The Brothers Al-Kuwaity and the Iraqi Song 1930–1950

Abstract: The brothers Saleh al-Kuwaity صالح الكويتي (1908–1986) and Daud al-Kuwaity داود الكويتي (1910–1976) were active as performers, composers, teachers and music entrepreneurs in Baghdad between 1930 and 1950, and they continued to work after immigrating to Israel in 1951. This thesis explores the brothers’ work in Iraq, and how it was intertwined with processes of modernisation and westernisation, at a time when Iraq was forming itself as a nation-state. I examine the role of Jews in these processes, focussing on the role of Jewish composers, instrumentalists and vocalists in Iraqi music.At the heart of this study are the songs that Saleh al-Kuwaity composed while in Iraq. They are analysed here in terms of their novelty and their relationship with different genres. I discuss the social and political context in which these songs were created, performed and remembered. The song analyses rely on recordings from the 1930s and 1940s. Other than these recordings, there are hardly any contemporary documents. Due to this scarcity of primary sources this thesis relies on indirect evidence such as interviews I conducted with the brothers’ family and fellow musicians, as well as interviews (conducted by others) with the brothers Al-Kuwaity, made several decades after they had emigrated from Iraq.Most of Saleh al-Kuwaity’s songs are in the Muslim Baghdadi dialect. I describe them as urban popular songs, in terms of their lyrics, their rhythms, their forms, the melodic modes in which they are composed, and the ways in which they were disseminated. These songs were innovative on the one hand, but rooted in Iraqi tradition on the other. They appear as songs “from the Iraqi heritage” in books from the 1980s and in electronic media, and I discuss the circumstances in which they acquired this status.Finally, I offer some preliminary observations regarding the work of the brothers Al-Kuwaity’s work in Israel after 1951. Among other things, I examine the circumstances in which they lived and worked, as compared with those they had enjoyed in Iraq before their migration. This study concludes with a brief look at the brothers’ legacy, and at the revival seen nowadays of Saleh al-Kuwaity’s songs.