PASSING ON THE BATON OF ART

The end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries provided us with many great names, founders of our national theatre and opera. Without doubt, the names of Sovkat Mammadova, the first opera singer; Uzeyir Hacibayov, the creator of the first operas; Hasanbay Zardabi, the founder of the first professional theatre, as well as many other luminaries of culture are well known to everyone and their achievements are indisputable. However, those who were able to pick up the baton and carry the torch of the arts for future generations are deserving of as much attention.

Along the musical line

Afrasiyab Badalbayli was fortunate in both his family and upbringing. His father was the celebrated teacher Badal bay Badalbayli, a Karabakh nobleman by birth who, nevertheless, devoted all his life to educating ordinary people who were denied the opportunity of studying. From early childhood Afrasiyab enjoyed the company of the most outstanding people of their time. One such was his first cousin once removed, Uzeyir Hacibayov. This determined Badalbayli's fate and made him a worthy successor to a musical tradition. 

Badalbayli began his great career in the arts in the 1920s by composing the musical accompaniment to such songs as "Sevil", "Siyavus", "Farhad and Sirin", "Haci Qara" and many others. These were followed by the operas "The Popular Rage", "Nizami", "Willows don't Weep" and a number of symphonic poems and ballets, the most important of which was the ballet "Maiden Tower". This was the first ballet in Azerbaijani history.

He was a great hit with audiences not only in Azerbaijan but all over the Soviet Union. The part of the beauty Gulyanag in the ballet was performed by Leyla Vakilova and, as she often used to say, this was her favourite part in the whole vast repertoire. She played this part with incredibly profound dramatic effect, showing a complete range of feelings, from love for Polad to the pain of separation. The climax of this dramatic ballet, of course, is the final brief, but emotionally charged scene on the Maiden Tower.

Badalbayli and Hacibayov

Badalbayli did not just have a sense of continuity: this would have been too presumptuous of him. It was more a question of responsibility. Hacibayov was always his main teacher and he devoted a great deal of time to the great master. And his responsibility as a successor shines through much of his work. For example, in 1965 Badalbayli wrote: "Like many of my peers, I was a contemporary of that classic of Azerbaijani music, Uzeyir Hacibayov and I spent time in his company. A strange feeling comes over me, because when one speaks about 'a classic of Azerbaijani music' one usually conjures up an image of movlana by Safiyyuddin Urmevi or Haci Abdulqadir Meragi, wearing long smocks with turbans on their heads. One associates them with the memorials to Nizami or Fizuli: they have a somewhat strange, inaccessible and majestic aspect…"

The composer regarded music in all its broad historical perspective. How could it be otherwise, when you are dealing with founding-fathers and your artistic toolbox is full of historical subjects.

The subject of the change of musical generations in the context of continuing musical-cultural development is often encountered in the composer's reminiscences. For example, in his autobiographical sketches he wrote that in the summer of 1925 he visited Uzeyir Hacibayov's country house in the Georgian resort of Tsemi, and after lunch all the members of the family sat down at the table to solve the latest tasks on harmony that Hacibeyov had set the previous day. Badalbeyli recalls that at the time Uzeyir was working hard compiling a text book on harmony. Near Hacibayov's house Muslim Magomayev was on holiday with his family. "Gathering every day under the shade of Uzeyir's favourite pine tree, his in-laws would hold a lively discussion about ways of developing Azerbaijani music and opera in general, as it were continuing in private the discussion of problems which had been held in music circles and in the Baku press," the composer recalls. 

The unification of musical terms

Afrasiyab Badalbayli graduated from the university's oriental faculty in  "linguistics"; he was not only a real expert in musical theory and history, but he also spoke Russian and oriental languages and was well versed in Russian and western literature. His knowledge as a linguist helped him play an active part in the adoption of the orthography of his native Azeri language by the reform committee of the Azerbaijani Academy of Sciences in 1952. In addition, the immense experience he had acquired as a composer, translator, critic and publicist helped him in his quest for terminology and achievements in this field.

Later he made a significant contribution to the academic establishment of Azerbaijani opera. Badalbayli not only wrote librettos but also published several books on music. His most important work was "Monographic Musical Dictionary" (1969). In it he unified musical terms for the Azeri language taking into account ethnic musical traditions. The composer himself explained the importance of his work as follows: "The shortage of literature in the Azeri language about the history and theory of music, the indiscriminate use of terminology in music textbooks and different interpretations of the same musical concepts in the printed media and radio programmes and formal translations encountered in the texts of printed music demand a unification of music terms and highlight this problem as an urgent task of our musical life and musical practice."

Today his work is fundamental in the further development of ethnic musical art. More than one generation of musicians, composers, conductors, those able to take up the baton are learning from his books.