Best Ethnomusicology Book Ever

The Hundred Thousand Fools of God: Musical Travels in Central Asia (and Queens, New York)
By THEODORE LEVIN ’73
Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1997. 384 pp. $35.

As an ethnomusicologist Levin is an American original, one of a kind. As assistant profesor of music at Dartmouth College, he could have— if he had wished— ground out a series of brilliant articles for scholarly journals, but he has chosen a path out of the ordinary, and we in the field of ethnomusicology and the hundreds of thousands of music lovers and intelligentsia whose lives he has touched are the richer for it. His book, The Hundred Thousand Fools of God, his many compact disc recordings with their informative program notes, his discovery of and sponsorship of tours by groups like the Pokrovsky Ensemble of the Tuvan Singers in the United States and Europe have influenced Western musical life and culture to a degree that cannot be measured. Levin is not only a first-rate, world-class scholar, but a mover and shaker, a man of action who truly believes that contact between cultures can lead to mutual understanding and admiration. Few ethnomusicologists have pursued field work so relentlessly, collected so diligently, or worked so hard to bring previously obscure but wonderful musical traditions into the limelight.

Levin’s scholarly approach is unconventional, but not unprecedented. It is also an extremely difficult one to pull off. Avoiding the conventional categories and subheads, the paradigms and analysis, the jargon of the latest academically fashionable "theory-of-the-month," and the reduction of human sources to anonymous "informants" found in most ethnomusicological studies, his book is a highly personal memoir that gently takes the reader on an extraordinary journey. (Any trip that begins in Moscow and ends up in Queens—via Bukhara, Surxandarya, Yagnab, and surrounding places—is bound to be interesting.) But the journey is far more than a geographical one, though the writing brilliantly and in relatively few words conveys the space, the sounds, the smells, the architecture, and the human environments of Central Asia (and Queens). What we have is a kind of complex Bukhara rug woven not of wool and colors but of words, people, and ideas.
The pillars of Levin’s study are a strand of fascinating individuals, musicians, who emerge—again through succinct and perceptive descriptions—as living examples of various traditions. We travel backward in time to learn of the great cities and centers of learning of the past, the colonial conquests of the nineteenth century, and the structures and establishments of the Soviet era when most of his musicians grew up. The capsule autobiographical life-histories of each provide a mosaic of the paths individual musicians have taken in this part of the world, at that place in time, to become who they are. Each, in fact, is a touchstone to a world of knowledge, philosophical and musical, as well as a vibrant personality: the innovative traditionalist Turgun Alimatov, the pop singer Yulduz Usmanova, the epic singer Qahhar baxshi, or the musical director Abduxaliq, to name only a few. One gets a sense of the depth of Islamic belief and its relationship to song and instrumental performance. One learns of the changing roles of women and their music in society. One gets to know the nature of the shash maqam, the musical canon of the Great Traditions of Central Asia, and the manifold ways in which individuals relate to or interpret it. One finds out how musicians live and decorate their living rooms, dress, and manage their careers. One visits a myriad of contexts such as the toy—especially weddings—in which musicians perform, and begins to understand how such contexts evolve over time and place. A pervasive theme is found in the influence of the various institutions of the Soviet era, the conservatories, native orchestras, radio stations, and philharmonias, and their continuance into the post-independence era of the republics. Politics forms a sub-theme—Uzbek and Tajik nationalism, the plight of the Bukharan Jewish community, Stalinism, prisons, and the cotton scandals of the 1980s.

Finally, through the strand of remarkable people Levin introduces us to, we begin to build up a body of knowledge about the cultural context of the various musical traditions. We learn, for example, why a piece of flatbread should not be on the table upside-down, or that one must refuse invitations three times before finally accepting. We learn how to go about buying a car, or how traditionally musicians are paid without negotiation or contract. Most of all we learn about the liquidity, strength, and fragility of traditions—how each of the musicians in the chain conceives of and deals with change, loss, innovation, resilience, or dry orthodoxy.

Woven into this complex tapestry of people, places, cultures, music, religion, and traditions is Levin’s own voice adding a footnote here, expanding on a theme there, diving into historical background, fleshing out technical musical concepts, summarizing a philosophical movement—always, I think, with just the right amount of self-restraint. One might say that Levin himself is also one of the fascinating characters in the book.

A key element of the book is the accompanying CD. Each musician comes to life in sound; the listener is guided by Levin’s comments on each carefully chosen selection. The inclusion of translations and transliterations of song texts, together with judiciously brief musical transcriptions, is also well done. A particularly brilliant choice is Levin’s track of a dual performance of a song by Ilyas Malayev which illustrates the concept of ghazalrani (syncopation/rubato) as no words ever could. The inclusion of a pop song, an Uzbek-inspired symphonic movement by the Russian composer Alexei Kozlovsky, of the Uzbekistan Radio Maqam Ensemble, and the Bartok-like choral arrangement by Burxanov set off the more traditional musical selections. The Jew’s harp solo of a middle-aged woman—compositions which were internal tone poems—and Levin’s descriptions of recording in a small room in a remote village are unforgettable. I cannot overemphasize the achievement of this book and its concept. Its careful organization, its excellent writing, and most of all the abundant amount of knowledge presented in a format that reads like a novel make it far and away the best ethnomusicological book that I have ever red. Ted Levin must stand as not only the most knowledgeable scholar in his area of specialization, but as one of the few who can brilliantly convey this knowledge clearly to the outsider.

—David B. Reck
David B. Reck is professor of music and Asian languages and civilizations at Amherst. [1997]

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