best Arabic composers who succeeded in changing the modern
Arabic music and enriching it with the western scales, rhythms and
Farid was especially known to Arab musicians as the best Lute player of his time.
In fact, he was called The King of the Lute. The parts of music and the melodies
called "takaseem" in arabic are still very known due to their richness in harmony
and to the way in which Farid had played them on the Lute.
Farid adopted many western rhythms like the tango and the waltz in his
compositions. He had used the European style at the time like "Kurd maqam"
and mixed it with Arabic maqams like Bayat and Rast to make of the Arabic
music a wonderful and universal one.
He attempted what he called "operatic" works (Operettes in French) with
elegance and sophistication. We mention ArRabih, Bousat Irrih, Fares Il Ahlam,
Achark Wal Gharb, ...
("Nûgûm ellil", "Habib elomr", "Leila", "Zomorrada") have been recorded by Frank Pourcel and his orchestra; "Ya gamil
ya gamil" and "Ya zahratan" are still part of the repertoire of Russian orchestras.
Farid El Atrach had a sad and sentimental voice which was so unique to be clearly imitated. He had also a unique ability
to sing away from the beat, yet starting and ending a phrase on the beat with an incredible skill.
Farid's musical interest grew as he listened to his mother's singing and playing the Oud [lute] at home. In Egypt, he was
permitted to train with the school's Christian choir. The instructor, however, was not impressed with Farid's inability to
express feelings, despite his nice voice, and advised him to cry so that the listeners would feel the pain expressed in the
chants. As his fans know, this advice worked, and remained a theme that lasted through his career, and clearly earned him
the label of the "sad singer."
After that Farid was graduated from the school, he was admitted to a music conservatory, and from there he became an
apprentice of the renowned composer Riyad as-Sunbaty.
The hard-working young man was highly recommended by Sunbaty, and began working with two small orchestras
(Ibrahim Hammoudeh and Badiaa Masabini) and
then he was invited by the director of the Egyptian radio station (the well known composer Midhat Assem) in the 1930's
to play and sing on air.
His first composition was "Bahhibi min gheir Amal" and after that he sang a song of Yihya Illababidi called "Ya retni teyr"
and which is still very known.
The first music he composed for his sister the very well known Asmahanne was "Nawet Adari Alami" and then "Rigeati
lak ya habibi". The most famous composition that he has done for her was the waltz song "Layalil Unss fi Vienna" about
nightlife in Vienna from the film "Gharam Wantiqam" [Love and Revenge].
When the cinema became famous in Egypt and after several offers, Farid starred with his sister Asmahan in a successful
movie in 1941 which was called "Intisar Ichabab" produced by Aflam Annil.
An actor, a singer, a composer, Farid was also the lute virtuoso we have formerly said a few words about. He loved
playing the ûd and used to begin his public concerts with a lengthy improvisation displaying all the facets of his outstanding
virtuosity.
It was a ritual introduction which enhanced his audience's pleasure and his own but the cost of his health without
increasing his fame any further. Despite his becoming short-winded, he went on singing for audiences until two months
before he died.
At the zenith of his fame for more than fifty years, at home in any country of the Arab World, this great artist around
whom crowds gathered as they do nowadays around rock stars, whose concerts were always sold out, starred more than
thirty one films, composed more than three hundred songs and fifty instrumental works, has been admired and loved by all
people, generation after generation.
He died in Beirut on December 26, 1974. According to his will, and though he had spent his last years in Beirut, he was
buried in his elected country, Egypt.