Country in Central Asia. The musics of Uzbekistan, an independent nation since 1991, draw on several ancient traditions within its own rich heritage. The Soviet republic of Uzbekistan, created in 1924 from the remains of Russian Turkestan, the Bukharan Emirate and the Khivan Khanate, bequeathed geo-political borders reflecting the political exigencies of the early Soviet era rather than deeply rooted ethnic or linguistic boundaries. Therefore, Uzbekistan's traditional musics are best understood in the context of broader regional patterns and affiliations, particularly those of the Tajiks (see Tajikistan, §II, Turkmenistan, §II, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan).
Prior to 19th-century Russian colonization, Uzbek traditions included court music played in cities by professional musicians, and the musics of nomadic steppe and rural peoples, performed by both professional and non-professional musicians. During the Soviet era (1924–91), European-style venues for traditional music, such as concerts, festivals, competitions, radio and television, became widespread and western European art music was developed. In addition, traditional musics were cultivated by Soviet cultural strategists as a means of reinforcing national identity and socialist political consciousness. During the 1950s, however, the classical music tradition, formerly associated with the patronage of the feudal nobility of Bukhara, Khiva and Kokand, was discouraged in favour of music glossed as ‘folk music’.
In both urban and rural areas of late 20th-century or post-Soviet Uzbekistan, the primary social occasion for traditional musical performance is the toy, a festive occasion marking life-cycle events such as marriage, circumcision or the first haircut of a male child, as well as special events such as the receipt of an award or prize or the return of a young man from the army. Other social occasions in which music is commonly performed include osh (literally ‘food’) – an early-morning quasi-religious male gathering held separately by the fathers of both bride and groom before every Uzbek marriage – and gap, ziyofat or gurung, intimate evening gatherings of friends for conversation, food and music respectively.
4. Soviet and post-Soviet popular music.
5. Opera, ballet, orchestral and chamber music.
THEODORE LEVIN (1–2, 4), RAZIA SULTANOVA (3), F.M. ASHRAFI/RAZIA SULTANOVA (5)
During the Soviet era, Uzbekistan's largest cities became multi-ethnic. In the capital, Tashkent, Russian-speaking Slavs and other peoples of European origin comprise about 40% of the population, and urban cultural life tends to divide along lines of language and ethnicity. The urban traditions described in this section are those that predominate among speakers of Uzbek, a Turkic language, and Tajik, an eastern dialect of Persian.
(vi) Other performance genres.
Uzbekistan, §I: Traditional musics
Within living cultural memory, the repertory of professional urban musicians has consisted largely of lyrical songs in which successive verse couplets or quatrains are set to a through-composed melody that follows a paradigmatic scheme of development. The initial melodic section, daromat, is sung softly, in a low range. This is followed by the section miyonparda (also called miyonkhono), set a 4th or 5th above the pitch level of daromat. After miyonparda comes dunasr, which initially replicates the pitch level of daromat at the octave. Dunasr may contain several sub-sections set at higher pitch levels, the highest of which is called awj or ‘culmination’, which is also the astronomical term for ‘zenith’. Following the awj, the melody descends quickly and concludes in the initial low range.
Lyrical songs are known by a variety of names in different regions of Uzbekistan – ashula (Ferghana-Tashkent), suwora (Khorezm) and sowt (Bukhara) – but all share similar principles of composition and performance: terraced melodic development as described above, a densely ornamented, nasalized but lyrical vocal style, domination of voice over instrumental accompaniment, and conformity to a small inventory of melodic types and metro-rhythmic patterns (usul). An usul may provide either a steady beat pattern comparable in length to a single measure that serves primarily as a time-keeping device, or a constant metrical shape for melodic form. Part of the skill of song composition and performance is the ability to match quantitative verse patterns (aruz) of poetic texts with an appropriate usul.
The tradition of lyrical song-writing has remained very much a living tradition in Uzbekistan. The Uzbek term bastakor designates composers in the oral tradition who create their own melodies and texts as well as set newly-composed melodies to the quantitative verse of classical Central Asian poets (e.g. Nawo'i, Mashrab, Fuzuli and Mukimi). The same poetic text may be sung to many different melodies, just as a single melody may be sung to different poetic texts. Performers tend to vary poetic texts as a function of the language (Turki or Farsi) and mood of their audience.
Uzbekistan, §I: Traditional musics
A quintessential characteristic of musical performance is the sequencing of individual songs and instrumental pieces to create cycles or suites. Suites may either be constructed spontaneously in the context of performance or formalized independently of performance, and may comprise a few or many items. Whatever their size, suites tend to reflect two basic structural principles: progression from slower to faster tempo, and juxtaposition of contrasting usul. For example, at the simplest, a lively dance-like ufar in 6/8 is often attached to the end of a more lyrical nasr in 2/4, or to a talqin' in the limping (Persian: lang) compound metre 3/8 + 3/4.
Suites that have assumed a canonical form and that carry the social prestige of a cultivated music performed by specialized performers are typically called makom. In these suites, the term makom may also refer, as it does in Ottoman and Arabic music, to a melodic mode or melody type (see Mode, §V, 2). Linked to the classical maqām of other Islamic lands by a common heritage of musical theory, these suites display features of melodic style and formal structure that set them apart from other present-day repertories that have evolved from this heritage. Each of the three most extensive makom repertories is associated with one of the feudal courts that existed during the 18th and 19th centuries in present-day Uzbekistan: shash makom (‘six maqām’) is linked with Bukhara, olti yarim makom (six and a half maqām) with Khorezm, chor makom (four maqām) with Kokand and, by extension, with the greater Ferghana-Tashkent region. In each case, the numerical modifier refers to the number of separate suites that comprise the canonical repertory. The Khorezm makom is said to contain six and a half suites because one suite, Pandjgokh (pandjgāh), includes instrumental pieces but no songs.
Scholars in Uzbekistan have taken the Bukharan and Khorezm makom to be older than the chor makom; however the provenance and terminus a quo of all three repertories remain unclear. The earliest evidence of suites resembling the forms of shash makom and olti yarim makom is in chrestomathies of poetic texts (bayaz) used by singers as an aide-mémoire to performance that date from the last quarter of the 18th century. With the exception of an experimental and little-used late-19th-century tablature notation for the tanbūr, the long-necked lute typically used to accompany vocalists, none of the makom repertories was notated until the 20th century.
The Russian musicologist V.A. Uspensky (1879–1949) completed a partial transcription of the shash makom that was published in Moscow in 1924 under the editorship of Abdurauf Fitrat, but without vocal texts. In the 1950s, a full transcription of the shash makom was undertaken by the Uzbek musician and self-styled musicologist Yunus Rajabi (1897–1976), whose redaction was a synthesis of different musicians' versions of the repertory. Rajabi's version entitled Bukhoro Makomlari (Bukharan makom) became known as the ‘Uzbek shash makom’ and featured poetic texts in Uzbek and Chagatay, the proto-Uzbek literary language. Essentially the same repertory, but with poetic texts in literary Persian, was published between 1950 and 1967 by Tajik musicologists. The cloning of the once unified repertory into two distinct ‘national’ versions, one Uzbek and one Tajik, was evidently an artefact of Soviet cultural politics. In post-Soviet Uzbekistan, the two versions have been officially reunited in what is called in Uzbekistan the ‘Uzbek-Tajik’ shash makom, and in Tajikistan, the ‘Tajik-Uzbek’ shash makom. The Khorezm olti yarim makom has also been published in several different versions. The first to appear, in 1939, was transcribed by the Russian musicologist E.E. Romanovskaya. Subsequent redactions by Uzbek musicologists were published in the 1950s and the 1980s. The Ferghana-Tashkent chor makom, which is considerably shorter and simpler than its two sister repertories – possibly because the Kokandian court was destroyed almost 80 years before the earliest transcriptions – was included as a series of appendices in a six-volume edition of Rajabi's Shash Makom edited by F.M. Karomatov and I. Rajabov and published in Tashkent from 1966. This published edition has assumed a canonical role in shash makom teaching and performance in Uzbekistan's state-run cultural institutions: the Tashkent State Conservatory, a network of specialized music secondary schools, and the makom ensemble of the Tashkent radio station.
The shash makom is the most complex of the three indigenous makom repertories. Each of its six makoms (in their conventional order, buzruk, rost, nawo, dugāh, segāh, iroq) is divided into an instrumental section (mushkilot) and a vocal section (nasr). A core sequence of metro-rhythmic genres is replicated in each of the six makom suites: tasnif, gardun, tarje, mukhammas, sakil in the instrumental section, and sarakhbor, talqin', nasr, ufar in the vocal section. An additional group of metro-rhythmic genres (sowt, mugulcha, talqinche, chapondoz, kashkarcha, soqinoma, ufar) is joined to the core sequence in all makom except iroq. These genres are melodically transformed in each suite to conform to the modal profile of that suite's constituent melodic types. Melodic transformations of the ritornello-type refrain (bazgui) in tasnif, the first item in the instrumental section, are illustrated in ex.1. In each case, the melody preserves the dominant rhythmic idiom and usul of tasnif shown in ex.2. The usul is notated in the drum mnemonics used by performers on the doira, the Central Asian frame drum. Bak represents a sharp rim stroke while bum represents a lower-pitched stroke to the centre of the drumhead.
Just as a single metro-rhythmic genre is melodically transformed to conform to the modal profile of different melodic types, so a single tune is metro-rhythmically transformed to conform to the dominant rhythmic idiom and usul of different genres. Ex.3 shows three metro-rhythmic transformations of a tune that reflects the modal profile of melodic type ushshoq, from the rost suite. Usul is indicated on the staff line beneath the melody.
In the shash makom, the two axes of metro-rhythmic genre and melodic type are woven together like warp and weft, making possible an infinite number of unique intersections, which are individual pieces. The process of weaving two musical qualities through one another, while itself mechanical, can yield diverse results, not only on the level of individual pieces, but in the aesthetic dimension of the suite taken as a holistic musical structure. For example, the shash makom suites are described by some performers as symbolizing the entire realm of humankind's inner life, from the sombre, prayer-like sarakhbor to the spirited dance rhythms of ufar.
During the Soviet era, the shash makom assumed the mantle of an official ‘national’ music in Uzbekistan, and performance style came to reflect the ideologically mandated adoption of European cultural models. Large ensembles and mixed choirs replaced the small groups of instrumentalists and male vocalists who had performed the shash makom in earlier times. This tendency continues in post-Soviet Uzbekistan.
Performers of the shash makom have traditionally included both Muslims and Bukharan Jews. The latter, members of an old community centred in Bukhara and Samarkand, were well represented among the professional musicians who performed for the later emirs of Bukhara. Since at least the mid-19th century, Jews and converted Jews, called chala, held a key position in the transmission of the Bukharan shash makom repertory.
In addition to the three makom repertories discussed above, several smaller and simpler suite forms consisting solely of instrumental melodies have achieved a canonical status in Uzbekistan and are designated as makom. These include the Khorezm dutār makomlari performed on the dutār, a two-string long-necked lute (see fig.1) and the surnāy makomlari, performed on the surnāy, a loud shawm which is similar to the North Indian śahnāī. The description of these suites as makom seems indicative of a desire to endow them with the sense of musical prestige and historical canonicity suggested by the term.
Uzbekistan, §I: Traditional musics
Katta ashula, literally ‘great song’, is an urban musical form identified with the Ferghana-Tashkent region. Katta ashula has several distinctive features. Firstly, it was sung traditionally a cappella by male singers (contemporary vocalists sometimes accompany their singing with a simple instrumental drone), either as a solo or as a duet or trio in which singers created a veiled competition, trading off verses and challenging one another to sing louder and higher. Secondly, in contrast to the lyrical songs of the makom, katta ashula begins in a high range and stays there, typically rising by only a 5th at the awj or culmination. Thirdly, katta ashula is unmetred and performed without the accompanying doira that is de rigueur in the makom. The origins of katta ashula are evidently in the Sufi ritual of zikr which, in the Ferghana-Tashkent region, included both instrumental and vocal music. Music for zikr was called zikr makom or katta makom (‘great makom’). During the Soviet era, the practice of zikr was prohibited and katta ashula was transformed into a secular genre among contemporary performers of traditional music. A form analogous to katta ashula is also performed by both Muslims and Jews in the region of Bukhara and Samarkand, where it is called Haqqoni (Jews chant Haqqoni not at zikr but typically as part of funerary rites).
Uzbekistan, §I: Traditional musics
Mavrigiy, a form of vocal suite associated with the city of Bukhara performed by a specialized male performer called mavrigikhon. Mavrigiy means literally ‘from Merv’, the oasis city (now called Mari) in contemporary Turkmenistan that was once a principle cultural centre of Khorasan. Merv was also one of Central Asia's principal slave markets. The typical mavrigikhon was a descendant of the Bukharan Irani or Farsi, who trace their ancestry to slaves captured in Iran by Turkmen tribesmen and taken via Merv to Bukhara. The Bukharan Irani have preserved their Shi‘a heritage and, relative to the city's Sunni majority, are a marginalized social group. As such, they have performed work traditionally considered unsuitable for Sunni Bukharans, including serving as entertainers.
Unlike the canonical makom suites, the sequence of the mavrigiy is by no means fixed. The first item in the cycle is always the unmetred shahd (Tajik: ‘honey’). Shahd is followed by metred genres which may include shahd-i gardon, sarkhon or chor zarb, the latter containing five or six parts. Later comes makayilik and finally gharaili. The typical performance venue for the mavrigiy is a bazm or feast organized for men during a toy (festive celebration), where the mavrigikhon not only sings but dances and provides humorous interludes. There are few mavrigikhon left in contemporary Bukhara, and the mavrigiy seems destined to be replaced by more contemporary forms of wedding entertainment.
Uzbekistan, §I: Traditional musics
Traditionally, the social life of women has been separate from that of men among settled populations in Uzbekistan. (Among herders, this separation tends to be less strict.) During a toy, men and women usually celebrate separately, with female entertainers serving the women. In Bukhara, such wedding entertainers are called sozanda. Just as the Bukharan mavrigikhon has typically been of Shi‘a Iranian descent, so the sozanda has typically been a Bukharan Jew. (As Bukharan Jews emigrated from Uzbekistan in large numbers, beginning in the late 1970s, the function of the sozanda has gradually been taken over by Uzbeks and Tajiks.) Sozanda perform at weddings in groups of three or four. Their performance consists of strophic songs, bukhorcha, sequenced together according to much the same principle as the makom: progression from serious to light and juxtaposition of contrasting usuls. A sozanda traditionally accompanies her singing with a doira (see Dāira) and kairak (stone clackers). The artistry of the performance is in linking pieces together in such a way that the progression of changing metres, rhythms and tempos keeps listeners constantly engaged, energized and, from time to time, surprised.
The khalfa is the Khorezmian analogue of the sozanda. The term khalfa derives from Arabic khalifa, rendered in English as ‘caliph’, and literally means ‘deputy’, ‘viceregent’ or ‘assistant’. In Khorezm, a khalfa is always a woman. Khalfa may be divided into two classes: one who has primarily a religious function, the other who has primarily a musical function. The religiously oriented khalfa fills the role of a mullah among women, while the musically oriented khalfa (khalfa sozi) provides music at the toy. The distinction between the two kinds of khalfa is not based on a distinction between sacred and secular functions. The same woman is often a musical khalfa in her younger years and gravitates towards reading or reciting religious texts as she grows older. This synthesis of entertainment and religion distinguishes the khalfa from the Bukharan sozanda, a wholly secular figure in Bukharan life. As with the Bukharan sozanda, the khalfa has often been drawn from the ranks of socially marginalized groups. In overwhelmingly mono-ethnic Khorezm, marginalization has not been based on religious or ‘national’ identity as in Bukhara, but on family background, lineage and physical appearance. Many khalfa are blind or crippled. Others come from poor families or an undistinguished lineage. The khalfa's performance programme, like that of the sozanda, is normally divided into blocks of songs (dawr) that gradually progress from slow to fast tempo through the course of a toy, although with less rhythmic intricacy than in the performance of the sozanda. The khalfa also sings lyrical songs from Khorezm epics (daston).
In towns and rural settlements of the Ferghana Valley, groups of women commonly perform strophic dance-songs known as yalla or lapar for their own entertainment, accompanying themselves on the doira. The lead singer-drummer, known as yallachi, might be considered a non-professional analogue of the Bukharan sozanda and the Khorezmian khalfa. Women in the Ferghana region also play a form of dutār that has a shorter neck and softer tone than that typically played by men.
Uzbekistan, §I: Traditional musics
Several types of urban male performers who were common in pre-Soviet Bukhara all but disappeared during the Soviet era. These included the qalandar, who performed didactic spiritual songs before street crowds for alms, the maddoh, who sang Sufi-inspired verse, recited moralistic stories and chanted hadith and extracts from the Qur'an, and the mekhtar, who played the surnāy or shawm at weddings and civic events. The term mekhtar also denoted the military orchestra consisting of a number of surnays, karnays and various sorts of drum played from a portico attached to the exterior wall of the emir's palace.
The interaction of city-dwellers and steppe-dwellers is an abiding and defining characteristic of cultures in Central Asia, yet distinct urban and rural traditions of music-making have largely been preserved. In the steppelands of Surkhandarya and Kashkadarya, in rural Khorezm, and in the sparsely inhabited ‘Autonomous Republic of Karakalpakstan within Uzbekistan’, as the region is officially known, the central entertainment at a toy is the performance of oral poetry. Various forms of solo instrumental music are also widely performed.
The pre-eminent form of oral poetry in Central Asia is the daston or epic tale. Shorter orally composed poems, often improvised in the course of performance, are known as terma. Both daston and terma are composed in the common genre of Turkic folk poetry known as barmok, which in its canonical form is organized into quatrains, the lines of which contain an identical number of syllables, most commonly 7, 11 or 15. Both daston and terma are performed by male bards called bakhshi or, among the Karakalpaks, zhirau. (Bards have also been known in various parts of contemporary Uzbekistan as akhun, sannochi, yuz bahshi and zhirau – the term now used by Karakalpaks.) The term bakhshi also refers to traditional healers who use music as an aid in contacting the spirit world. At some point in the past, the two activities seem to have been linked both socially and psychologically in the work of the same individual; the recitation of musically heightened poetry was understood to have a magical and potentially therapeutic effect on listeners.
The vocal styles of the Surkhandarya and Kashkadarya bakhshi, and the Karakalpak zhirau feature a guttural, raspy timbre which presents an immediate contrast to the normal speaking and singing voice, thus creating an artistic and magical distance between everyday experience and the heroic world in which the bakhshi stories take place. This special, laryngeally tensed voice is called ichki avoz or ‘inner voice’, in contrast to tashkari avoz, ‘outer voice’. The bakhshi of Surkhandarya and Kashkadarya accompanies himself by strumming on the fretless, two-string Dömbra. Among the Karakalpaks, the dömbra has largely replaced an older style of accompaniment performed on the kobuz, a two-string fiddle with horsehair strings that links the Karakalpaks to the old nomadic Turko-Mongol cultural realm. In Khorezm, musicians distinguish two styles of epic performance. In the Irani style, which shows many affinities to the Khurasani and Turkmen styles of daston performance, the bakhshi accompanies himself on a dutār in much the same way as the bakhshi of Kashkadarya and Surkhandarya accompanies himself on the dömbra. In the Shirvani style, the bakhshi plays the Tār and is accompanied by a violin and doira. The Shirvani instrumental trio is analogous to the classic mugam trio of Azerbaijan (which includes a kemancha instead of a violin and a daf instead of a doira) and exemplifies the consanguinity of the Khorezm bakhshi to the bards of the Western Oghuz Turks (Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Turkish), called ashuk or ashik. A number of heroes of the Khorezm daston are called ashik, which suggests that in earlier times this title was also used in Khorezm to designate the performer of daston. In the Shirvani style, the narrative alternates between sections of prose recitation in emotionally-heightened speech and melodies drawn from an inventory of 72 noma (‘melodic form’). The sung portion of the epic comprises a musical form in the pattern of a typical Khorezmian art song in which the tessitura of the melodic line ascends in successive strophes to the awj, then descends to a well-prepared cadence.
The same inclination towards narrativity that shapes the musical style of the Uzbek and Karakalpak bards is also present in instrumental music that has roots in the musical aesthetics and metaphysics of a larger Central and Inner Asian Turko-Mongol cultural realm. For example, dutār and dömbra players often use their instruments to narrate a story, the meaning of which listeners are assumed to understand. These pieces, generically known as kui (a term also used by Kazakhs), often involve virtuoso strumming and fingering techniques, shifting rhythmic patterns and the flexible use of two-part polyphony. Other instruments, such as the sybyzyk, a short single-reed pipe made from cane, and the chang kobuz, a metal jew's harp, are used to help the performer to ‘imagine’ an image or brief narrative programme. Such music is more personal and intimate than communicative, and individual styles linked to the idiosyncratic techniques of one or another performer exist alongside canonical repertories.
The earliest historical evidence of musical instruments in the area now known as Uzbekistan is found in sculptures and wall paintings. Excavations in the Khorezm area (north-west Uzbekistan) have uncovered representations of two forms of angular harp (similar to Middle Eastern models) from the 4th and 3rd centuries bce. In nearby sites, representations of spade-shaped long-necked lutes have been found from the period ce 1–200. In later periods, instruments have also featured in manuscripts and paintings. For instance, the spike fiddle ghidjak (see Ghichak) is mentioned in 10th-century manuscripts and depicted in 15th-century miniature paintings.
At the close of the 20th century, the most popular instruments in Uzbekistan were the long-necked plucked lutes Tanbūr and Dutār, the long-necked, three-string fiddle sato and short-necked, four-string fiddle ghidjak and the single-headed frame drum doira (see Dāira). The music they play draws upon the court traditions of urban life, the religious traditions of Sufism and the folk traditions of rural and nomadic peoples.
Until the second half of the 19th century, Hon (or Sarai) sozandalary (musicians patronized by urban ruling élites including the local emir or khan) performed predominantly makom at ceremonial and social events in the courts of Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva and Kokand. The main instruments played in this context were tanbūr and sato, the latter being sometimes replaced by a bowed tanbūr. A court musician, however, had also to be able to play other instruments, such as dutār, ghidjak, kanun (see Qānūn) and doira.
Ensemble sizes and instrumentaria varied. In 19th-century Khiva, court musical ensembles comprised seven or eight musicians. In Bukhara, each makom was performed by two tanbūrs, a sato or ghidjak, an Afghan five-string lute or rubāb, and three doiras. Makom suites might be performed as instrumental music or include vocal sections. The smallest ensemble consisted of a singer accompanied by a tanbūr and doira. Doira players also often sang. When the khan was present at the court of Khorezm, a special melody ‘Khan Chikar’ was played, imitating the rhythm of his horse. Poetry competitions in which poems were performed to the accompaniment of the doira were also common.
Instruments played outside, during official state ceremonies and military occasions, had to be capable of producing loud sounds and therefore included the karnay (long trumpet), sumay (shawm; see Surnāy), bulaman (cylindrical clarinet), naghora (kettle drum) and doira; those played inside the palaces for aesthetic enjoyment and entertainment were soft-sounding string or wind instruments, such as the ghidjak, harp (ancestor of the chang) and doira.
Instruments played at the urban toy, at which the repertory was predominantly professional art or classical music, vary traditionally and in contemporary Uzbekistan. In the Ferghana Valley, the karnay was used to signal the imminent event, while in Khorezm, Samarkand and Bukhara, surnay fulfilled the same function. In the Ferghana Valley, the ghidjak was sometimes replaced by the violin, played in traditional folk style. In the Khorezm area, the rubāb was replaced by the plucked lutes, Tār or Saz.
In his poem Husn va dil (‘The Beauty and the Soul’), the 18th-century Uzbek Sufi poet Muhammad Niaz Nishôti from Khorezm, gave the myths of origin and characteristics of the three main instruments of Sufi tradition: nay (see Ney), chang (box zither) and daf (doira). In the poem, each instrument introduced itself to the khan. The long, slim ney from Efrat used to be alive, free and proud. When the people cut it down, it was devastated by what it saw in the world of humans declaring: ‘Now just the touch of a finger makes me weep’. The chang came from China where it was a tree, but it was expelled, tied with straps and silken threads and taught to sing songs of alien places. The daf pretended to be mute so the khan ordered that it be beaten and heated over the fire. The daf then said: ‘I was swimming in the deep sea when I was caught, cut up and bound. A master polished me and fitted me with rings. I used to be like a moonfish but was turned into a sphere like the sun. I have always aspired to reach the deep water, but people put me over the fire!’ This alludes to the practice of heating the skin of the drum before beating it to improve its timbre.
In rural areas music is performed during everyday life and during the toy. In everyday life non-professional musicians play instruments that make delicate sounds, such as the nay (small reed flute) or chang kobus (metal jew’s harp). If the nay is played in the morning, however, it signals a death. In Surkhandarya and Kashkadarya, where there are strong nomadic influences, a toy may include hereditary bards, who perform epics (such as ‘Alpamysh’ and ‘Ker-Ogly’) and short improvised songs or terma. These may be simply vocal renditions. Alternatively, the male bakshi accompanies himself on the plucked lute dömbra, the female otin-oy on the doira. The bakshi ritually introduces the bride to the audience by lifting her white veil from the head or peg-box of the dömbra. The dömbra, a simple variant of the dutār, and the kiak, a simple variant of the ghidjak, reflect the nomadic aspect of Uzbek culture. During the main part of the toy, a small group of musicians play traditional folk music on the ghidjak, nay and doira. In the Khorezm area, the bakhshi perform the epic genre daston with an ensemble of dutār, bulaman, ghidjak and doira to accompany the introductory section ‘Nogma Bakhshi’. The doira was also sometimes used in shamanic healing rituals.
During the Soviet era, Uzbekistan's Ministry of Culture, like the ministries of other Soviet republics, organized professional music and dance ensembles of ‘national’ music. These ensembles toured widely within the former USSR as well as abroad, where they served the former Soviet Unions' initiative in cultural diplomacy. Such ensembles, motivated ‘from above’ by official cultural policy, contrast with musical groups motivated ‘from below’ by musicians themselves, presumably responding to the tastes of the cultural marketplace. Whatever their motivation, however, musicians who performed in public venues such as concert halls, restaurants or the auditorium of the House of Culture (a cultural centre administered by local and municipal governments, factories, labour unions and other organizations) were required to have an affiliation either with a house of culture or with the state-sponsored Philharmonia, which acted as manager, booking agent, patron and censor. Vocalists were typically required to submit song lyrics for approval before being performed, and Western-style contemporary pop music, officially vilified as the degenerate product of capitalist culture, was discouraged or prohibited in public venues. Nevertheless, electric guitars, synthesizers, drum sets and heavily amplified acoustic instruments, both indigenous and imported, became the norm of an entire popular music industry. This provided entertainment in cavernous state-run restaurants and banquet halls, and at the increasingly popular evening wedding feasts at which men and women celebrated together rather than, as was traditional, separately. Such ensembles, known as ‘vocal-instrumental ensembles’, performed a genre known as estrada (from French estrade: ‘platform’, ‘stage’) or ‘ethnographic vaudeville’ that persists in myriad ‘national’ varieties (for instance, Uzbek, Ukrainian, Yakut) all over the former Soviet Union. In estrada music, folksongs or popular songs are arranged in modernized performance versions that typically set modally inflected melodies within a square metrical template held by bass and drums.
Sine the 1970s Uzbek composers have paid more attention to the expression of their national identity. Instead of pro-Soviet music, works have been composed recalling national history, ancient epics and mythology (for example M. Tajiev’s Serdze drevnego Samarkanda (‘Heart of the Ancient Samarkand’) of 1973). Different music schools within Uzbek music have begun to be promoted, including Uighurs (Sh. Shahimardanova, Ab. Hashimov and Al. Hashimov), Tatars (Ya. Sherfeddinov), Karakalpaks (A. Halimov and N. Muhamedzinov) and Korean (V. Pak and Pak Endin). For the first time in Uzbek history, international festivals and symposiums have begun to be held within Uzbekistan (Samarkand 1978, 1983 and 1987), and these have provided a platform for many interesting musical innovations.
The independence of 1991 has had both positive and negative effects on Uzbekistan’s musical culture. Lack of money, a breakdown in connections between professional communities and the emigration of musicians are all results of the decay of Soviet culture. However, Uzbek musical culture has benefited from the more open contacts with other countries, and Uzbek music and song has entered the World music arena, with musicians such as turgen Alimatov (sato, tanbūr and dutār player) and singer Munadjat Yulchiyeva gaining prominence.
See also Abdurahim Hamidov, Abduhashim Ismailov, Shavkat Mirzayev, Sheraly Jurayev, Ulmas Rasulov, togtogul Satylganov and Ilyas Malayev.
From the time of the conquest of Central Asia and its union with Russia in 1868 Russian culture began to penetrate the area. In 1884 a musical society was formed in Tashkent, comprising a symphony orchestra, a choir, vocal soloists and instrumentalists. The study of the region's musical heritage began at the close of the 19th century, laying the foundations for Uzbek musical folklorism, and after the October Revolution ‘national’ culture was inaugurated by cultural strategists. From 1917 to 1932, the first music teaching institutes were opened and there was a broad development in recording and reworking of the Uzbek musical heritage. In June 1918, on the initiative of the musicians M. Mironov, V. Karelin and V. Uspensky, the Turkestani People's Conservatory was established in Tashkent, which from 1936 became the Tashkent State Conservatory. Similar conservatories were founded in Bukhara, Samarkand and Fergana.
An important role in the development of musical education in Uzbekistan was played by the Shazq Musiqa Maqtabi (‘School of Oriental Music’) in Bukhara. Leading singers, instrumentalists and experts on musical heritage, such as Ota Dzhalol Nasïrov, Domulla Khalim Ibadov and Ota Giyas Abdugani, acquired the skill of performing Shashmakom there. Also many future famous musicians of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan studied there, including Mukhtar Ashrafi, F. Shakhobov and Sh. Sakhibov.
A significant contribution to the development of Western art music in Uzbekistan was provided by Russian composers such as Uspensky, B. Nadezhdin, R. Glière, N. Roslavets, S. Vasilenko, A. Kozlovsky and G. Mushel'.
The foundation of the Composers' Union of Uzbekistan in 1938 was highly significant for the training of future specialists. Its members included professionals with long experience as composers or musicologists (Uspensky, Kozlovsky and Ye. Romanovskaya), musicians who were then young (I. Akbarov, M. Ashrafi and T. Sadïkov) and representatives of traditional folk music (T. Dzhalilov and Yu. Radzhabi) called Bastaqor.
The development of music drama in the republic in the 1930s led at the end of the decade to the writing of the first Uzbek operas. These were Buran (‘The Snowstorm’) by Ashrafi and Vasilenko (1938) and Leyli i Mejnun by Glière and Sadïkov (1940). In 1941, Ashrafi and Vasilenko wrote the opera Velikiy kanal (‘The Grand Canal’) on a contemporary theme: the building of the Ferghana Canal.
The most significant of the operas written in the republic during World War II are Ulugbek (1942) by Kozlovsky and Makhmud Tarabi (1944) by O. Chishko. The war years marked an enormous development in Uzbek musical life in the fields of musical education, performance and composition.
In 1943 and 1944 Mukhtar Ashrafi composed the first two symphonies written by an Uzbek composer: Geroicheskaya (‘Heroic’) and Slava pobedi-telyam (‘To the glory of winners’).
These first Uzbek symphonies were programmatic. In the postwar years symphonic music became one of the leading areas of composition. Along with symphonic suites there emerged poems, cantatas, symphonies, piano concertos and so forth. Brilliant young Uzbek composers of the 1960s and 70s included Khamrayev, Kurbanov, Jalil, Makhmudov, Tajiyev and Abdullayev. The most mature works are the symphonies of Tajiyev, Makhmudov and Abdullayev.
The establishment of the Uzbek symphonies began in the postwar period, particularly in the 1960s and 70s, when the national style was combined with ‘new traditions’ in all genres of Uzbek music. Given the need for adoption of polyphony by a previously monodic culture, the significance of symphonic music and the symphony orchestra acquired a symbolic status. It was deemed to be important that the ‘new traditions’ were born on the basis of the old, since this allowed continuity of the work itself and, to a great extent, the psychology of its acceptance. The most significant have been Symphonicheskye zasskasy (‘The symphonies stories’) by I. Akbarov (1972), and the third and fourth symphonies of Tajiev (1927, 1975).
Vocal symphonic music, oratorios and cantatas have undergone great development in Uzbekistan. The most significant have been Ashrafi's Pesn' o schast'ye (‘Song of Happiness’, 1951); R. Vil'danov's Voydite v mir (‘Enter the World’, 1961); S. Yudakov's Pamyati Lenina (‘In Memory of Lenin’, 1961); F. Yanov-Yanovsky's oratorio Golos (‘The Voice’); N. Zakirov's Oktyabr' (‘October’); and Chorus a cappella (1954) by M. Buzhanov.
Much vocal symphonic music was written in the following years by such composers as R. Vil'danov, A. Malakhov, Yanov-Yanovsky, Kh. Rakhimov, I. Khamrayev, F. Nazarov, Sh. Shaymardanov, M.M. Burkhanov, Akbarov and N. Zakirov. In 1974 M. Ashrafi's last piece was performed: an oratorio entitled Skazaniye o Rustame (‘The Lay of Rustam’), based on A. Firdousi's poem Shakh-namė.
In 1947 the Uzbek State Academic Grand Theatre of Opera and Ballet was based in Tashkent, giving a platform to many leading performers, including the singers M. Kari-Yakubov, K. Zakirov, Kh. Nasïrova, S. Yarashev, N. Khashimov and S. Kabulova; and the conductors Ashrafi, B. Inoyatov, A. Abdukayumov, F. Shamsutdinov, D. Abdurakhmanova.
Many operas and ballets by Uzbek composers have been performed in this theatre. The most famous are the operas Dilorom (1958) and Serdtse poėta (‘The Heart of the Poet’, 1962) by Ashrafi, Maisaraningishi (‘Maysara's Pranks’, 1959) by S. Yudakov, Kasïda ‘Alisheru Navoi’ by M. Burkhanov and Leopard iz Sogdianï (‘The Leopard from Sogdiana’, 1977) by Akbarov, and the ballets Amulet lyubvi (‘The Amulet of Love’, 1970), Lyubov' i mech (‘Love and the Sword’, 1974), V doline legend (‘In the Valley of Legends’, 1977) and Tomaris by U. Musayev.
The centre of the republic's concert-going life is the Uzbek State Philharmonia (1936) and Uzbek State Symphony Orchestra, developed under conductors such as P. Shpital'ny, Kozlovsky, Ashrafi, N. Alimov and K. Usmanov. Since the mid-1960s the orchestra has been headed by Z. Khaknazarov.
Uzbek composers have mastered all genres of modern music and since the 1970s a new generation of composers has begun to flower: N. Giyasov, R. Abdullayev, Kh. Rakhimov, A. Mansurov, A. Malakhov, R. Vil'danov and Yanov-Yanovsky, strengthening the music development by form and dramatic evolutions.
V. Uspensky: Shashmakom (Moscow, 1924)
B. Raxman-Ugli and M.I. Divan-Zade: Khorazm musiki tarikhchasi [An outline of the history of Khorezm's music] (Moscow, 1925)
A. Fitrat: Ozbek klassik musikasi vauning tarikhi [Uzbek classical music and its history] (Samarkand, 1927); repubd in Cyrillic script (Tashkent, 1993)
V.M. Belyayev: Muzïkal'nïye instrumentï uzbekistana (Moscow, 1933)
V.M. Belyayev, ed.: Shashmakom (Moscow, 1950–67)
I.A. Akbarov and others: Uzbek khalqmuzikasi/Uzbekskaya narodnaya muzïka (Tashkent, 1954–62)
E.E. Romanovskaya: Stat'i i dokladï: zapisi muzïkal'nogo fol'klora [Articles and lectures: notations of musical folklore] (Tashkent, 1957)
K. Olimbayeva and M. Akhmedov: Narodnïye muzïkantï uzbekistana [Folk musicians of Uzbekistan], i (Tashkent, 1959)
V. M. Belyayev: Ocherki po istorii muzïki narodov SSSR [Sketches of the music history of the peoples of the USSR], i (Moscow, 1962); Eng. trans. as Central Asian Music, ed. M. and G. Slobin (Middletown, CT, 1975)
Muzïkal'naya fol'kloristika v uzbekistane (pervïye zapisi): August Eykhgorn: muzïkal'no-ėtnograficheskiye materialï [Musical folkloristics in Uzbekistan (first notations): August Eichhorn: musical-ethnographic material] (Tashkent, 1963)
I. Rajabov: Makomlar masalasiga doir [Towards questions concerning the makom] (Tashkent, 1963)
F.M. Karomatov: O lokal'nïkh stilyakh uzbekskoy narodnoy muzïki [On the regional styles of Uzbek folk music] (Moscow, 1964); Eng. trans. in Asian Music, iv/1 (1972), 48–58 [Near East-Turkestan issue]
N.A. Avedova: Iskusstvo oformleniya uzbekskikh muzïkal'nïkh instrumentov [The art of decorating Uzbek musical instruments] (Tashkent, 1966)
F.M. Karomatov and I. Rajaboy eds.: Shash Makom (Tashkent, 1966–75); Eng. trans. of preface in Asian Music, xiii/1 (1982), 97–118
N.K. Chadwick and V. Zhirmunsky: Oral Epics of Central Asia (Cambridge, 1969)
F.M. Karomatov: Uzbekskaya instrumental'naya muzïka (Tashkent, 1972)
T. Vïzgo and others: Istoriya uzbekskoy sovetskoy muzïki (Tashkent, 1972)
K. Olimbayeva, and others: Özbekistān khalk sozandalari [Folk musicians of Uzbekistan], ii (Tashkent, 1974)
G.P. Snesarev and V.N. Vasilov, eds.: Domusul'manskiye verovaniya i obryadï v Sredney Azii [Pre-Islamic beliefs and rituals in Central Asia] (Moscow, 1975)
B.Kh. Karmïsheva: Ocherki ėtnicheskoy istorii yuzhnïkh rayonov Tadzhikistana i Uzbekistana [Sketches of the ethnic history of the south regions of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan] (Moscow, 1976)
Y. Rajabi: Muzika merosimizga bir nazar [A view of our musical heritage] (Tashkent, 1978)
I.A. Akbarov, ed.: Khorazm makomlari [coll. by M. Yusupov] (Tashkent, 1980–87)
T.E. Solomonova, ed.: Uzbek muzikasi tarikhi [Uzbek musical history] (Tashkent, 1981)
L. Rempel: Dalyokoye i blizkoye: stranitsï zhizni, bïta, stroitel'nogo dela, remesla i iskusstva Staroy Bukharï [Far and near: pages from the everyday life, architecture, handicraft, and art of old Bukhara] (Tashkent, 1982)
W. Feldman: ‘The Motif-Line in the Uzbek Oral Epic’, Ural-Altaische Jb, lv (1983), 1–15
F.M. Karomatov: ‘Uzbek Instrumental Music’ Asian Music, xv/1 (1983), 11–53
T. Levin: The Music and Tradition of the Bukharan Shashmakoām in Soviet Uzbekistan (diss., Princeton U., 1984)
A. Jung: Ouellen der traditionellen Kunstmusik der Usbeken und Tadshiken Mittelasiens (Hamburg, 1989)
A. Jung: ‘The Makoām Principle and the Cyclic Principle in the Uzbek-Tajik Shashmakom’, Makoām, Raga, Zeilenmelodik: Konzeptionen und Prinzipien der Musikproduktion, ed. J. Elsner (Berlin, 1989), 200–15
Z.M. Tadzhikova: ‘K voprosu o muzïkal'nïkh traditsiyakh bukharskikh mavrigikhanov’, Kniga Barbada: ėpokha i traditsii kul'turï (Dushanbe, 1989)
L.G. Koval: Intonirovaniye uzbekskoy traditsionnoy muzïki [The intonation of Uzbek traditional music] (Tashkent, 1990)
J. Elsner and G. Jähnichen, eds.: Regionale makoām-Traditionen in Geschichte und Gegenwart (Berlin, 1992)
K. Reichl: Turkic Oral Epic Poetry: Traditions, Forms, Poetic Structure (New York, 1992)
A. Djumaev: ‘Power Structures, Culture Policy, and Traditional Music in Soviet Central Asia’, Yearbook for Traditional Music, xxv (1993), 43–50
R. Abdullayev: Obryadovaya muzïka Tsentral'noy Azii [Ritual music of Central Asia] (Tashkent, 1994)
D. DeWeese: Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde: Baba Tükles and Conversion to Islam in Historical and Epic Tradition (University Park, PA, 1994)
R. Sultanova: Poyushcheye slovo uzbekskikh obryadov [The singing word of Uzbek rituals] (Tashkent, 1994)
R. Sultanova: ‘Rhythms of Central Asian Traditional Music through the Prism of Aruz Poetic Meters’, Bamberger Zentralasienstudien, ed. I. Baldauf, and M. Friederich (Berlin, 1994), 217–22
T.E. Solomonova, ed.: Istorii muzïki Sredney Azii i Kazakhstana: uchebnoye posobiye dlya konservatorii [A history of music of Central Asia and Kazakhstan: textbook for conservatories] (Moscow, 1995)
T. Levin: The Hundred Thousand Fools of God: Musical Travels in Central Asia (and Queens, New York) (Bloomington, IN, (1996) [incl. CD]
W. Feldman: ‘Two Performances of the Return of Alpamish: Current Performance-Practice in the Uzbek Oral Epic of the Sherabad School’, Oral Tradition, xi (1997)
R. Sultanova: Ritmika vokal'nykh chastei shashmakoma
Bukhara: Musical Crossroads of Asia, Folkways SF-40050 (1991)
Music of the Bukharan Jewish Ensemble Shashmaqām, Folkways SF-40054 (1991)
Central Asia: Asie Centrale the Masters of the Dotâr, CD735 VDE GALLO les maîtres du dotâr (1993)
Alma-alma, perf. Y. Usmanova, Blue Flame 398 40572 (1993)
Asie Centrale: traditions classiques, Ocora C 560035/36 (1993)
Ouzbekistan: Monat Yultchieva, Ocora C 560060 (1994)
Jannona, perf. Y. Usmanova, Blue Flame 398 40772 (1995)
Ouzbekistan: Turgun Alimatov, Ocora C 560086 (1995)
The Beard of the Camel, perf. Ensemble Yalla, Imagina 70950-11010-2-4 (1995)
Binfascha, perf. Y. Usmanova, Blue Flame 398 40852 (1996)
Uzbekistan: Music of Khorezm, Auvidis D 8269 (1996)
Matlubeh: the Turquoise of Samarkand, Long Distance 122039 WM332 (1996)
A Musical Journey through Uzbekistan: from Samarkand to Bukhara, Long Distance (1996)
At the Bazaar of Love: Timeless Central Asian Maqam Music, Ilyas Malayev Ensemble, Schanachie 64081 (1997)
Ouzbékistan/Uzbekistan: musique classique instrumentale/Instrumental art music, VDE SALLO CD-974 (1998)