Muḥyiddīn Ba‘yūn

Biography

Composer, singer, buzuq and ‘ūd player Muḥyiddīn Ba‘yūn was born in Beirut in 1868, and studied music under qānūnist Aḥmad al-Badawī, becoming one of the great maqām and improvisation artists in the Levant.

Endowed with a strong voice and a variety of artistic talents, he sang qaṣīda and muwashshaḥ, in particular baladī Beiruti mawwāl that are “a series of stand-alone sentences in the form of mosaically structured ornamented munamnamāt”, while his taqsīm on the buzuq reflect his great musical imagination. Receiving warm welcome and applaud wherever he went, he travelled to Aleppo, Cairo, and Iraq. A source mentioned that he is the one who discovered Muḥammad ‘Abd al-Karīm and drove him to the peak of glory as a buzuq player. His rich history of recorded songs and melodies with Baidaphon includes: muwashshaḥ “Anā waḥdī”, “Lammā badā yatathanna”; qaṣīda “Amānā min lawāḥiẓik al-fawātir”, “Bih bimā shi’t bi-al-hawa”, “Na‘īsh bi-dhikrākom”; taqsīm on the buzuq; as well as numerous mawwāl some of which were arranged by Sheikh Aḥmad al-Ṭarābulsī. He suffered from illness and poverty towards the end of his life, and died in Beirut in 1934.

As printed on the labels Moheddine Eff. Bayounمحي الدين افندي بعيونمحى الدين بعيون