History of music in Azerbaijan

The Azerbaijan music was known throughout centuries. The traces of ancient music of Azerbaijan were found in a number of monuments, excavated in time of archaeological digs, as well as in rock carvings of Gobustan from 18-3 millennium B.C and Gemigaya from 3-1 millennium B.C. Kitabi Dede Gorgud in 8^th century, with creative works of Nizami, Fizuli providing full coverage of medieval music art, music genres and music instruments. The records of such important medieval scientists of Azerbaijan as Sefiaddin Urmevi in 18^th century shows that Abdulgadir Maragai created art and culture of music, and mastery performance and cited theoretical issues of music in medieval Azerbaijan.

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The first written monument of the country is epos Kitabi Dede gorgut, and the first book on music dates back to the 13^th century. The two prominent scientists and musicians of Azerbaijan are Sefieddin Urmevi from 1217-12294 and Abdulqadir Maraghai made a great impact to the development of the theory of near and Middle Eastern music in the 13 to 15^th centuries.

The booklets Kitabi el-Edvar and Seferiyye by Urmevi recognized the science of music of Azerbaijan and laid the foundation for its further expansion. Urmevi entered the history of Azerbaijan as the founder of the school system and tabulator science. The system’s musical memo, created by Urmevi, was the most perfect system of that time.

The booklets that followed the creations of Maragai, did not have much to do with complex theoretical problems of the theory of Eastern music, and even when they had something to do with it, they repeated those of Urmevi, just interpreting them in different ways. The important of this booklet was the practical importance. The creative works of that time include the booklet Negavetil Edvar by the younger son of the Maraghai Abdulaziz Chelebi and Megasid el- Edvar by his grandson Mahmud Chelebi.

A booklet about the music was written by Mirza Bey which is one of the interesting works that was created in south Azerbaijan in early 17^th century. The beginning of the late 19^th centry music meetings, associations and circles by Mahmud Agha in Shamakhy, Kharrat Oghly, Mir Movsum Nevvab in Shusha, Meshedi Malik Mansur in Baku. In the 1880^th M.M. Nevvab and Hadjy Husu organized meetings of musicians, which were dedicated to discussion of aesthetic problems of music, mastery performance and Mugam. The meeting was attended by known singers and Saz players which include Meshedi Djemil Amirov, I. Abdullayev, S. Shushinskiy, Sadykhdjan and others.