Umm Kulthoum
Born
Um Kulthoum Ibrahim Elbeltagi
December 31, 1904
Tamay ez-Zahayra, Egypt
Died
February 3, 1975 (aged 70)
Cairo, Egypt
Cause of death Nephritis
Resting place Cairo,
Egypt
Nationality
Egyptian
Occupation
Singer, Actress
Religious beliefs
Islam
Spouse(s)
Hassen El Hefnaoui
Umm ulthoum (Arabic:
أم كلثوم, born
أم كلثوم إبراهيم البلتاجي
Um Kulthoum Ebrahim Elbeltagi; see Kunya;
Egyptian Arabic: Om Kalsoum). (May 4, 1904 –
February 3, 1975). Various spellings include Om
Kalthoum, Oum Kalsoum, and Umm Kolthoum. In
Turkish, she is named Ümmü Gülsüm. She was an
Egyptian singer, songwriter, and actress. Born
in El Senbellawein, she is known as "the Star of
the East" (kawkab el-sharq). More than three
decades after her death, she is still recognized
as the Arab world's most famous and
distinguished singer of the 20th century.[1]
Kulthum had a contralto singing range. [2]
Biography
Early life
Umm Kulthum was born in Tamay
ez-Zahayra village in El Senbellawein, Dakahlia
Governorate, Egypt. Her birth date is extremely
controversial, and even the Egyptian Ministry of
Information seems to have given either December
31, 1898 [1], or December 31, 1904 [2].
At a young age, she showed
exceptional singing talent. Her father, an Imam,
taught her to recite the Qur'an, and she is said
to have memorized the entire book. When she was
12 years old, her father disguised her as a
young boy and entered her in a small performing
troupe that he directed. At the age of 16 she
was noticed by Abol Ela Mohamed, a modestly
famous singer, and by the famous oudist
Zakariyya Ahmad, who invited her to Cairo. She
waited until 1923 before accepting the
invitation. She was invited on several occasions
to the house of Amin Beh Al Mahdy, who taught
her how to play the Oud". She developed a very
close relationship to Rawyeha Al Mahdi, daughter
of Amin, and became her closest friend. Kulthum
even attended Rawheya's daughter's wedding,
although she has always tried to avoid public
appearances.
Amin Al Mahdi introduced her to
the cultural circles in Cairo.
In Cairo, she carefully avoided
succumbing to the attractions of the bohemian
lifestyle, and indeed throughout her life
stressed her pride in her humble origins and
espousal of conservative values. She also
maintained a tightly managed public image, which
undoubtedly added to her allure.
At this point in her career, she
was introduced to the famous poet Ahmad Rami,
who wrote 137 songs for her. Rami also
introduced her to French literature, which he
greatly admired from his studies at the
Sorbonne, Paris, and eventually became her head
mentor in Arabic literature and literary
analysis. Furthermore, she was introduced to the
renowned lute virtuoso and composer Mohamed El
Qasabgi. El Qasabgi introduced Umm Kulthum to
the Arabic Theatre Palace, where she would
experience her first real public success. In
1932, her fame increased to the point where she
embarked upon a large tour of the Middle East,
touring such cities as Damascus, Baghdad,
Beirut, and Tripoli, Lebanon.
Fame
By 1948 her fame had come to the
attention of Gamal Abdel Nasser, who would later
become the president of Egypt. At one point the
Egyptian musicians guild of which she became a
member (and eventually president) rejected her
because she had sung for the then-deposed king,
Farouk of Egypt. Nasser did not hide his
admiration for her. When he discovered that she
was no longer allowed to sing, he reportedly
said something to the effect of "What are they?
Crazy? Do you want Egypt to turn against us?"[3]
It was his favor that made the musicians' guild
accept her back into the fold. In addition, Umm
Kulthum was a dedicated Egyptian patriot since
the time of King Farouk. Some claim that Umm
Kulthum's popularity helped Nasser’s political
agenda. For example, Nasser’s speeches and other
government messages were frequently broadcast
immediately after Umm Kulthum's monthly radio
concerts. Umm Kulthum was also known for her
continuous contributions to charity works for
the Egyptian military efforts. Umm Kulthum’s
monthly concerts took place on the first
Thursday of every month and were renowned for
their ability to clear the streets of some of
the world's most populous cities as people
rushed home to tune in.
Her songs deal mostly with the
universal themes of love, longing and loss. They
are nothing short of epic in scale, with
durations measured in hours rather than minutes.
A typical Umm Kulthum concert consisted of the
performance of two or three songs over a period
of three to six hours. In the late 1960s, due to
her age, she began to shorten her performances
to two songs over a period of two and a half to
three hours. These performances are in some ways
reminiscent of the structure of Western opera,
consisting of long vocal passages linked by
shorter orchestral interludes. However, Umm
Kulthum was not stylistically influenced by
opera.
The duration of Umm Kulthum's
songs in performance was not fixed, but varied
based on the level of emotive interaction
between the singer and her audience. A typical
improvisatory technique of hers was to repeat a
single phrase or sentence of a song's lyrics
over and over, subtly altering the emotive
emphasis and intensity each time to bring her
audiences into a euphoric and ecstatic state,
and was considered to "have never sang a line
the same way twice". Thus, while the official
recorded length of a song such as Enta Omri (You
Are My Life) is approximately 60 minutes, a live
performance could extend to many hours as the
singer and her audience fed off each other's
emotional energy. This intense, highly
personalized creative relationship was
undoubtedly one of the reasons for Umm Kulthum's
tremendous success as an artist.
Acting
In parallel to her singing
career, Umm Kulthum at one point pursued an
acting career starring in six films; however,
she quickly gave it up because of the lack of
personal and emotional contact with the
audience.
Personal life
Umm Kulthum was rumored to have
had a romantic affair with Sharif Sabri Pasha,
one of the uncles of King Farouk in the 1940s.
By the mid-1950s, public speculation regarding
Umm Kalthum's sexuality focused on her alleged
love affairs and courtship of other women. In
1955, in what was perceived as a possible
attempt to quash rumors surrounding her personal
life, she hastily married a dermatologist named
Hassen El Hafnaoui, taking care to include a
clause in the marriage contract that would allow
her to initiate a divorce if necessary. The
couple had no children.
Death
In 1967, Umm Kulthum was
diagnosed with a severe case of nephritis. She
gave her last concert at the Palace of the Nile
in 1973. Tests at that time indicated that her
illness was incurable. She moved to the United
States, where she benefited for some time from
the advanced medical technology, but in 1975,
upon re-entering her home country, she required
hospitalization due to declining health. Umm
Kulthum died in a Cairo hospital on February 3,
1975.
Her funeral was attended by over
4 million mourners – one of the largest
gatherings in history – and descended into
pandemonium when the crowd seized control of her
coffin and carried it to a mosque that they
considered her favorite, before later releasing
the coffin for burial.
Legacy
Umm Kulthum has been a
significant influence on a number of musicians,
both in the Arab World and beyond. Among others,
Jah Wobble has claimed her as a significant
influence on his work. Bob Dylan has been quoted
as saying "She's great. She really is. Really
great" [4][5], Maria Callas, Jean-Paul Sartre,
Marie Laforêt, Salvador Dalí, Nico, Bono and Led
Zeppelin are also known to be admirers of
Kulthum's music. One of her best known songs,
Enta Omri, has been the basis of many
reinterpretations, including one 2005
collaborative project involving Israeli and
Egyptian artists.
She had been referred to as "The
Lady" by Charles de Gaulle, and is regarded as
"The Incomparable Voice" by Maria Callas, Umm
Kulthum is remembered in Egypt and the Middle
East as one of the greatest singers and
musicians who have ever lived. It is hard to
accurately measure her vocal range at its peak,
since most of her songs are recorded live, and
she was careful not to strain her voice too much
due to the extended rendition of her songs. Even
today, she has retained a near mythical status
amongst young Egyptians. She is also notably
popular in Israel among Jews and Arabs alike,
and her records continue to sell around a
million copies a year. In 2001, the Egyptian
government opened the Kawkab al-Sharq (Planet of
the East) Museum in the singer's memory. Housed
in a pavilion on the grounds of Cairo's
Manesterly Palace, the collection includes a
range of Umm Kulthum's personal possessions,
including her trademark sunglasses and scarves,
along with photographs, recordings, and other
archival material.[6]
Her voice
It is known that she had the
ability to sing as low as the second octave, as
well as the ability to sing as high as between
the seventh and the eighth octave at her vocal
peak; yet she also could easily sing over a
range surpassing two octaves near the end of her
career. Her remarkable ability to produce
approximately 14,000 vibrations per second with
her vocal chords, her unparalleled vocal
strength (no commercial microphone utilized for
singing could withstand its strength, forcing
her to stand at a 1-3 meter radius away from
one), her ability and capability to sing every
single Arabic scale, and her voice’s unique and
breathtaking beauty that surpasses convention,
arguably makes her the most incomparable voice
of all time. In her final few years, recordings
show a slight coarsening of her voice, a loss of
the silken golden thread of coloratura which in
her earlier years, in songs such as Bairam
al-Tunsi's Beredaak, she displayed with an ease
and stupendous nonchalance. In a parallel to
Piaf's recording of le Droit d'Aimer, Umm
Kulthum's last recording, Hakam 'aleina il hawa,
does in fact show that her vocal powers had
deteriorated during her last illness, and it
makes sometimes painful listening.
Selected discography
•
Amal Hayati – Sono ("Hope of My Life")
•
Enta Omri – Sono ("You Are My Life")........
maqam kurd
•
Fat el Mead – ("It Is Too Late") Sono Cairo
•
Hagartek – ("I Abandoned You") EMI
•
Retrospective – Artists Arabes Associes
•
The Classics – CD, EMI Arabia, 2001
•
La Diva – CD, EMI Arabia, 1998
•
La Diva II – CD, EMI Arabia, 1998
•
La Diva III – CD, EMI Arabia, 1998
•
La Diva IV – CD, EMI Arabia, 1998
•
La Diva V – CD, EMI Arabia, 1998
•
Alif Leila wa Leila ("One Thousand and One
Nights")
•
Sirat el Houb ("Tale of Love")
•
Arouh li Meen ("Whom Should I Go
To").......maqam rast
•
Raq il Habeeb ("My Beloved Tendered Back")
•
Lessa Faker ("You Still Remember").......maqam
ajam
•
Hathehe Laylati ("This is My Night")......maqam
bayyati
•
Al Atlal ("The Ruins")......maqam huzam
•
Betfaker fi Meen ("Who Are You Thinking Of?")
•
Hayarti Qalbi Ma'ak ("You Confused My
Heart")......maqam nahwand
•
El Hobb Kolloh ("All The Love").......maqam rast
•
Ental Hobb ("You Are The Love").......maqam
nahwand
•
Leilet Hobb ("Night of Love")
•
Othkorene ("Remember Me")
•
Yali Kan Yashqiq Anini
•
Es'al Rouhak ("Ask yourself", or "Ask Your
Soul")
•
Enta Fein Well Hobbi Fein ("Where are You and
Where Is Love?")......maqam bayyati
•
Dhikrayatun (Qessat Hobbi)
•
Lel Sabr Hedod ("Patience Has
Limits")......maqam sikah
•
Baeed Anak ("Away From You").......maqam bayyati
•
Hadeeth el Rouh ("The Talk of The Soul")
•
Gharibun Ala Bab el Raga
•
Fakarouni ("They Reminded Me").......maqam rast
•
Zalamna El Hob ("We Have Sinned Against Love")
•
Ya Zalemny
•
We Maret El-Ayam ("And The Days Passed
By").......maqam nahwand
•
Hobb Eih ("Which Love").....maqam bayyati
•
Rubaiyat Al-Khayyam ("Quatrains of Omar
Khayyám").......maqam rast
•
Sirat Elhob
Citations
4. Danielson, Virginia. The Voice
of Egypt: Umm Kulthum, Arabic Song, and Egyptian
Society in the Twentieth Century. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1997.
1.
^ Umm Kulthoum - profile by the Egypt State
Information Service
2.
^ Funeral for a Nightingale
3.
^ Umm Kulthum: A Voice Like Egypt. Dir. Michal
Goldman. Narr. Omar Sharif. 1996. VHS. Arab Film
Distribution, 1996.
4.
^ Playboy Interview: Bob Dylan
5.
^ Bob Dylan's Unswerving Road Back to Newport
6.
^ Rakha, Youssef and El-Aref, Nevine, "Umm
Kulthoum, superstar", Al-Ahram Weekly, December
27, 2001 - January 2, 2002.