Music in Bahrain Traditional Music of the Arabian Gulf

"Although Bahraini music, the theme of this book, stretches back over many thousands of years, Music in Bahrain is - apart from those in Arabic - the first publication to deal with this very rich subject. Poul Rovsing Olsen, a Western ethnomusicologist and composer of international renown, first went to Bahrain to record its music in 1958, and he continued at intervals to do so during the following twenty years. He finished the manuscript shortly before his death in 1982, but it was not until recently that Moesgaard Museum discovered it and decided to publish it in cooperation with the Bahraini Ministry of Information. In 1958, oil had replaced pearls as the island's primary source of wealth, and traditional music had begun to decline. Rovsing Olsen searched out music wherever he could, at private village weddings and performances for dignitaries, in the houses of retired pearl divers and sessions at Radio Bahrain. A cross-section of these recordings are preserved on the three CDs that accompany this volume. Among other things, there are chapters devoted to religious singing, African influences, the music of pearl divers, women's songs and festive dances. It is the spirit of festive dance that seems, more than any other, to animate the many musical genres of Bahraini music, in which, as Rovsing Olsen once wrote, ""the feast was the real essence""."Olsen, Poul Rovsing is the author of 'Music in Bahrain Traditional Music of the Arabian Gulf' with ISBN 9788788415193 and ISBN 8788415198.