Remembering Beirut
mainBy its signature singer, Fairouz.
Give me the flute and sing because singing is the secret of life
and the murmur of the flute will outlast even the end of existence…
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From a John Eliot Gardiner interview re: his meeting with Bernstein :
“He was the most engaging, congenial company…. I mentioned that I had met the famous Lebanese singer Fairuz in Beirut during a gap year, and that I ended up playing my violinin the tiny band that accompanied her, cross-legged on a carpet on those evenings when she sang at the Casino. Lenny was one of the most wide-ranging eclectic musicians you could ever wish to meet, but it never occurred to me that he would also have known her iconic songs. Yet he did – and we sang all the ones we could recall at the tops of our voices in the back of the cab “
Sounds like John Eliot Gardner was trying to “one up” Lenny and instead took a pratfall.
What a terrible thing to happen in Beirut. It’s heartening to see that Israel has offered assistance and hopefully it will be taken up and the UN will act promptly with aid and field hospitals etc.
That certainly makes a change.
Israel has always been among the first to offer help after disasters and its northern hospitals saved many Syrians during the early phases of the current strife. What will make a real change is if Lebanon accepts the help.
A sad day for a beautiful, beleaguered city. Pray for its restoration.
Lovely music, beautifully performed.
FAIRUZ – yes the singer at the very heart of Lebanon
During the 1970s, when in charge of Arab music at EMI Greece, I met and dined with this wonderful singer and her husband (Rahbani) – and often with her record producer, Joseph Chahine.
Try Habbeytak bessayf – almost certainly her very biggest
hit”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_XlTGhF-6o
In the late 70s I produced a recording of this by the great French (acoustic) guitarist – Claude Ciari in the studios of EMI Greece –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ8coTTPlV8