The Re-creation of Medieval Arabo-Andalusian Music in Modern Performance

Abstract

In recent decades more and more musical ensembles have begun performing “historicised” versions of medieval Arabo-Andalusian music. The impulse to produce such re-creations of medieval musical practices has come almost entirely from Western musicians and scholars influenced by the aesthetics of the European Early Music movement, rather than from Arab musicians. The historical resources available as the basis of such performances, however, are very different from those used in the...