Al-Ḥāʾik’s Notebook, Part II

The manuscript anthologies associated with the Andalusian music tradition of Morocco offer extensive data that can shed light upon the history of the repertoire, and upon the tradition as a whole. Beginning with a fundamental distinction between the “Modern Repertoire” of songs performed today and the “Historical Repertoire” found only in manuscripts, the article develops a “medley” of insights derived from six analytical “themes”—modern vs. historical repertoire, the structure of the repertoire, content and variants within the manuscripts, outlier manuscripts, connections to the modern print anthologies, and the material characteristics of the manuscripts. Together these themes provide a schema that can be used to shed light upon the history of the tradition to be laid out in Part iii of this series.