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Umm Kulthum

Biography

Early life

Umm Kulthum was born in Tamay ez-Zahayra village in El Senbellawein, Dakahlia Governorate, Egypt, in Dakahlia, in the Nile Delta, near the Mediterranean Sea. Her birth date is unconfirmed as birth registration was not enforced throughout the Arab world. The Egyptian Ministry of Information seems to have given either December 31, 1898, or December 31, 1904. She likely was born some time between these two dates.

At a young age, she showed exceptional singing talent. Her father, an Imam, taught her to recite the Qur'an, and she is said to have memorized the entire book. When she was 12 years old, her father disguised her as a young boy and entered her in a small performing troupe that he directed. At the age of 16 she was noticed by Abol Ela Mohamed, a modestly famous singer, who taught her the old classical repertoire. A few years later, she met the famous composer and oudist Zakariyya Ahmad, who invited her to come to Cairo. Although she made several visits to Cairo in the early 1920s, she waited until 1923 before permanently moving there. She was invited on several occasions to the house of Amin Beh Al Mahdy, who taught her how to play the oud (lute). She developed a very close relationship to Rawheya Al Mahdi, daughter of Amin, and became her closest friend. Kulthum even attended Rawheya's daughter's wedding, although she always tried to avoid public appearances.

Amin Al Mahdi introduced her to the cultural circles in Cairo. In Cairo, she carefully avoided succumbing to the attractions of the bohemian lifestyle, and indeed throughout her life stressed her pride in her humble origins and espousal of conservative values. She also maintained a tightly managed public image, which undoubtedly added to her allure.

At this point in her career, she was introduced to the famous poet Ahmad Rami, who wrote 137 songs for her. Rami also introduced her to French literature, which he greatly admired from his studies at the Sorbonne, Paris, and eventually became her head mentor in Arabic literature and literary analysis. Furthermore, she was introduced to the renowned oud virtuoso and composer Mohamed El Qasabgi. El Qasabgi introduced Umm Kulthum to the Arabic Theatre Palace, where she would experience her first real public success. In 1932, her fame increased to the point where she embarked upon a large tour of the Middle East, touring such cities as Damascus, Syria; Baghdad, Iraq; Beirut and Tripoli, Lebanon.

Fame

Imagine a singer with the virtuosity of Joan Sutherland or Ella Fitzgerald, the public persona of Eleanor Roosevelt and the audience of Elvis and you have Umm Kulthum, the most accomplished singer of her century in the Arab world.

Virginia Danielson, Harvard Magazine

Umm Kulthum's establishment as the most famous and popular Arab singer was driven by several factors. During her early career years, she faced staunch competition from two prominent singers: Mounira El-Mahdiya and Fathiyya Ahmad, who had equally beautiful and powerful voices. However, Mounira had poor control over her voice and Fathiyya lacked the emotive vocal impact that Umm Kulthum's voice had. The presence of all these enabling vocal characteristics attracted the most famous composers, musicians, and lyricists to work with Umm Kulthum. In the mid 1920s, Mohammad el Qasabgi, who was the most virtuosic oud player and one of the most accomplished yet understated Arab composers of the 20th century, formed her small orchestra (takht) composed of the most virtuosic instrumentalists. Furthermore, unlike most of her contemporary artists who held private concerts, Umm Kulthum's performances were open to the general public, which contributed to the transition from classical and often elitist to popular Arabic music. By 1934, Umm Kulthum must have been the most famous singer in Egypt to be chosen as the artist to inaugurate Radio Cairo with her voice on May 31. Over the second half of the 1930s, two initiatives will seal the fate of Umm Kulthum as the most popular and famous Arab singer: her appearances in musical movies and the live broadcasting of her concerts performed on the first Thursday of each month of her musical season from October to June. Her influence kept growing and expanding beyond the artistic scene: the reigning royal family would request private concerts and even attend her public performances. In 1944, King Farouk I of Egypt decorated her with the highest level of orders (nishan el kamal), a decoration reserved exclusively to members of the royal family and politicians. Despite this recognition, the royal family rigidly opposed her potential marriage with the King's uncle, a rejection that deeply wounded her pride and led her to distance herself from the royal family and embrace grassroots causes, such as her answering the request of the Egyptian legion trapped in Falujah during the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict to sing a particular song. Among the army men trapped were the figures who were going to lead the bloodless revolution of July 23 1952, prominently Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was a big fan of Umm Kulthum and who would later become the president of Egypt.

Early after the revolution, the Egyptian musicians guild of which she became a member (and eventually president) rejected her because she had sung for the then-deposed king, Farouk of Egypt. When Nasser discovered that her songs were forbidden from being aired on the radio, he reportedly said something to the effect of "What are they? Crazy? Do you want Egypt to turn against us?" It was his favor that made the musicians' guild accept her back into the fold. In addition, Umm Kulthum was a dedicated Egyptian patriot since the time of King Farouk. Some claim that Umm Kulthum's popularity helped Nasser political agenda. For example, Nasser speeches and other government messages were frequently broadcast immediately after Umm Kulthum's monthly radio concerts. Umm Kulthum was also known for her continuous contributions to charity works for the Egyptian military efforts. Umm Kulthum monthly concerts took place on the first Thursday of every month and were renowned for their ability to clear the streets of some of the world's most populous cities as people rushed home to tune in.

Her songs deal mostly with the universal themes of love, longing and loss. They are nothing short of epic in scale, with durations measured in hours rather than minutes. A typical Umm Kulthum concert consisted of the performance of two or three songs over a period of three to four hours. In the late 1960s, due to her age and weakened vocal abilities, she began to shorten her performances to two songs over a period of two and a half to three hours. These performances are in some ways reminiscent of the structure of Western opera, consisting of long vocal passages linked by shorter orchestral interludes. However, Umm Kulthum was not stylistically influenced by opera and she sang solo most of her career.

During the 1930s, her repertoire took the first of several specific stylistic directions. Her songs were virtuosic, as befit her newly trained and very capable voice, and romantic and modern in musical style, feeding the prevailing currents in Egyptian popular culture of the time. She worked extensively with texts by romantic poet Ahmad Rami and composer Muhammad al-Qsabji, whose songs incorporated European instruments such as the violoncello and double bass as well as harmony.

Umm Kulthum's musical directions in the 1940s and early 1950s and her mature performing style caused this period to be popularly called the "golden age" of Umm Kulthum. In keeping with changing popular taste as well as her own artistic inclinations, in the early 1940s she requested songs from composer Zakariya Ahmad and colloquial poet Bayram al-Tunisi cast in styles considered to be indigenously Egyptian. This represented a dramatic departure from the modernist romantic songs of the 1930s, mainly led by Mohammad El-Qasabgi, whom Umm Kulthum abstained from singing his music since the early 1940s, their last stage song collaboration being "Raq el habib" (The lover's heart softens), one of her most popular, intricate and high caliber songs (1941). The reason for this abstinence is not clear. It is speculated that this was due in part to the popular failure of the movie Aida, in which Umm Kulthum sings mostly Qasabgi's compositions, including the first part of the opera. Qasabgi was experimenting with Arabic music, under the influence of classical European music, and was composing a lot to Asmahan, a singer who immigrated to Egypt from Lebanon and was the only serious competitor for Umm Kulthum before her tragic death in a car accident in 1944. Simultaneously, Umm Kulthum started to rely heavily on a younger composer who joined her artistic team a few years earlier: Riad El-Sombati. While Sombati was evidently influenced by Qasabgi in those early years, the melodic lines he composed were more beautiful and more acceptable by Umm Kulthum's audience. The result of collaborations with Rami/Sombati and al-Tunisi/Ahmad was a populist and popular repertoire that had lasting appeal for the Egyptian audience. In 1946, Umm Kulthum defied all odds by presenting during her monthly concerts a religious poem in classical Arabic, "salou qalbi" (ask my heart), written by Ahmad Shawqi (the prince of poets) and composed by Sombati. The success was immediate and huge; it also reconnected Umm Kulthum with her early singing years, defined Sombati's unique style in composing and established him as the best composer of music for poems in classical Arabic, toppling Mohammad Abd el Wahab. Similar poems written by Shawqi were subsequently composed by Sombati and sung by Umm Kulthum, including "woulida el Houda" (the Prophet is born; 1949), in which she raised eyebrows of royalists by singing a verse that describes the Prophet Mohammad as "the Imam of Socialists". At the peak of her career, in 1950, Umm Kulthum sang Sombati's composition of excerpts of what Ahmad Rami considered the accomplishment of his career: the translation into classical Arabic of Omar Khayyam's quartets (Rubayyiat el Khayyam). The song included quartets that dealt with both epicurism and redemption. Ibrahim Nagy's poem Al-Atlal (the Ruins), composed by Sombati and premiered in 1966, is considered by many as Umm Kulthum's best song. While this is debatable as Umm Kulthum vocal abilities had regressed considerably by then, the song can be viewed as the last example of genuine Arabic music at a time when even Umm Kulthum had started to compromise by singing Western-influenced pieces composed by her old rival Mohammad Abd el Wahab.

The duration of Umm Kulthum's songs in performance was not fixed, but varied based on the level of emotive interaction between the singer and her audience and Umm Kulthum's own mood for creativity. An improvisatory technique, which was typical of old classical Arabic singing and which she wonderfully executed for as long as she could have (both her regressing vocal abilities with age and the increased westernization of Arabic music became an impediment to this art), was to repeat a single line or stance over and over, subtly altering the emotive emphasis and intensity and exploring one or various musical modal scales (maqam) each time to bring her audiences into a euphoric and ecstatic state. "[citation needed] For example, the available live performances (about 30) of "ya zalemni", one of her most popular songs, varied in length from 45 to 90 min, depending on both her creative mood for improvisations and the audience request for more repetitions, illustrating the dynamic relationship between the singer and the audience as they fed off each other's emotional energy. The spontaneous creativity of Umm Kulthum as a singer is most impressive when, upon listening to these many different renditions of the same song over a time span of 5 years (1954-1959), the listener is offered a totally unique and different experience. This intense, highly personalized relationship was undoubtedly one of the reasons for Umm Kulthum's tremendous success as an artist. Worth noting though that the length of a performance did not necessarily reflect either its quality or the improvisatory creativity of Umm Kulthum. Some of her best performances were 25-45 min in duration, such as the three available renditions, including the commercial version of El Awwila fi'l gharam (first in love), and ana fi intizarak (commercial and 3-3-1955 performance). On the other hand, her songs as of the mid 1960s would extend sometimes over a duration of two hours (premiere of Enta Omri, Enta el Hobb etc...); however, the repetitions, mostly executed upon the request of the audience, were often devoid of creative musical improvisations and limited to vocal colorful variations on a syllable, letter or word.

Legacy

Monument to Umm Kulthum in Zamalek, Cairo. It is located on the site of the former house of the singer.

Umm Kulthum has been a significant influence on a number of musicians, both in the Arab World and beyond. Among others, Jah Wobble has claimed her as a significant influence on his work. Bob Dylan has been quoted as saying, "She's great. She really is. Really great." Maria Callas, Jean-Paul Sartre, Marie Lafort, Salvador Dal, Nico, Bono, Farin Urlaub, and Led Zeppelin are also known to be admirers of Kulthum's music. One of her best known songs, nta Omri, has been the basis of many reinterpretations, including one 2005 collaborative project involving Israeli and Egyptian artists.

She was referred to as "The Lady" by Charles de Gaulle, and is regarded as "The Incomparable Voice" by Maria Callas. Umm Kulthum is remembered in Egypt, the Middle East, and the Arab world as one of the greatest singers and musicians to have ever lived. It is difficult to accurately measure her vocal range at its peak, as most of her songs were recorded live, and she was careful not to strain her voice due to the extended length of her songs. Even today, she has retained a near-mythical status among young Egyptians. She is also notably popular in Israel among Jews and Arabs alike, and her records continue to sell about a million copies a year. In 2001, the Egyptian government opened the Kawkab al-Sharq (Star of the East) Museum in the singer's memory. Housed in a pavilion on the grounds of Cairo's Manesterly Palace, the collection includes a range of Umm Kulthum's personal possessions, including her trademark sunglasses and scarves, along with photographs, recordings, and other archival material.

Voice

Kulthum had a contralto vocal range. It is known that she had the ability to sing as low as the second octave, as well as the ability to sing as high as between the seventh and the eighth octaves at her vocal peak; yet she also could easily sing over a range surpassing two octaves near the end of her career. Her remarkable ability to produce approximately 14,000 vibrations per second with her vocal cords, her unparalleled vocal strength (no commercial microphone utilized for singing could withstand its strength, forcing her to stand at a 1- to 3-meter radius away from one), and her voice's unique and breathtaking beauty that surpassed convention arguably made her the most incomparable voice of all time. Her ability and capability to sing every single Arabic scale makes her one of only five women in the history of the Arab world to be able to do this, along with Asmahan, Fairouz, and Sabah and the latest Thekra. In her final years, recordings show a slight coarsening of her voice and a loss of the silken golden thread of coloratura that, in her earlier years, in songs such as Bairam al-Tunsi's eredaak, she displayed with an ease and stupendous nonchalance.[citation needed]

Selected discography

Aghadan alqak (1971)maqam ajam

Alif Leila wa Leila ("One Thousand and One Nights").....maqam nahawand (1969)

Arouh li Meen or Arook Lemeen ("Whom Should I Go To").......maqam rast (1958)

Al Atlal ("The Ruins")......maqam huzam (1966)

Amal Hayati"; Sono ("Hope of My Life") (1965)

Ansak Ya Salam (1961)maqam rast

Aqbal al-layl (1969)

Araka asiya al-dam (1964)

'Awwidt 'ayni (1957) maqam kurd

Baeed Anak ("Away From You").......maqam bayyati (1965)

Betfaker fi Meen ("Who Are You Thinking Of?").....maqam bayati (1963)

Dalili Ehtar (1955) maqam kurd

Dhikrayatun (Qessat Hobbi) (1955)

El Hobb Kolloh ("All The Love").......maqam rast (1971)

Ental Hobb ("You Are The Love").......maqam nahwand (1965)

Enta Omri Sono ("You Are My Life")........ maqam kurd (1964)

Es'al Rouhak ("Ask yourself", or "Ask Your Soul")maqam hugaz kar (1970)

Fakarouni ("They thaught of me to be").......maqam rast (1966)

Fit al-ma' ad ("It Is Too Late") Sono Cairo.......maqam sikah (1967)

Gharib' Ala Bab erraja (1955)

Ghulubt asalih (1946)

Hadeeth el Rouh ("The Talk of The Soul")......maqam kurd (1967)

Hagartek or Hajartak ("I Abandoned You") EMI (1959)

Hasibak lil-zaman (1962)

Hathehe Laylati ("This is My Night")......maqam bayyati (1968)

Hayart Albi Ma'ak ("You Confused My Heart")......maqam nahwand (1961)

Hakam 'alayna al-haw'a (1973)

Hobb Eih ("Which Love").....maqam bayyati (1960)

Howwa Sahih El-Hawa Ghallab (1960)

Kull al-ahabbah (1941)

La Diva CD, EMI Arabia, 1998

La Diva II CD, EMI Arabia, 1998

La Diva III CD, EMI Arabia, 1998

La Diva IV CD, EMI Arabia, 1998

La Diva V CD, EMI Arabia, 1998

Leilet Hobb ("Night of Love") (1973)

Lel Sabr Hedod ("Patience Has Limits")......maqam sikah (1964)

Lessa Faker ("You Still Remember").......maqam ajam (1960)

Men Agl Aynayk (1972)

Othkorene ("Remember Me") (1939)

Raq il Habeeb ("My Beloved Tendered Back") (1941)

Retrospective Artists Arabes Associes

Rihab al-huda (al-Thulathiyah al-Muqaddisah) (1972)

Rubaiyat Al-Khayyam ("Quatrains of Omar Khayym").......maqam rast (1950)

Sirat el Houb ("Tale of Love").......maqam sikah (1964)

Toof we Shoof (1963)

The Classics CD, EMI Arabia, 2001

Wi-darit il-ayyam ("And The Days Passed By").......maqam nahwand (1970)

Ya Karawan (1926)

Yali Kan Yashqiq Anini (1949)

Ya Msaharny ("You that keeps me awake at night") (1972)

Ya Zalemny (1954)

Zalamna El Hob ("We Have Sinned Against Love") (1962)

Anthology by modern artists

Various artists, Tribute to Oum Kalsoum, (2009)

References

^ "Umm Kulthum (1898-1975)". Your gateway to Egypt. Egypt State Information Service. Archived from the original on 2009-11-24. http://www.webcitation.org/5lWi64O69. 

^

^ http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:gifwxqw5ldke~T1

^ Umm Kulthum: A Voice Like Egypt. Dir. Michal Goldman. Narr. Omar Sharif. 1996. VHS. Arab Film Distribution, 1996.

^ Playboy Interview: Bob Dylan

^ PIAZZA, TOM (July 28, 2002). "Bob Dylan's Unswerving Road Back to Newport". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/28/arts/music/28PIAZ.html?8hpib=&pagewanted=all&position=top. Retrieved 2009-06-29. 

^ Rakha, Youssef and El-Aref, Nevine, "Umm Kulthoum, superstar", Al-Ahram Weekly, December 27, 2001 - January 2, 2002.

^ Funeral for a Nightingale

Sources

Danielson, Virginia. The Voice of Egypt: Umm Kulthum, Arabic Song, and Egyptian Society in the Twentieth Century. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.

Halfaouine: Boy of the Terraces (1990) (film). This DVD contains an extra feature short film, which documents Arab film history, and it contains several minutes of an Uum Kulthum public performance.

External links

allmusic.com biography

Umm Kulthoum at krwetatnt - The best site for listening and Downloding Umm Kulthoum songs

The Star of the East at stfold College, Halden, Norway Information and streaming audio of some songs.

"Umm Kulthoum", Al-Ahram Weekly, February 3-9, 2000 - articles and essays marking the 25th anniversary of the singer's death.

Profile of Umm Kulthum and her music that aired on the May 11, 2008, broadcast of NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday

Umm Kulthum on BBC Great Lives

Oum Kalsoum exhibition at the Institute Du Monde Arabe, Paris, France from Tuesday, June 17 2008 to Sunday, November 2 2008

A list of her recordings in chronological and alphabetical order

v  d  e

Arabic pop music

Female artists

Ahlam  Aida el Ayoubi  Aida Nadeem  Aline Khalaf  Amal Hijazi  Amani Swissi  Amina Annabi  Angham  Anoushka  Asalah  Asmahan  Aziza Jalal  Brigitte Yaghi  Carole Samaha  Cheikha Rimitti  Cyrine Abdelnour  Dalida  Dalli  Dana Halabi  Dania  Darine  Darine Hadchiti  Diana Haddad  Diana Karazon  Dina Hayek  Dominique Hourani  Dolly Shahine  Elissa  Fairuz  Fayza Ahmed  Fulla  Ghada Ragab  Grace Deeb  Haifa Wehbe  Hind  Ishtar  Jannat Mahid  Julia Boutros  Karol Sakr  Klodia Hanna  Laila Mourad  Laila Ghofran  Latifa  Lena Chamamyan  Lydia Canaan  Madeline Matar  Mai Selim  Majida El Roumi  Maria Nalbandian  Marwa  Maryem Tollar  May Kassab  Maya Nasri  Mounira El Mahdeya  Myriam Fares  Najwa Karam  Nancy Ajram  Nancy Nasrallah  Natacha Atlas  Nawal Al Zoghbi  Nawal El Kuwaiti  Nelly Makdessy  Nicole Saba  Noura Rahal  Nourhanne  Ofra Haza  Pascale Machaalani  Rahma Mezher  Razan Moughrabi   Reinette L'Oranaise  Rola Saad  Rouwaida Attieh  Ruby  Sabah  Samira Said  Shadia  Shahd Barmada  Shatha Hassoun  Sherine  Suzanne Tamim  Thekra  Umm Kulthum  Waed  Warda Al-Jazairia  Yara  Youssra  Zeezee Adel

Male artists

Abdallah Al Rowaished  Abdel Halim Hafez  Ahmed Adaweyah  Alaa Zalzali  Aldo  Ali El Haggar  Amr Diab  Amr Mostafa  Ehab Tawfik  Elias Karam  Fadel Shaker  Fares Karam  Farid al-Atrash  Faudel  George Wassouf  Hakim  Hamada Helal  Hani Shaker  Cheb Hasni  Hisham Abbas  Hussam Al Rassam   Issam Rajji  Jad Shwery  Joseph Attieh  Kamal Hosni  Kathem Al Saher  Khaled  Majid Al Muhandis  Cheb Mami  Marwan Khoury  Melhem Barakat  Melhem Zein  Miami Band  Mohamed Fawzi  Mohamed Fouad  Mohamed Hamaki  Mohamed Mounir  Mohammed Abdel Wahab  Moustafa Amar  Nabil Ajram  Rachid Taha  Ragheb Alama  Ramy Ayach  Rashed Al-Majed  Rida Al Abdullah  Shaaban Abdel Rahim  Sabah Fakhri  Charbel Rouhana  Tamer Hosny  Wadih Safi  Wael Kfoury  Zakariyya Ahmad  Ziad Rahbani

Related articles

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Categories: Contraltos | Egyptian singers | Egyptian female singers | 1904 births | 1975 deaths | Egyptian musicians | Arabic-language singersHidden categories: Articles with hCards | Articles containing Arabic language text | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements from January 2009 | Articles with unsourced statements from June 2009

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