Upon the initiative of His Majesty King Fouad I, the first and only international conference on Arabic music was held in 1932.
A royal decree was issued for the formation of an organizing committee consisting of nine members headed by the Minister of Education Mohamed Helmi and including Dr. Mahmoud El Hefni as General-Secretary, the Baron d’Erlanger and Mr. Cantoni (the General Manager of the Royal Opera House).
The main objective of this conference was to create a scientific basis for Arabic music, in order to develop it, as well as developing the methods of teaching it. Scientists from the East and West interested in the subject were invited, as well as several musical and singing groups from various Arab countries.
The conference formed seven other committees addressing the following subjects:-
1- General subjects
2- Musical modes (maqamat), rhythms and musical composition
3- The Arabic musical scale
4- The instruments
5- Recording of music from different countries
6- Musical education
7- Old manuscripts and the history of music.
There were also many other committees that included famous musicians and others who became famous later, including Safar Ali, Mohamed Abdel-Wahab, Kamel el-Kholaie, Ragheb Moftah, Dawood Hosny, Sami el-Shawa. There was also the legendary poet Ahmed Shawqi.
There were also about 30 participants from Western countries, such as Mr. Salazar from Spain; Dr. Heinz; Dr. Lachmann; Dr. Zachs from Germany; Mr. Bela Bartok from Hungary; Professor Henry Farmer from Great Britain; Professor Haba from Czechoslovakia; and Baron Carra de Vaux from France.
Orchestras came from Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia.
The conference was so well organized, with every committee having predetermined set of problems to address and certain questions to answer. For example, the committee for the maqamat, rhythms and composition had to address the following issues: regarding the maqamat, they had to prepare a list of the maqamat used in Egypt, classify the maqamat according to their tonic degree, decompose the maqamat into tetra chords and classify them accordingly, compare them with the maqamat used in other Arab countries and finally discuss the ability of the composer to maneuver within a certain maqam.
As for the rhythms, they were asked to identify the different rhythms used in Egypt and in other Arab countries and to analyze every rhythm and accompany it with an example of a piece of music to demonstrate how it is employed.
Finally, for the composition, they had to identify the types of songs used in Egypt (qasida, dor, etc.) and their features, as well as the types used in other countries. They also explored the possibility of finding other types of music and to survey types of musical pieces (not songs) used both in Egypt and in other countries.
That was just an example of the work of one of the seven committees. At the end of the conference, there was a wonderful publication of the proceedings in Arabic and French. We should also mention that a special building was constructed for the occasion which was known as the Oriental Music Institute. Nowadays, it’s the Abdel Wahab Museum.
