iranian music – Persian music

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  • Awiar – Kurdish songs in Real Audio.
  • Beethoven music center – http://www.beethovenmc.com – Ticket shop and information about latest Iranian concerts in Tehran.
  • Iranian Classical Music – Brief history of Iranian classical music and reviews of some albums.
  • The Iranian Magazine: Music Section – Links to articles and music clips from various Iranian musicians.
  • IranMidi.com – Midi files of Persian songs.
  • Iranmusic.tv – A Persian Broadcasting Network offers Persian songs, clips of music videos, and music news and events.
  • Kamkars Music Group – A kurdish family of seven brothers and one sister from Sanandaj.
  • Loris Tjeknavorian – An Iranian born Armenian music composer-conductor. Includes biography, photo album, awards and achievements, and MP3 files.
  • Mehdi Ghasemi – Composer. Site includes biography and samples of his compositions.
  • Mohammad Esfahani – Official site of Iranian singer born at 1966, Tehran.
  • Musica Persiana – History of Persian music. Several Real Audio samples of ethnic music styles.
  • New Pop Music in Iran – Offer a number of sound clips in Real Audio format.
  • Parissa – Classical persian vocalist from Tehran. Site includes biography and photo album.
  • Persian Music at Mahour Productions – Persian traditional and folk music on CDs, books and tapes.
  • Radif – Explains this core group of traditional melodies and the way they are used in musical performance.
  • Setar – A site dedicated to Setar, the Persian traditional music instrument. Events, forum, history, techniques and courses.
  • Shohreh Solati – Official site of Persian music star Shohreh Solati. Includes biography, photos and music.
  • Taaj Esfahani – Homepage of a master of Persian traditional singing. Features some song samples. [Site in Farsi and English]
  • Tapesh – With free e-mail from this Persian pop music page.

The music of Iran has thousands of years of history dating back to the Neolithic age as attested by the archeological evidence chiefly in Elam, one of the earliest world civilizations in the south western Iran. A distinction needs to be made between the science of Music or Musicology (Elm-e-Musighy) which as a branch of mathematics has always been held in high regards in Iran; as opposed to Music performance, (Tarab, Navakhteh, Tasneef, Taraneh or more recently Muzik) which has had an uneasy and often acrimonious relationship with the religious authorities and, in times of religious revival, with society as a whole.

The Position of Music Performance in Iranian Culture
The ambivalence of Iranian culture towards music may be seen in the context of what Darius Shayan has termed cultural schizophrenia: the contradictory nature of the two sources of Iranian culture, ancient Persia and Islam.

In ancient Persia musicians held socially respectable positions. We know that the Elamites and the Achemenians certainly made use of musicians but we can not guess what that music might have been like. During the Parthian era, troubadours or Gosans were highly sought after as entertainers. There are theories in Academia that perhaps the early Dari Poets of Eastern Iran like Roudaki were in fact Gosans.

By the time the Sassanids came to power, the position of the Musicians was so exalted that it is only them, amongst all practitioners of fine arts, whose names have come down to the present in numbers. We may know that Mani was a painter or Burzoe was a literary as well as a medical figure but these names have survived for reasons other than their arts. We may know Farhad was a famous sculptor but only because he had pursued a love affair with the queen. The names of famous musicians, as well as the nature of their fame have come down to us. Amongst the master musicians Barbad, Sarkad, Ramtin and Nakissa there was fierce rivalry during the reign of Khosroe Parveez. Barbad invented the lute and the musical traditions that was to transform into the Maqam tradition and eventually the Dastgah system.

Even after Islam Persian Musicians did not disappear: Zaryab is often credited with being the greatest influence over Andalusian and Spanish music. [1] Farabi and Avicenna were not only musical theorist but adept at the lute and the Ney respectively. However late Medieval and modern Islam viewed music with suspicion. Music weakens reason and dance which is by necessity accompanied by music was seen as lewd. These views were justified by referring to the verses of the Koran that berate «the poets» who challenged Muhammad. Yet poetry itself seems to be held in the highest esteem all over the Islamic world.

Musicians playing traditional Iranian classical chamber music.The position of a particular work of Music often depends on the music genre and its relationship to music theory. The academic Persian Classical Tradition (Musiqi Asil or Dastgah) is strongly based on the theories of sonic aesthetics as expounded by the likes of Farabi and Shirazi in the early centuries of Islam. It also preserves melodic formulae that are often attributed to the musicians of the Persian imperial court of Khosroe Parviz in the Sassanid Period. Dastgah is the music of those who have a greater share of, or affect to be in possession of, refined taste and high culture and as such, in spite of its present popularity has always been the preserve of the elite. However the influence of Dastgah can not be underestimated as it is seen as the reservoir of authenticity that other forms of musical genres derive melodic and performance ideas and inspiration.

Other genres of respectable music were those which were perhaps not as soundly based in abstract theory but from a utilitarian point of view were seen as useful. To this group belongs the martial music of Persia (Musiqi Razmi) whose roots go back to the Parthian era, as attested by Roman sources. This form of music has now been almost completely replaced by European forms ever since the modernization of the armed forces. This type of music with large drums, brass and reed instruments was used not only at war but also in official and solemn occasions. The Naqareh Khaneh or the house of drum, the chief exponent of this type of music survived into the Qajar Period but by this time much of the expertise, fostered during the Safavid era, had disappeared. The only trace of this form of music in a much simplified form is the music of the Zurkhaneh, the traditional martial arts of Iran, where the exercises of champions (Pahlavan, literally Parthians) is regulated by a drummer / vocalist known as the Murshid.

Religious music as a category for music is not a musicologically homogeneous genre. The Shiite passion plays depicting the martyrdom of Imam Hussein have its beginnings in the martial music of Iran. Similarly Sufi music, though having set traditions of its own such as the use of the mystical instrument daf and a set compendium of librettos in Persian mystical poetry, is nevertheless perhaps closest to Dastgah music but enjoys a greater freedom of composition and is rhythmically more sophisticated.

The recitation of the Koran is not considered music by Muslims, but something more sublime. Similarly, religious liturgy or Noheh is a category of improvised song, but is never discussed in musical terms.

Popular music however occupies a low ebb in the rungs of respectability with the exception of folk music that plays an important role in the daily life of rural Iranians. Some of the most beautiful music composed in Iran is remembered in the folk songs in Kurdistan and Khorasan for example. Unlike all other form of music which can be considered children of Classical Persian Music, Folk songs have greatly influence the Dastgah system and names such as Isfahan and Bayat e Turk attest to the regional origins of the melodic formulae that underly Persian Art Musical Tradition.

Musical theatre in the form of Rohozi, whereby the covered pool in the middle of an inner courtyard served as a stage, is considered decadent by many Iranians. Tasneefs or popular urban compositions were often put together for the purposes of dance often in all women parties and some of the more famous compositions like Baba Karam and the accompanying dance is today the height of Persian Kitsch.

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