Author Description

In Nocturnal Music in the Land of the Sufis Jurgen Wasim Frembgen takes the reader along on his fascinating mystical journeys into the musical worlds of Pakistan. In dense description he tells about his personal experiences and emotions while participating in ecstatic nights of music at Sufi shrines, attending trance rituals and listening enraptured to sublime and refined classical music in private music rooms in Lahore. In his ethnographic narrative he unfolds authentic cultural contexts and life worlds in which music is deeply embedded, tracing how music is perceived and 'tasted' by listeners. He himself listens with all his senses, above all with the 'ear of the heart', to sounds which seem to remove the veils between man and God. Thus, he experiences spirituality and discovers the enormous power of music in the land of the Sufis.This ethnographic narrative takes the reader along on fascinating mystical journeys into the musical worlds of Pakistan, relating his personal experiences and feelings while participating in ecstatic nights of music at Sufi shrines, attending trance rituals and listening enraptured to sublime and refined classical music in private music rooms in Lahore.