Al-Shawān, ‘Azīz

(b Cairo, 6 May 1916; d Cairo, 14 May 1993). Egyptian composer. He was educated at a French school in Cairo, the Collège des Frères, obtaining a diploma in commercial studies. There he played clarinet and horn in the school band, and sang in the choir. He also received private violin lessons from the German Joseph Aubervon, but after nine years an accident obliged him to give up the instrument, and he turned to composition. He took lessons in theory and composition with Aubervon, Minato and other European teachers resident in Cairo, and with the Russian Orlovitsky. After leaving school he worked for the Philips recording company. This period (the late 1940s and early 1950s) saw him composing patriotic and love songs for famous singers such as Shādia and Ragā’ ‘Abdū. In 1952 he became director of the newly founded Soviet cultural centre in Cairo. In the late 1950s he made his first trip to the USSR, where he studied with Khachaturian at the Moscow Conservatory. During that trip he acquainted himself with the music of Soviet composers from the eastern republics and their solutions of the problems of creating their national musical styles. There the Melodiya recording company recorded some of his early works, including the symphonic poem based on the popular song ‘Atshān yā Sabāyā. After returning to Egypt, he received a grant from the Ministry of Culture, enabling him to compose his second opera Anās El-Wugūd (1960–65). In 1967 he went again to the USSR and studied composition for a year and a half with Khachaturian. On his return he taught composition at the Institute of Arab Music and the Academy of Arts (1970), and was appointed musical adviser to the Cairo SO (1973).

Al-Shawān’s style is characterized by broad, melismatic melodies with frequent touches of the higaz genre, using the augmented 2nd. Part of the appeal of his melodies derives from the quasi-improvisatory character of his cadences, reminiscent of the free mawwāl singing. His harmonic language is richly chromatic, showing the influence of Rachmaninoff or Khachaturian. He regarded Western music (in his own words) ‘not as an alien element, but rather as an international musical language’. Folk themes do not occupy a prominent place in his style but, when used, they are woven into a Western Romantic syntax. Al-Shawān’s output falls into three periods. In the first (c1945–55) he composed mainly chamber music and orchestral works, notably Abu Simbel, written for the transportation of a temple. The second period (1955–65) saw him writing larger works: the Piano Concerto (notable for its first-movement cadenza, imitating the zither-like qānūn), four cantatas on patriotic subjects, and symphonic works. In the third period (from 1966) he wrote his opera Anās El-Wugūd and the Oman Symphony. Anās El-Wugūd is perhaps his most important work, the first Egyptian opera with Arabic language and content to reach the stage. It was first heard in a concert version in 1994 and staged at the Cairo Opera House in 1996 and 1997. El-Shawān’s writings on music are gathered in Mausoo'ah moogazah li'l musiqa [A small encyclopedia of music] (Cairo,1992).

WORKS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

GroveO (W.Y. Elias)

S. El Kholy: Al-qawmiyya fī mūsīqā al-qarn al-‘ishrīn’ [Nationalism in 20th-century music] (Kuwait, 1992), 313–6

Z. Nassār: Al-mūsīqā al-Misriyya al-mutatawwira [Egyptian art music] (Cairo, 1990)

A.T. Zaki: Al-mu‘āsirun min ruwwād al-mūsīqā al ‘Arabiyya [Contemporary pioneers of Arab music] (Cairo, 1993)

SAMHA EL KHOLY