Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyov (1885-1948)

[Christopher]

A huge amount of music by the Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyov is available here:

http://uzeyir.musigi-dunya.az/en/fonoteka.html

Am working through it, will alert if I find any gems!

His wikipedia entry is here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzeyir_Hajibeyov

His full name in Azeri is Uzeyir bey Abdul Huseyn oglu Hajibeyov (in Turkic script: Üzeyir bəy Əbdülhüseyn oğlu Hacıbəyov) . Sometimes it is rendered as Khadzhibekov, or variations thereof.

The piece for solo piano called Sensiz ("Without You"), offered up on his wikipedia page, is delightful!

from Wikipedia:

Uzeyir bey Abdul Huseyn oglu Hajibeyov (Azerbaijani: Üzeyir bəy Əbdülhüseyn oğlu Hacıbəyov / عزیر حاجی‌بیوو; Russian: Узеир Абдул-Гусейн оглы Гаджибеков; September 18, 1885, Agjabadi – November 23, 1948, Baku) was an Azerbaijani and Soviet composer, conductor, publicist, playwright, teacher, translator, and social figure from Azerbaijan. He is recognized as the father of Azerbaijani composed classical music and opera. Uzeyir Hajibeyov composed the music of the national anthem of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (which was re-adopted after Azerbaijan regained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991). He also composed the anthem used by Azerbaijan during the Soviet period. He was the first Muslim composer of an opera.

Uzeyir Hajibeyov was born in Agjabadi in the Elisabethpol Governorate of the Russian Empire, which is now part of Azerbaijan. His father, Abdul Huseyn Hajibeyov, was the secretary to Khurshidbanu Natavan for many years, and his mother, Shirin, grew up in the Natavan household. Growing up, Hajibeyov was strongly influenced by Natavan's work.
Shusha, often dubbed as the cradle of Azerbaijani music and culture, had a reputation for its musical heritage. The town was also referred to as "the Music Conservatory of the Caucasus" because of its many talented musicians and singers. And the fact that Hajibeyov grew up in Shusha explains how at 22, in 1908, with very little formal musical education, he was capable of writing a full-length opera.

Hajibeyov received his early education in a religious school (madrasah), where he perfected his Arabic and Persian. Later he studied at a two-year Russian-Azerbaijani school. Here, with the help of his favourite teacher Mirza Mehdi Hasanzadeh, he familiarized himself with the heritage of the famous classic writers of the East and the West. The richness of the musical performance tradition of Shusha greatly influenced the musical education of Uzeyir Hajibeyov. He would later reflect on his experiences: "The first musical education I got as a child in Shusha came from best singers and saz-players. At that time I sang mughams and tasnifs. The singers liked my voice. They would make me sing and taught me at the same time." Uzeyir Hajibeyov's first teacher was his uncle Agalar Aliverdibeyov, an excellent connoisseur of Azeri folk music. In 1897–1898, when Azerbaijani playwright Abdurrahim Hagverdiyev and singer Jabbar Garyagdyoglu staged the episode Majnun on Leyli's grave from Leyli and Majnun, 13-year old Uzeyir sang in the choir. From 1899 to 1904 Uzeyir Hajibeyov studied at the Gori Pedagogical Seminary. There, along with general education, he also acquired music. In this school Hajibeyov learned to play the violin, the violoncello and the brass instrument. After his graduation from the Pedagogical Seminary, Uzeyir Hajibeyov was appointed a teacher to the village of Hadrut in Upper Karabakh. Having worked there for a year, Hajibeyov permanently settled in Baku, where he carried on his career in teaching mathematics, geography, history, Azeri and Russian languages, and music. He wrote the Turkic-Russian and Russian-Turkic Dictionary of Political, Legal, Economic and Military Terms, Used in Press in 1907 and the textbook Arithmetic Problems in 1908, and had them published by the Orujov Brothers Publishing House in Baku.

Hajibeyov was no stranger to the tragic chaos of war; he lived through the Revolutions of 1905 and 1917, the fall of the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan in 1920, and both World Wars. The political repercussions of these military conquests often manifested in other forms of chaos. For example between 1920 and 1940, the alphabet systems for writing Azeri were changed three times — from Arabic to Latin, and from Latin to Cyrillic — a process which greatly hindered and interrupted the educational and cultural process and may well have been one of the factors influencing Uzeyir Hajibeyov to present his ideas verbally on the musical stage.

Merging traditional and Western styles

Throughout all the tumultuous change in Azerbaijan that took place between 1900 and 1940, one characteristic consistently reflects the character of Uzeyir Hajibeyov. He always searched for ways to merge and integrate the past with the present rather than to discard either form. Rather curiously, even files at the Gori Pedagogical Seminary have shown his persistence in holding on to his own roots even under pressure. On December 3, 1900, when he was 15, it is noted that "the student, Uzeyir Hajibeyov, was rebuked because he was talking in his native language." Conversely, when Russian-influenced musicians tried to ban traditional Azerbaijani instruments like the tar, zurna and kamancha, Hajibeyov and his colleagues pushed to incorporate them into the Western orchestra, thereby, giving them an even higher status and ultimately a chance to survive.

Musical contributions

In 1908, Hajibeyov wrote his first opera, Leyli and Majnun, based on the tragic love story by the 15th century poet Fuzûlî. This would be the first of 7 operas and 3 musical comedies that Hajibeyov would compose throughout his life. In Leyli and Majnun, the uniqueness of the traditional modal music of mugham was incorporated into a Western genre with the use of instruments indigenous to both traditions.

Hajibeyov's second opera Sheikh Sanan was written in 1909 in a form that was entirely opposite to the first. This time Hajibeyov employed a purely European style. Sheikh Sanan received raves as a musical composition, but the content was too progressive for the period. In this opera, Hajibeyov advocated that marriage should not be bound by nationality or religion - in essence, it was another form of integration. But this time, it backfired. The story line follows a religious sheikh on his way to Mecca who meets a very beautiful Georgian lady. To his horror, the lovely creature's father turns out to be a swineherd, caring for what, to him, was a forbidden animal. In the end, the sheikh denounces his religion to win the woman. It is said that when the opera was performed, many people were offended and walked out, leaving Hajibeyov with the realization that he had outpaced his generation too much this time. As a result, he made a drastic decision and burned the score. When asked by Ramazan Khalilov, his assistant, how he could do that, Hajibeyov replied: "I didn't destroy my opera. It's my own creation so it's always in my head." Khalilov said that Hajibeyov went on to use this same magnificent music 27 years later to create Koroghlu, an opera that many acclaim to be his finest.

In contrast to Sheikh Sanan, Hajibeyov's operas Rustam and Sohrab (1910), Asli and Karam (1912), Shah Abbas and Khurshudbanu (1912), and Harun and Leyli (1915) were entirely based on Azeri folk music elements, primarily mugham.
In October 2006, the musical comedy Arshin Mal Alan ("The Cloth Peddler") by Uzeyir Hajibeyov, written in 1913, was announced to be performed on western stages for the first time.

One of Hajibeyov's greatest legacies was bringing forward the idea of establishing a professional music school. Hence the Baku Academy of Music (known then as the Azerbaijan State Conservatoire), was founded in 1920 and named after Hajibeyov after his death. The school has trained Azerbaijan's finest composers such as Gara Garayev, Fikrat Amirov, Jovdat Hajiyev, Soltan Hajibeyov, Tofig Guliyev, and Vagif Mustafazade. His statue "sits" in front of this grand building that is still devoted to the synthesizing Eastern and Western musical traditions.

In 1931, Hajibeyov helped in establishing the Azeri Folk Instruments Orchestra affiliated with the Radio Committee. This orchestra performed European classical pieces, such as those by Mikhail Glinka, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Schubert, Georges Bizet and others. Hajibeyov thus was the first musician to adapt the note system to traditional Azeri musical instruments.

In 1936, Hajibeyov assisted in founding of the Azerbaijani State Choir within the Azerbaijan Philharmonic Society. One of the most serious problems he faced was the mono-voiced repertoire of Azeri folk songs, which allowed harmonization distort style of the song and, on occasion, even alter the melody line when it changed modes. Hajibeyov resolved this problem by using contrapuntal polyphony and unison-doubling rather than four-part singing in the problematic sections.
Hajibeyov devoted much energy to the idea of integrating woman's role and status into the male-dominated world. The concept of women's emancipation runs through many of his works often in the form of comedy or satirization as in the case when he makes fun of the process of selecting marriage partners, a process hindered by the fact that women were still wearing veils until the 1920s when the Soviet regime prohibited them.

[Latvian]

Christopher,

Thank you for this link! I look forward to listening to this music.

[Christopher]

I hope you enjoy.  This composer is new to me too!  If you find something that you think people might especially like, I hope you will alert us here!

[eschiss1]

A father or uncle or somesuch to Soltan Hacıbəyov/Hajibeyov (1919-74) whose 2nd symphony I have heard, perhaps... ? (Ah, Wikipedia says they were cousins. Hrm. 20 year difference, there, I would have thought different.)

[Christopher]

With regards to the above-mentioned website (http://uzeyir.musigi-dunya.az/en/fonoteka.html) - most of the uploads are in some weird format (".ogg") which I had never heard of.  I've converted them all to mp3 which you can see here - https://www.mediafire.com/folder/rlo2ybelx06rc/Hacibeyov%20Uyezir.

A curious mixture - complete operas, full orchestral pieces (symphonic, concertante), chamber, solo piano, folk pieces, romances, oriental pieces, Soviet propaganda works, variety show pieces... .

I haven't listened to them all yet but so far I like the various pieces called "Sensiz" (which means "Without You") - it exists in various forms, including solo piano, song with orchestra, etc. Also I like the fantasies, Jangi Rhapsody, overtures, Firuza's aria, Sweetheart.....

(Should I also put this link in the Downloads section?)

[Christopher]

Uzeyir's elder brother Zülfüqar Hajibeyov (1884-1950) was also a composer. He was the father of popular Soviet-era composer Niyazi.

He wrote the opera Ashiq Qarib ("The Wandering Ashiq"), of which there are several recordings on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtbjYsO3FiA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DZLaUpEoFA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev021_KTIX8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaRv6RW_4Y4

I admit I haven't listened all the way through it - from what I have heard it's a mixture of European late-romantic style (such as the overture) with local Azerbaijani "mugham" style.

His English-language Wikipedia reads as follows:

Zulfugar Hajibeyov (Azerbaijani: Zülfüqar Hacıbəyov, 17 April 1884 – 30 September 1950) was an Azerbaijani composer and a member of a family noted for its musical talents. He was one of the founders of the Azerbaijan Music Comedy Theater.

Hajibeyov was born in Shusha on 17 April 1884.

Hajibeyov's brother Uzeyir Hajibeyov is considered the "Father of Classical Music" in Azerbaijan.[1] Their brother Jeyhun was a publicist, journalist, and ethnographer, and helped Uzeyir compose the opera Layla and Majnun.

His son, Niyazi Hajibeyov, was also a composer, and directed the Azerbaijan State Symphony Orchestra for 40 years.[1]

Hajibeyov died on 30 September 1950. He is buried in the Alley of Honor in Baku, Azerbaijan.[2] Hajibeyov's house in Shusha is classified as a historical monument "bearing state importance" by Azerbaijan.

Works

Musical comedies:
Əlli yaşında cavan (Young at Fifty Years Old) - 1909
On bir yaşlı arvad (Eleven-Year-Old Woman) - 1911
Evli ikən subay (Single while Married) - 1911

Opera:
Ashiq Qarib ("The Wandering Ashiq"), after the anonymous Azerbaijani romantic dastan of the same name, 1915

Film
With his son Niyazi, Hajibeyov wrote the music for one of the first films of Azerbaijan, Almaz, released in 1936 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJBJxbRDB7s



Hajibeyov can be spelt Hacıbəyov, Hajibəyov, Khajibekov, Khadzhibekov, Gadzhibekov, etc etc.

[Christopher]

A 6-CD boxset of music by Azerbaijani composers was released in Azerbaijan many years ago called "THE CLASSICAL MUSIC OF AZERBAIJAN: Symphonic; Ballet; Concerto; Piano; Opera; Chamber", but it is now "out of print" and unavailable. 

There is a small amount of Uzeyir Hajibeyov's music on it, as well as that of another composer who falls into our date range - Muslim Magomayev (also spelt Maqomayev, 1885-1937).  The majority of the set, however, contains music by more modern composers, hence I have not put this into the Downloads section.

The pieces are:

Uzeyir HAJIBEYOV (1885-1948):
opera - Koroglu (The Blind Man's Son) (1913): Koroglu Overture; Nigar's Aria, First Act-Garina Karimova; Nigar's Aria, Second Act-Garina Karimova; Song of the Khananda (Singer)-Safura Azimi; Dance from the Third Act, Jangi (Warrior);  Arshin Mal Alan (The Cloth Peddler) (1913): Askar's Aria - Ulgar Muradov

solo piano - Sansiz (1941) (Tamilla Guliyeva, piano)
chamber - Arazbari (1928); Ashugsayaghi (1931)

Muslim MAGOMAYEV (1885-1937):
opera - Shah Ismayil (1916): Overture; Aslan Shah's Aria - Mukhtar Malikov
opera - Nargiz (1935): Nargiz's Aria - Garina Karimova

It is available for download in FLAC format here:
https://cloud.mail.ru/public/2MTX/5ytFJP2b6  (click on the blue button to the left of the screen which says "скачать" (which means download) - this will give you a ZIP file, the FLACs are in there.

A review of the whole set, and a list of its contents, can be found here - http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2003/Apr03/Azerbaijaniset.htm

[eschiss1]

Ogg is short for Ogg Vorbis. Not an acronym but a tip of the hat to Terry Pratchett. (Nanny Ogg + the antagonist of Small Gods.)

[dhibbard]

A 6-CD boxset of music by Azerbaijani composers was released in Azerbaijan many years ago called "THE CLASSICAL MUSIC OF AZERBAIJAN: Symphonic; Ballet; Concerto; Piano; Opera; Chamber", but it is now "out of print" and unavailable.

That CD set was or is available at RecordsInternational.com    It was a special release run financed by Amoco Oil and the Azer govt.

[Christopher]

A 6-CD boxset of music by Azerbaijani composers was released in Azerbaijan many years ago called "THE CLASSICAL MUSIC OF AZERBAIJAN: Symphonic; Ballet; Concerto; Piano; Opera; Chamber", but it is now "out of print" and unavailable.

That CD set was or is available at RecordsInternational.com    It was a special release run financed by Amoco Oil and the Azer govt.

Link?

[Gareth Vaughan]

I just did a search on Records International and I don't think it's available anymore. However, you could always message Jeff Joneikis at Records International and enquire. He is usually very helpful.

[dhibbard]

I looked at the azer.com website and looks like they are gone.   I got my set in 1997 or there abouts from Recordsinternational.com   I did not get the opera one as they were out of stock.

Another one is the Farhad Badalbeyli 2 CD set of piano works and includes a fresh performance of Hasanov (Gasanov) Piano Concerto  that was funded by AZ Euro Telecommunications.

[Christopher]

Shusha, often dubbed as the cradle of Azerbaijani music and culture, had a reputation for its musical heritage. The town was also referred to as "the Music Conservatory of the Caucasus" because of its many talented musicians and singers. And the fact that Hajibeyov grew up in Shusha explains how at 22, in 1908, with very little formal musical education, he was capable of writing a full-length opera. Hajibeyov received his early education in a religious school (madrasah), where he perfected his Arabic and Persian. Later he studied at a two-year Russian-Azerbaijani school. Here, with the help of his favourite teacher Mirza Mehdi Hasanzadeh, he familiarized himself with the heritage of the famous classic writers of the East and the West. The richness of the musical performance tradition of Shusha greatly influenced the musical education of Uzeyir Hajibeyov. He would later reflect on his experiences: "The first musical education I got as a child in Shusha came from best singers and saz-players. At that time I sang mughams and tasnifs. The singers liked my voice. They would make me sing and taught me at the same time."

Not a piece by Hajibeyov, but a piece about his home town Shusha.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSk3T4rOQZg  "Shusha" by Farhad Badalbeyli, b.1947 - born outside our era but written very much in "our" style.  I have been enjoying it on this cold grey Friday afternoon and so thought I would share. For soprano and orchestra, somewhat in the style of Gliere's concerto for voice and orchestra. 4 minutes long.

[Alan Howe]

Very pretty indeed - and quite well sung by Joan Rogers, although she's rather past her best here, I fear. This is the CD concerned: https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8002235--azerbaijani-piano-concertos

I have to say that I don't find this sort of cod-orientalism very interesting. However, each to his/her own...

[semloh]

Alan, you said I don't find this sort of cod-orientalism very interesting. However, each to his/her own...
Were you referring to the music on the Naxos CD you linked in, or to Hijbeyov's music, or both?

With respect, I'm not sure it's really accurate to call it "cod-orientalism". After all, the composers are Azerbaijani, and the 'oriental' effects are consistent with that cultural context. I think of Hajibeyov's music as an attempt to reconcile his preference for Azerbaijani elements with the demands of the Soviet cultural regime. It was not always a successful enterprise, of course! His nonetheless rather attractive symphonic sketch Caravan is a good example. UC members will know whether that's a fair understanding, and will - I trust - correct me if I'm wrong.