performed throughout the show. The songs, characterized by crescendoing intensity and rising pitch, as well as by a specialized form of poetic-musical communication between the performers and audience, drew waves of applause.
One number, "My Beautiful Hometown," played on Azerbaijani traditional instruments the kamancheh and the tar, carried the audience away to exotic Azerbaijan, conjuring the beautiful scenery and vitality of the people living there.
When the musicians played the tune "Fall in Love," many of the Chinese audience members clapped along to the beat, their collective fervor building towards the song's climax.
"It's wonderful. I love music from different cultures," said Zhang Xinghua, one Chinese concertgoer, commenting that she was greatly impressed by their performance on traditional Chinese musical instruments.
Considered the classical music of Azerbaijan, Mugham is a traditional musical form distinguished by its extensive use of improvisation and practice of drawing on popular stories and local melodies. In 2003, UNESCO included it on its list of "Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity."
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