Images of Araby: Souk/Gottes ist der Orient

Images of Araby:
Souk/
Gottes ist der Orient
• Music performed and recorded by Izak R. Crafford on 23.07.2024
• Video recorded in the central business district of Dubai, Emirate of Dubai, by Riaan Crafford on 24.03.2024
Description
“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth…” [Exodus 20:4]. And yet this is the chief occupation of them that remember, for the act of remembrance constitutes the making of an image of what was, whereby what is remembered is chained, dimmed, falsified, and idolised. For, were it not chained, it could not be kept; were it not falsified by estrangement from its original context, whereby it must necessarily be dimmed, it could not be held captive, seemingly entire; were it not held captive, it could not be remembered; were it not remembered, it could not be idolised as the almost inalienable possession of whosoever remembers. And whosoever does not remember, lives in poverty, for what he remembers, shapes him.
Sprouting from the remembered scents and sounds of the old city of Dubai and the souks of the city and informed, but not restricted by my admittedly limited knowledge of traditional Emirati music and Eastern European Jewish Klezmer, which I often recalled while visiting said souks, the improvisation here presented, [electronically slightly manipulated to enhance its verisimilitude], draws upon stylistic elements of the Impressionist movement of late 19th and early 20th century Europe to create a sense of the experience of the scents and mood of these markets, both as I remember them and as they were recorded in two poems conceived and composed shortly after experiencing them, visually underscored by a video taken by my father.
It may be difficult for some to understand the significance of scents in my observation of places, as most people focus on the visual experience and perhaps, to some very slight extent, the auditory. Yet scents, if carefully observed and interpreted within the context of the auditory, may be one of the most effective keys by which a place and its character can be comprehended.
There may be those who perceive both the music and the poems foundational thereto as romanticising the Orient, yet they communicate as truthfully as I could manage my impressions. I realise, of course, that Arabia is not the paradise certain scents to be encountered there might suggest, and yet those scents are a part of it and cannot be denied their significance. The very act of gaining an impression, [that is: making an image], of something means that certain elements of that thing or place must be excluded or ignored, either deliberately or not, yet this exclusion does not render the contents of the impression false, though they are necessarily incomplete, containing at least a little truth. For no man can observe completely or know entirely.
Very little remains to be said, beyond presenting to you the poems at the core of my improvisation.
Souk
Izak R. Crafford
O would that all this Orient
I could but bind to fair bouquet,
and know that it would ne’er be spent
in occidental reason’s day,
that all my soul so sorely rent
into bright east might find its way
and seek again that Eden’s tent,
that in its souks and shadows lay;
that when the laden heart is bent,
and nearing knows its dying day,
it might fly forth in ancient scent,
in Oriental realms to stay.
Gottes ist der Orient
Izak R. Crafford
Dies ist ein Menschenland, darin man Gott soll dienen,
wo Neues reget sich in Ordnungen uralt
wo pocht die Stadt und trotzt und Wüstenstille hallt,
wo Gott regiert, erbaut, zerweht, schafft neu die Dünen.
In Städten, Wüsten gleich, da rufens Muezzinen,
und auf dem engen Markt, so auch wo Weite walt’,
wo flücht’ge Taube schluchzt, zu Gott, das Rufen schallt,
wo Altes blüht auf älteren Ruinen;
Wo Tabakrauch mit Weihrauchduft und Spezerein,
wie Tier mit Gottes Kind zum Mann vermischt muss sein,
und Menschenkind aus Staub zu Gott verklärt muss werden,
geheimnisvoll die Welt im klaren Licht und hell,
sie dränget sich empor, zu aller Wesen Quell’.
Hier dient ein jeder Gott - dies ist sein Reich auf Erden.
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#Piano #Improvisation #Impressionism #Souk #scent #Dubai #UAE