A report on Mugham, Shusha and Uzeyir Hajibeyov

The town of Shusha of Karabakh, was particularly renowned for this art.

Over the course of the 19th century, the town grew in size to become a city, and was home to many Armenian and Azerbaijani intellectuals, poets, writers and musicians (including Azerbaijani ashiks, mugham singers and kobuz players).

Shusha, often dubbed as the cradle of Azerbaijani music and culture, had a reputation for its musical heritage.

He would later reflect on his experiences: "The first musical education I got as a child in Shusha came from best singers and saz-players. At that time I sang mughams and tasnifs. The singers liked my voice. They would make me sing and teach me at the same time."

In the early decades of the 20th century, a member of native intelligentsia, Uzeyir Hajibeyov, the author of the first national opera Leyli and Majnun, also formulated the theoretical basis of Azerbaijani mugham in his work The Principles of Azerbaijan Folk Music. Famous Azerbaijani composer Gara Garayev and Fikrat Amirov also made a great contribution to the development of the art of mugham through creating the mugham symphony.

Khurshidbanu Natavan, Azerbaijan's most famous woman poet, composer Uzeyir Hajibeyov, opera singer Bulbul and one of Azerbaijan's first twentieth-century novelists, Yusif Vezir Chemenzeminli, were born here.