Stephanie G. Mathis Weaving through the rooms of my Brisbane childhood home, carried on the stagnant, humid, sub-tropical air, was the sound of an Iranian tenor singing 800-year-old Persian poems of love. I was in primary school, playing cricket in the streets, riding a BMX with the other boys, and stuck at home reading during the heavy rains typical of Queensland.
I had an active, exterior life that was lived on Australian terms, suburban, grounded in English, and easy-going. At the same time, thanks to my mother’s listening habits, courtesy of the tapes and CDs she bought back from trips to Iran, my interior life was being invisibly nourished by something radically other, by a soundscape invoking a world beyond the mundane, and an aesthetic dimension rooted in a sense of transcendence and spiritual longing for the Divine.
I was listening to traditional Persian music (museghi-ye sonnati). This music is the indigenous music of Iran, although it is also performed and maintained in Persian-speaking countries such as Afghanistan and Tajikistan. It has ancient connections to traditional Indian music, as well as more recent ones to Arabic and Turkish modal music.
It is a world-class art that incorporates not only performance but also the science and theory of music and sound. It is, therefore, a body of knowledge, encoding a way of knowing the world and being. The following track is something that I might have heard in my childhood:
Playing kamancheh, a bowed spike-fiddle, is Kayhan Kalhor, while the singer is the undisputed master of vocals in Persian music, ostad (meaning “maestro”) Mohammad Reza Shajarian. He is singing in the classical vocal style, avaz, that is the heart of this music.
A non-metric style placing great creative demands on singers, avaz is improvised along set melodic lines memorized by heart. Without a fixed beat, the vocalist sings with rhythms resembling speech, but speech is heightened to an intensified state. This style bears great similarity to the sean-nos style of Ireland, which is also ornamented and non-rhythmic. However, sean-nos is totally unaccompanied, unlike Persian avaz, in which a single stringed instrument often accompanies the singer.
This is a thoroughly soulful music, akin not in form but in soulfulness with artists such as John Coltrane or Van Morrison. In the Persian tradition, music is not only for pleasure, but has a transformative purpose. Sound is meant to effect a change in the listener’s consciousness, to bring them into a spiritual state (hal).
Like other ancient systems, in the Persian tradition, the perfection of the formal structures of beautiful music is believed to come from God, as in the Pythagorean phrase, the “music of the spheres.”
Because traditional Persian music has been heavily influenced by Sufism, the mystical aspect of Islam, many rhythmic performances (tasnif, as opposed to avaz) can (distantly) recall the sounds of Sufi musical ceremonies (sama) with forceful, trance-inducing rhythms. (For instance, in this Rumi performance by Alireza Eftekhari).
Even when slow, traditional Persian music is still passionate and ardent in mood, such as this performance of Rumi by Homayoun Shajarian, son of Mohammad-Reza:
Another link with traditional Celtic music is the grief that runs through Persian music, as can be heard in this instrumental by Kalhor.
Grief and sorrow always work in tandem with joy and ecstasy to create soundscapes that evoke longing and mystery.
Connections with Classical Poetry
The work of classical poets such as Rumi, Hafez, Saadi, Attar, and Omar Khayyam forms the lyrical basis of compositions in traditional Persian music. The rhythmic structure of the piece is based on the prosodic system that poetry uses (Cruz), a cycle of short and long syllables.
Singers must, therefore, be masters not only at singing but also know Persian poetry and its metrical aspects intimately. Skilled vocalists must be able to interpret poems. Lines or phrases can be extended re, peated, or enhanced with vocal ornaments.
Thus, even for a Persian speaker who knows the poems being sung, Persian music can still reveal new interpretations. Here, for example (from 10:00 to 25:00 mins), is another example of Rumi by M.R. Shajarian
