Mr. Max Elia was so kind as to bring our attention to an album titled Good Friday Eastern Sacred Songs which he bought on an trip to Beirut many years ago. We succeeded in getting the cd and were so impressed by the voice of the soloist (and composer) Fairuz from Lebanon. The tracks are all sung in Modern Standard Arabic! Various sites suggest that they are from the Syriac Maronite and Eastern Orthodox/Greek Orthodox rites. The composer and soloist is Fairuz from Lebanon. She was was born into a Christian family. Her father was a survivor of the Armenian Genocide. Fairuz has sold more than fifty million albums in her career. I really love her special voice. Here is the text of the first track (translated from Arabic):

I am the sad mother
I am the grieving mother, and there is no comfort for her
Let the death of your son be the life of those who seek it
The mother of Jesus had cried and made her beeping
Let the death of your son be the life of those who seek it
For my love for a nation that killed its shepherd
Let the death of your son be the life of those who seek it
The pigeons yelled at the dispersal of her family
Let the death of your son be the life of those who seek it
The virgins of Jerusalem weep over their children
Let the death of your son be the life of those who seek it
Come to Mary, his mother, to console her
Let the death of your son be the life of those who seek it

The album’s most beautiful hymn, ‘Wa Habibi’ (Oh My Love), imagines Mary as she addresses her son in his dying moments. Over a church harmonium and male voice choir, Fairuz offers tender words of maternal grief:
oh my love, my love what a sad state you are in, anyone who sees you will cry in melancholy, you gave your life for us
my love, what guilt you carry, what wounds they put on you, no cure has been found for.
The recording dates from the sixties. The CD cover says: Good Friday is remembered by Christians in the Arabic countries in a similar way to all Christian communities. It is a sorrowful day, one of meditation and prayer and in churches hymns are sung which express in music and words the emotions which people feel when recalling the event of Christ’s death on the cross.

.