Among the Jasmine Trees. Jonathan Holt Shannon

of recent pop hits as well as the numerous “variety” collections and theme tapes, such as “ ‘Variety 1998,” “The Most Beautiful Dabkāt of 1997,” “Best Songs,” and “Love Songs 2002,” produced by the shop owners themselves or, less often, by local studios. All of them, of course, are bootleg compilations.

      This stratigraphy suggests that the older artists and hence older aesthetic values are not on the verge of extinction, as critics of the contemporary pop song claim. Yet, there is a strong sense among musicians and intellectuals that the older generations represent a Golden Age that never will be repeated. This is why the modern pop songs are considered to be such a threat; there appears to be no alternative. Unlike the West, where contemporary genres and styles have displaced but not entirely replaced the older, there is a fear in Syria that once the present “cultivated listeners” pass on, there will not be a generation capable of appreciating the older music and of promoting its aesthetic standards. This is confirmed in the music conservatories, where students are shunning the study of the Arab instruments, instead flocking to the piano, violin, clarinet, guitar, and other European instruments.