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Lebanese Composer Mansour Rahbani Dies
Lebanese composer Mansour Rahbani, well-known in the Arab world along with his brother Assi for their role in musical and theatrical revival, died on Tuesday following a bout of pneumonia. He was 83.
“We have lost the last of the great ones,” Lebanese poet and playwright Paul Shawul told AFP.
“Mansour has joined his second half, Assi,” he added, referring to the death of his brother in 1986.
Assi Rahbani was married to legendary Lebanese singing diva Fairuz, for whom the two men composed many songs and plays — widely popular with Arab audiences.
Mansour usually wrote the lyrics to the songs and Assi composed the tunes.
Among the songs penned by Mansour for Fairuz that many Lebanese have grown up with are “Habaytak bil sayf” (I loved you in summer) and “Behibbak ya lubnan” (I love you oh Lebanon) as well as “Saalouni el nass” (People asked me).
Mansour and Assi, who became known as the Rahbani Brothers, also wrote several acclaimed musicals including “Season of Glory” (1960), “A Love Poem” (1973), “Petra” (1977) and “Biyaa el Khawatem” (The Ring Seller — 1964), which was adapted on screen by Egyptian film director Youssef Chahine.
“We just learned that (Mansour) had willed that he be buried in a wooden casket made from the stages used in his musical plays,” his younger brother Elias told AFP.
He added that Rahbani’s funeral is planned for Friday.
“You cannot disassociate Mansour from his brother Assi,” Shawul said. “You have what is known as the Rahbani Brothers who created a musical revolution that brought with it an innovative extension to the pioneers of Arabic music.”
Lebanon’s Culture Minister Tammam Slam also paid tribute to Rahbani’s legacy saying that he and his brother had become legends.
“(Mansour Rahbani) left behind a huge artistic and cultural legacy in addition to what he achieved with his older late brother Assi,” Slam told reporters. “Together they became legendary for their artistic, musical and theatrical innovation.”
Much of the Rahbani Brothers’ work focused on themes of village life, growing up, love and patriotism.
“Assi and Mansour made Arabic and Lebanese music belong to the modern world and they composed poetry that transcended the time period in which they were born,” Akl Aweet, poet and culture editor for the Lebanese daily An-Nahar, told AFP.
Renowned throughout the Arab world, the brothers were also known to a wider audience, including in the United States where they performed at a sell-out concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1971.
“The Rahbani Brothers along with Fairuz created a unique school which brought old songs back to life and introduced new ones,” said playwright Nidal al-Ashkar.
“They created musicals that portrayed Lebanese village life and weaved in famous Arab historical figures such as Zenobia (Queen of Palmyr),” she added.
The brothers had endured an impoverished childhood before shooting to fame. Their father played the traditional Arabic oud instrument at local coffee shops to make ends meet, according to a biography written about the Rahbani Brothers by Lebanese poet Henri Zoughaib.
“Assi and Mansour raised me after my father died,” Elias Rahbani said, struggling to fight back tears. “There is no way to describe what I have lost.”
Following Assi Rahbani’s death in 1986, Mansour composed several plays on his own including “Legacy”, “Kings of the Sects” and “Socrates.”
“Mansour was a a great man and was able to keep giving creatively to the end of his life,” Ashkar said.
His latest play “The Return of the Phoenix”, opened in the summer of 2008 and is still playing in Lebanon.
The play is about defying hardships and a nation rising from its own ashes.
AFP