Islamabad, 3 May 2023 (GNP): The first frets of Mugham – one of the main genres of Azerbaijani folk music – sounded in ancient times. Its performance art goes back to the tradition of Koran recitation or even earlier – to Avesta hymns.
The meaning of the word “Mugham” is interpreted as “God sent music”. And for its numerous admirers – it is not only a beautiful lyrical melody but also a state of mind, a way to merge with the world, and a kind of cosmic philosophy.
Mugham is normally performed by three musicians – a tar player, a kamancha player, and a singer – khanande, who leads the main theme decorating it with improvisations and emotional shades.
For the Azerbaijani people, mugham is music, philosophy, and a kind of meditation, which helps to uncover spiritual bases in people, having a healing effect on the soul and mind and forming a cosmism of thinking and everything that laid the basis of multiculturalism – the modern progressive policy of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
In 2003, Azerbaijani Mugham was proclaimed as a masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. Azerbaijani Mugham was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008.