Dwight F. Reynolds, The Musical Heritage of Al-Andalus, SOAS Studies in Music. Abingdon: Routledge, 2021. xiii + 260 pp. ISBN 978 0 367 24314 2 (hardback); 978 0 429 28165 5 (ebook).

Abstract

Al-Andalus, usually referred to as ‘Moorish Spain’ (or more precisely, Muslim-ruled Iberia), existed under different political configurations for more than 750 years, until 1492. It left its cultural mark worldwide from the eleventh century onwards and its musical heritage can still be recognised in present-day traditions, especially in north Africa. This book, despite its title, is not directly concerned with the musical heritage of Al-Andalus; it provides its necessary prologue, a history ofmusic in Al-Andalus and its cultural remains in Spain after the fall of the kingdom of Granada, up to 1614. In fact, since the publication in 1922 of a controversial book by Julián Ribera on the influence of Arabic music over the Cantigas de Santa Maria – a serious, substantial and epoch-making study, yet marred by scarcity of available documentation and inadequate historical methodology – this is the first full-length history of music in Al-Andalus, based on a plethora of source material diligently brought together and used with critical flair. The author has published extensively on the subject, but contrary to possible expectations, this goes much beyond a summary of Reynolds’s personal findings: it delivers a coherent yet diverse narrative over a demanding timeframe of 900 years, packed with suggestive overviews, arresting episodes and philological detail. Although I have been reading for a long time in the field of Al-Andalus and Arab music, I found myself repeatedly admiring the breath of the information summoned here and enjoying its novelty and significance. After a short introduction on music in the Iberia Peninsula to 711, including a few paragraphs about its Jewish communities, the reader is offered some fifteen pages on Arab music up to that point; although this precedes the chronological limits of Al-Andalus, it is muchwelcome, as it presents data seldom found elsewhere and traces a rich historical panorama of music, musicians and musical patronage providing the reader with a better understanding of the early Islamic traditions. The next three chapters concern Andalusi music from 711 to the fall of the Umayyad rule in 1031. The extant but little-known biographies of famous singers, trained in the East, provide an astonishing harvest of information on musical life in the Cordoban court, during both the Emirate and the Caliphate (from 929), illuminating the ways in which song, professionally performed, could build and destroy