ABSTRACT
Clearly, musicians from Beirut's war generation follow a variety of trends set in Beirut, Lebanon, and the Arab world in the past. Lebanese elites and intellectuals helped create Beirut as a city with major “institutional hubs,” such as academic institutions, publishers, a rather liberal printing press, and a lively cultural scene. At the same time, these Lebanese “modernists”— along with like-minded contemporaries in the Arab world—are jointly responsible for steering away from Arabic music, for example, from maqam-based music (MBM). Part III shows that they have kept criticizing main cultural forms of the Arab world for many years now. Some argue that Arabic music is based on emotions only. They compare its endless repetitions, the circling around specific notes, to the lousy Arab politics.
