To Thread - Forum Home

The Mudcat Café TM
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=27474
5 messages

Help: Lezginka - Translation?

09 Nov 00 - 02:52 AM (#337075)
Subject: Lezginka - Translation?
From: GUEST,xy@chaos-lounge.com

Our band plays a Russian tune called Lezginka and we haven't been able to track down a translation after 3 years. Does anyone know what it means?

Thanks heaps, Nigel McLaughlin ------------------------------------ The Chaos Lounge - funky and Flashed http://www.chaos-lounge.com ------------------------------------


09 Nov 00 - 02:10 PM (#337241)
Subject: RE: Help: Lezginka - Translation?
From: Charlie Baum

The words transliterate something like "La illahah illah allah." It's Arabic for "There is no God but Allah!" The rest of the words ("zay la la la la," etc.) are just vocables (meaningless singing syllables).

--Charlie Baum, who sang this song with the Yale Russian Chorus for many years.


10 Nov 00 - 03:52 AM (#337703)
Subject: RE: Help: Lezginka - Translation?
From: Lena

Hi Nigel.Are you popping up in Sydney,yes or not?!

Lena
(check this to recall...)


10 Nov 00 - 04:32 AM (#337711)
Subject: RE: Help: Lezginka - Translation?
From: GUEST,micca at work

There is a tune by this name in Aram Khatchaturians Ballet "Gayaneh" which incorporates a lot of spirited Armenian folk music (whether new or traditional, I dont know) I always assumed it was a style of tune rather than a title.


10 Nov 00 - 09:40 AM (#337825)
Subject: RE: Help: Lezginka - Translation?
From: Charlie Baum

Lezginka refers to a musical piece (or other thing) from the Lezgis or Lezghis (fricative voiced g), a tribe living in the Caucasus Mountains (think Chechenia and you've got the right neighborhood). Lezghis are Islamic (which explains the words in Arabic). Russian choruses (especially the famous Don Cossack Choir) have been singing a tune based on or in the style of Lezghi war-chants.

So it's both a style of tune (or more accurately, a tune in the style of a particular ethnic/geographic region), and the title of specific tunes in that style.

--Charlie Baum