Chapter 4: AH KALLELI

Ah Kalleli is an electroacoustic setting of an old Sufi song designed to highlight Maryem Tollar's haunting voice. The music of the original song was composed by Muhammad 'Uthman (Egypt 1855-1900), but the texts are considerably earlier; they were written by Sana' il-Mulk (Egypt 1155-1211). The text is a poetic adoration of clouds and goes as follows: "O clouds adorn the crowns of the hills with garlands/And make the bending stream a bracelet for them/O sky, in you and in the earth there are stars/Every time a star sets, many other stars rise". Partly due to the atmosphere created by the text and partly due to the Maryem's peculiar voice and my desire to bring to the fore certain aspects of that voice which normally lay hidden, the bulk of this movement consists of pre-taped segments of her voice processed by a number of DSP software and then sequenced on a Steinberg VST sequencer. The aural effect is that of vocal "clouds" into which Maryem's voice dissolves and then emerges again. This very ambient treatment is interrupted in the middle by an instrumental interlude for the piano trio in which the main theme of Ah Kalleli is treated in a manner reminiscent of "cocktail" jazz music. Maryem joins the trio briefly before joining the digital audio again for the closing segment of the work which includes an extended vocal cadenza. Ah Kalleli, was originally the end of the first part of Constantinople which for the most part introduces musical elements and genres but does not attempt to synthesize them, at least not to the degree that is evident in the remainder of the work.