This proves beyond doubt that Haidar Salman was living a totally new lifestyle during this period. His life was no longer as unsettled as it had been. Nor did he give himself up totally to dancing, partying or endless affairs with beautiful women as he had done in the past. His life had become highly focused and organized. He wrote a letter to Farida dated 1959 in which he mentioned that musical inspiration would often hit him suddenly while in the street, in his car or at the cinema. It would sometimes strike him during heated political discussions with friends and, when he went home, he would note down his ideas. In another more detailed letter, he once spoke of leaving the house one winter morning when it had been pouring with rain, and the silent, empty Nation Square was drenched. Baghdad was looking beautiful with the wet balustrades of its bridges and the sight of coats and umbrellas. When the Baghdad clock struck seven in the morning, he went back to his room, threw off his wet coat, sat by the fireplace and began to compose a piece of music. We naturally don’t know the genre of the piece that he composed, particularly because, starting from this period, Haidar Salman underwent a radical political and cultural transformation. Without a doubt, he must have experienced a profound shock, and his general outlook must have been deeply affected. In another letter to Farida, he expressed the feeling that the world around him had changed. It was though he was on an intense inner journey. Pure colours had been replaced by opaque counterparts. A new state of spiritual revelation had overtaken his whole being.
This letter brought to mind the elements of revelation and visionary insight that characterized the second personality of Tobacco Shop. I was personally astonished to see his new persona come to life. His complete identification with that character seemed to me almost ‘diabolical’, for it showed that he had discovered himself almost totally and completely. Through constant training and continued creativity, he was no longer playing a part but had become the new persona.
We also need to discuss the major changes that were happening to him.
It is well known that after the revolution, Haidar Salman began to visit Hekmat Aziz’s house on a regular basis. Hekmat was his revolutionary friend that he had got to know at the Khanzad restaurant in Tehran. He’d returned after the revolution and was living in a beautiful house shaded by tall trees in Al-Adhamiyah. Writers and musicians frequently visited him there. Jawad Salim, the famous sculptor, was often there together with his retinue, which in those days was made up of young artists of both genders, fans of his art, the poet Boland al-Haidari, Hussein Murdan, the dancer Afifa Eskandar, the artist Lorna Salim and several musicians including a few Russians who lived in Baghdad after the revolution and who taught music or painting at the musical academies or institutes of fine art. Some were Polish and had immigrated to Iraq during and after World War II. They would all meet at Hekmat Aziz’s house, sit near a small fireplace and revel in its seductive warmth. In a state of great euphoria, they would grill chops on this beautiful fire, one at a time. Hekmat’s wife, Widad, a Turkmen from the north of Iraq, would offer them glasses of cold beer which they would clink together merrily and noisily. They would eat and drink, totally absorbed in heated discussions and loud laughter. Those meetings generally ended with poetry readings, musical interludes or card games, of which Haidar became very fond.
But life didn’t always follow this exciting rhythm. The first year of the revolution was happy to some extent because a decisive victory had been achieved. But the euphoria of victory masked huge atrocities. Haidar Salman might have turned a blind eye to many violent scenes that accompanied the revolution, such as the murder of the young king, the army’s shooting of the princesses in the courtyard of Al-Rehab Palace and the lynching and murder of the prime minister. Were these violent scenes so different from the events of the Farhoud that befell the Jews in 1941 and left an indelible mark on the mind of the first character, the keeper of the flocks? Didn’t the masses also perpetrate those atrocities?
I can now draw connections between two basic themes. The first is the ongoing influence of his meeting with the Russian conductor who, without really knowing where the country of the young man before him was, advised him to find inspiration in his people. The second is his research into folklore, which started with the numerous comparisons he made between low and high, or classical, art. This was what the Muslim presenter had pointed out, although Haidar Salman was not sure at that time whether the man understood its full meaning and implications or not. And, of course, there was his visit to the Iranian Museum and the letter he wrote about the Shah’s portrait, painted by the Andy Warhol.
It’s clear that Haidar Salman felt considerable hostility towards the mob, the masses and the populace in general. His aversion was perhaps born out of the public’s inability to understand his music. He’d always felt something of a rift between him and the masses. But this hostility grew after the Farhoud, which proved to him that the masses were the prime enemy of everything beautiful. Those who opposed beauty, according to him, stood against all that was life. His attitude towards the masses suddenly changed from indifference to pure enmity, from acceptance to denunciation. How did this happen?
Since the revolution had its own artists, engineers and leaders, the officers also wanted to create a composer for the revolution. Haidar Salman was their first choice. He would be created and presented as a model made wholly in the revolution’s laboratory. They made the proposal to him openly. They suggested turning him into the revolution’s musician and composer. He thought that the proposal was ridiculous, although he didn’t say so, and his refusal of their offer was clear and categorical. Classical music, he believed, couldn’t move the masses and was therefore of little use to revolutions. Music that didn’t appeal to the base instincts of the populace couldn’t possibly work. Revelation and insight, which were part and parcel of the second persona, were far from revolutionary. Classical music was by its very nature indifferent to words, but revolutions depended on them and used them in patriotic songs. The revolutionaries asked him to compose an opera about the people breaking their chains and were willing to send him to the Soviet Union to compose the work. But he didn’t like the idea, for he didn’t care for the masses, or their history of outbursts, and feared them.
He remained silent for a long time following the departure of Jawad Selim in the company of the painter Nahida al-Said, whom he’d met at the house of his friend Hekmat Aziz. Then one of the people present raised his glass to toast the masses. So they all did, except for the revolution’s composer, who refrained from raising his own glass.
Haidar wanted his music to emerge from his inner self and not from external ideas.
Although his ideas at that time were neither coherent nor fully clear, he wanted to mould them into something new. He wanted to compose pieces that people would view in the same way as a woman looking at the living being coming from her womb. He wanted to construct his thoughts in the same way a painter constructed a scene on a blank canvas. Art was taste, first and foremost, and then harmony and proportion. Revolution, in contrast, was the destruction of all harmony. He didn’t wish to make a fortune with his music or see admiration in the eyes of ordinary people. He wanted his music to mould people and push them forward. But how?
The revolution naturally focused its entire attention on the masses.