A new take on an epic love story

The Silk Road Ensemble retreats to develop a new chamber piece

The Ensemble in Villecroze © Isabelle Hunter 2007

Alim Qasimov—the leading Azerbaijani performer of mugham, a form of storytelling through poetry and song—brought the opera Leyli and Majnun by Uzeyir Hajibeyov to the Silk Road Project in 2006. First performed in 1908, the opera combines Western instrumentation with traditional Azerbaijani folk music to tell the tale of how ill-fated love turned the protagonist into Majnun—literarally “madman.”

Qasimov worked with fellow Silk Road Ensemble musician Jonathan Gandelsman to adapt the original three-hour score into a 35-minute chamber arrangement, which was made possible in part by generous support from the Académie Musicale de Villecroze. “Leyli and Majnun is such a magnificent work,” said Qasimov. “It’s very difficult to choose just a few scenes to tell the story. The audience must listen with an open heart.”

On August 20, the Villecroze community did just that when the Ensemble performed excerpts from “Layla and Majnun” in the village’s Romanesque 12th-century Chapelle Saint-Victor. The Silk Road Ensemble’s arrangement of “Layla and Majnun” premiered as a work in progress at Harvard University during a November 2007 residency.

Chapelle Saint-Victor © Isabelle Hunter 2007