By Rachel Beckles Willson An oud travelled to Europe as a consequence of Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798. Musician and writer Guillaume André Villoteau (1759-1839) had joined the 159 men Napoleon took along with him as a “Commission of the Sciences and Arts”, and while in Egypt he collected instruments to bring back home…
Ottoman oud histories
This beautiful postcard invites us to think afresh about the history of the oud. Two elegantly dressed women look out at us, holding their instruments and their plectra. Beside them is a boy in a top hat, who stands on a footstool to reach the right height. In the background and at the edge of…
Alexandria to Brussels, 1839
By Rachel Beckles Willson The second oud in Europe whose journey we know about arrived thanks to the Belgian musician and scholar François-Joseph Fétis (1784-1871). Thanks to the note he made in his Histoire Generale de la Musique we can trace how it happened. Led by his ambition to understand music from all over the…
About
Oudmigrations is an archived web resource dedicated to the journeys of ouds, their histories, and the stories attached to their makers, players, and owners. It was founded and led by Professor Rachel Beckles Willson in 2016, as part of her Major Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust 2015-2018. When launched in April 2016, Oudmigrations was a…