Conte de L'Incroyable Amour - Anouar Brahem

Continuing my look through Anouar Brahem's music, here's another old one. 

An interesting thing about Brahem is that is recordings are often not perfect performances, and this tune is another example of that.  The first time through the B section of this tune, he apparently starts on the wrong beat. The percussion stays steady and Brahem improvises his way around it to get to the C section, but the resulting phrasing is quite strange when you listen to it closely. When the B section comes back after the oud solo, it's very clear and in the phrasing flows with the beat in a much more organic way.    

This sheet music is edited to have the B section as it is the second time, as this is almost certainly what Brahem had intended to play both times and makes the most sense if someone wanted to perform this piece. 

I do have a transcription of what he actually plays the first time—if anyone wants that, let me know and I'll post it.  The phrasing is quite awkward to pull off the way he does it, and I doubt he could replicate it. 

The willingness to allow "mistakes" in his music is something that I think contributes to the spontaneity and liveliness of his albums — no doubt they could have done more takes or edited the track to be "perfect" but they kept the recording true to what happened in the studio.  Could be a lesson to all of us, perhaps, in what is really important in music.

Performance notes: the main melody is written for the A section, Brahem embellishes it throughout with the rhythm (matching the drums) and drone notes (mainly the tonic, A).  In the C section, I wrote in some of his embellishments, but these are just a guide and should be interpreted freely.  If played by clarinet, violin, flute or other sustaining instrument, it would be characteristic to simplify the rhythms a bit. 

Conte de L'Incroyable Amour Sheet Music - Anouar Brahem (page 1)

Anouar Brahem Sheet Music - Conte de l'incroyable Amour page 2PDF download here.

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