The Many Faces of Heterophony in the Music of Zad Moultaka
The Franco-Lebanese musician Zad Moultaka reframes the musical material of his native Near East culture within the universe of contemporary music. This distanced relationship serves to renew the very perception of cultural heritage, so that certain innate qualities that went unremarked in their original cultural milieu now appear loaded with aesthetic potential when seen from this new angle. In particular, this is the case with heterophony. In this regard, Moultaka’s approach seems homologous with that of José Evangelista who, from an equally removed viewpoint, borrowed the heterophonic process and the principle of monodic line from certain Asian traditions. Certainly a “floating” textural quality, which has mimetic rather than strictly rational value and is primarily an oral phenomenon, can be found in the music of both composers. And in Moultaka’s case, heterophony is not as important in isolation as what it yields in combination: In conjunction with other writing techniques, the oral tradition gives rise to a diversity of intrinsic aesthetic values.