Since I was very young I've been a fan of lute music but I've only recently fallen in love with its older brother, oud music. Oud is the etymological root of lute (nice rhyme, ed.).
European lute music is very beautiful, in particular for expressing sadness and melancholy. John Dowland's Lachrimae are masterpieces of the form. I saw them as slightly repressed guitars, pale and slightly cold. And with that aura of the past. Here's an example:
Now don't get me wrong. This is European lute music at the top of its game. I've listened to this for hours on end. I'm as in love with it as anyone could be I reckon.
But all those impressions of what lutes did were burnt away by Le Trio Joubran, a trio of very much alive and kicking Palestinian men. Many bands I've been in would KILL for riffs like that. Totally fresh, on an instrument I thought was an antique, in my stunning ignorance. Here they are:
Now roughly an oud is the same object as a lute. How come you can get such different sounds from it, such different translations? (And while we're on that subject, how tragic is it that Europe went the way of equal temperament and careful, symmetrical musical structures. I mean, come on, I know which music seems to impel itself on me, without asking first, summoning all kinds of energies, some of them terrifying, some passionate, dark, magnificent. And it's not the European style.)
Three guesses: it starts with a /w/ and it ends with an /l/ and it's what objects do best...