About Sheikh Sabri Mudallal
Sabri Mudallal: The Modest Sufi Passes The Torch - by Sami Asmar for Turath.org
The Syrian region of Aleppo, which has traditionally produced numerous talented singers and musicians, lost one of its best on 20 August 2006 with the death of Sabri Mudallal (other forms: Moudallal or al-Mudallal) who, for a long time, was little known outside the city limits. Born in 1918, Mudallal was an accomplished singer with wonderful warmth in his voice and personality and was considered one of the few remaining old-school artists. His uniqueness, however, goes beyond the generational difference; he was one of the few singers to capably straddle two apparently-incompatible worlds: religious chanting and secular singing. This Shaykh of Tarab was indeed conflicted between these two worlds for a period of his career but, in typical Sufi manner, grew comfortable in harmoniously producing his fantastically beautiful style with a large following.
After a period of training, Mudallal was judged ready to face the public and his education transitioned from lessons to field work. He accompanied al-Batsh to public performances and opened for him with short songs, then longer songs, until he became the star of the shows as al-Batsh was happy to retire and manage the business. The city of Aleppo had a new star.
His success with this group is attributed to his religious training but he probably brought some techniques of tarab from secular singing into religious chanting. It is more common to go the other way where famous artists such as Sayyied Darwish started with religious training and moved to secular music with an advantage in both proper language as well as warmer musical skills. Even Umm Kulthum and Abd al-Wahhab prided themselves on their proper pronunciation due to religious training. Sabri Mudallal, however, may be the only high-caliber singer who traveled this road both ways.
Although he had received numerous honors including a house that was a gift from the president and a film about him by Muhammad Malas titled Aleppo, Maqamat of Joy, Mudallal felt that the recognitions came late due to his split career. Music historians were also split; some did not how to categorize him and two books sadly omitted him from their lists of Syrian singers. Other critics considered him the genius who formed the Aleppo-unique style of religious and secular music known as qudud halibiyya. The Aleppo populace would agree, however, that Sabri Mudallal remained to the end the archetypical Sufi who blended with ease ghazal and tawshih, the love of worldly beauty with the admiration of the splendor of the divine.
source: Turath.org