TABLE 1: Subdivision of the tetrachord into Pythagorean limmas (L) and commas (C) (Safī al-Dīn, 13th century)
open
Z1
Z8
sabbābe
V1
V7
bansar
khansar
L
L
C
L
L
C
L
(90 c)
(90 c)
(24 c)
(90 c)
(90 c)
(24 c)
(90 c)
Islamic Republic of, [formerly Persia] (Per. Jomhuri-e-Eslami-e-Iran). Country in the Middle East. It has an area of about 1·65 million km2, of which a vast portion is desert, and a population of 76·43 million (2000 estimate). Most Iranians are of Aryan stock and speak an Indo-European tongue, Farsi (or Persian). The official state religion since 1501 has been Shi‘a Islam, but there are also 850,000 Sunnis in Iran (mostly Kurdish, Baluchi and Turkmen people but also some Sunni minorities in Persian-speaking areas, e.g. southern Khorasan), as well as smaller groups of other faiths (over 100,000 Armenians and 60,000 Jews, about 20,000 Parsis, 20,000 Nestorians, 8500 Protestants etc.). Aside from Kurdish music, little music research has been carried out among the religious minorities in Iran (e.g. Armenian and Assyrian Christians, Zoroastrians, Jews (although see Jewish music, §III, 8(ii)) and Baha’is).
The name Persia is correctly confined to the period from 600 bce to 1935 ce, when the country was officially renamed Iran, but the name ‘Persia’ continued for some time to be used to designate the entire country (as well as the language). However, many scholars now prefer to use ‘Iran’ for the region throughout its history.
The vast territory of present-day Iran extends over a high plateau, separated from adjoining regions by the Zagros mountains in the west, the Elburz mountain chain in the north and the lower, more arid Eastern highlands in the east: most of the important urban centres lie to the north, west and south of the great Central desert (fig.1).
III. Regional and popular traditions
BO LAWERGREN (I), HORMOZ FARHAT (II), STEPHEN BLUM (III)
5. Sassanian period, 224–651 ce.
The long history of music in Iran can be traced at least as far back as 3000 bce. The evidence is archaeological and textual, and some of the sources are here assembled as a first attempt to construct a music history of the region from its origins to the Arab conquest in 651 ce. Although Iranian languages and culture spread far beyond the borders of modern Iran, including parts of Trans-Caucasia, Central Asia, north-west India and Mesopotamia (see Frye, 1962, p.3), this article concentrates on the music of the heartland, the region between the lowlands east of the Tigris and west of the Indus.
Iran means ‘land of the Aryans’, and the name owes its origins to the tribes that arrived in the area in the early 3rd millennium bce. The name Persia comes from Parsa or Pars, a region roughly equivalent to the modern province of Fars, which, together with other areas of western Iran, was settled by Persian and Median tribes during the 1st millennium bce.
Geographically, ancient Iran was split into an eastern and western part by the deserts of Dasht-e Kavir and Dasht-e Lut (fig.2), and this division also affected culture, including music. This is noticeable as early as 2000 bce when western people, the Elamites, favoured string instruments while eastern inhabitants favoured Bactrian trumpets. The split still remained three millennia later when Islamic harps differed distinctly in eastern and western Iran (Lawergren, MGG2, ‘Harfen’, Abb.10).
The Elamites were the main western people between 2350 and 650 bce. Their territory lay on the plains surrounding the city of Susa and penetrated up the Zagros mountains where Madaktu and Kul-e Fara were prominent centres. Mesopotamia, occupying the river banks of the Euphrates and Tigris and their tributaries, lay on the western border. Elamites and Mesopotamians (successively Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians) were ethnically distinct, spoke different languages and were often at war. The ebb and flow across the border between Elam and Mesopotamia is not always well understood, but around 2000 bce many cultural manifestations point to strong Mesopotamian influences on Elam, one example being the spread eastwards of bull lyres from the dominant power of Sumer.
Less understood are the early people of eastern Iran, but cultural features of the northern regions (Bactria and Margiana) appear to have travelled southwards between 2300 and 1600 bce into eastern Iran, but without crossing into the western region, for example, the Bactrian trumpets (see §2(iii) below). By the 9th century bce, new peoples, the Medes and the Persians (Parsans), had entered the region from Central Asia but continued moving westwards. During the 560s several Persian and Iranian groups led by King Cyrus II ‘the Great’ (559–529 bce) defeated the Medes and captured western Iran and Mesopotamia. In 546 bce Cyrus united all his lands into a single territory, known as the Achaemenid empire after Achaemenes, a mythical ancestor of the Persians. This empire, which by about 500 bce extended from the Balkans to northern Egypt and the Indus, lasted until it, in turn, was conquered by Alexander the Great (d 323), who destroyed its capital, Persepolis, in 330 and placed the region under Hellenistic control. Under Alexander's successors, Iran became part of the Seleucid empire. From 323 bce Iran was ruled by the Parthians to the north-east until 226 ce (for this period, see Parthian Empire), when the Sassanians, a people of southern Iran, created an empire based on that of the Achaemenids. It reached its fullest extent in the late 6th century and saw the establishment of Zoroastrianism as the chief religion, but fell to the Arabs in 642 ce.
Unlike Mesopotamia, ancient Iran has left few texts dating from the period under discussion. Although both cultures used cuneiform characters, this system of writing was not as well suited to the Elamite language as to Sumerian and Akkadian in Mesopotamia. The few surviving Elamite texts are of little musical interest. Although Iranian literature gradually increased, it was written on perishable materials; numerous clay seals (bullae) have survived, but the enclosed texts are lost. Mesopotamian texts, however, survived, being largely written on clay. The Sassanian period has left fragments of writing in the Pahlavi language, but most information comes from later Muslim authors writing in New Persian or Arabic. Because of the paucity of contemporary texts, evidence of ancient Iranian music is based primarily on archaeological finds. Objects take the centre stage, but music and the contexts of music performance begin to emerge if a comparative approach is adopted, particularly with regard to Mesopotamia.
The arched harp is one of the first complex instruments to appear in the archaeological records of Iran dating from about 3300–3100 bce; in Mesopotamia the earliest known evidence for such instruments is slightly later (c3000 bce), but, given the uncertainties of dating and the scarcity of the material, it is impossible to determine in which region this harp appeared first. Moreover, it is likely that the instrument had existed some time before it was depicted in art.
Iranian sources show different contexts for the use of arched harps from those of Mesopotamia. Iranian representations from the 3rd millennium bce depict harps played in complex rituals. The scene in fig.3a shows a harpist performing with a drummer, a singer and a wind player. The other objects are pots, and their large variety suggests an environment with more cultic overtones than a simple meal eaten by the person seated on the right.
The harp in fig.3b appears in a scene crowded with humans, deities, snakes, birds, animal parts and flora; the exact significance of this composition remains elusive (for an interpretation, see Porada, 1965, pp.41–2). The main figure is a seated goddess with snakes rising from her shoulders. The harp, which appears above her head, lacks a player, suggesting that the association between these instruments and religious rite was so strong in ancient Iranian society that the player was superfluous. It is likely that the harp had a symbolic function. Many of the elements, including the snake goddess (or god), are also present in fig.3c. In Mesopotamia, harps were shown in less complex rituals, as accompanying officiants who brought offerings to kings and gods (e.g. on the ‘Standard of Ur’; Rashid, 1984, pl.11). Such musical ‘presentation scenes’ became popular throughout the Middle East west of Iran. After the 3rd millennium bce, arched harps disappeared from the Middle East, being replaced by angular harps (see Harp, §II, 3(v)).
Large lyres with a bull's head on one side flourished primarily in Mesopotamia but were also known in adjacent regions, including Elam. Many ancient lyres have been excavated at the southern Mesopotamian site of Ur (2450 bce; fig.4a; Rashid, 1984, pp.29–41; see also Mesopotamia, fig.3), but pictorial evidence shows nearly identical instruments from other sites in Mesopotamia and Elam, including Susa (fig.4b). The Iranian sources, like those of Mesopotamia, display strong associations between animals and music, with some players taking the form of animals. The small size and poor quality of representations of bull lyres drawn outside Mesopotamia, however, makes it impossible to distinguish Iranian and Mesopotamian instruments. Since these lyres and their animal associations are similar throughout the whole region, it is difficult to be certain of their origin. Most likely, they first appeared in Mesopotamia since this region was militarily dominant and had elaborate rituals involving music on instruments that ‘lowed like bulls’.
Many small trumpet-like objects dating from between 2200 and 1750 bce have recently been brought to light by clandestine excavations near ancient oases in Bactria and Margiana in eastern Iran (modern southern Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and northern Afghanistan). The sizes and shapes of these objects are similar to gold, silver or copper ‘trumpets’ already known from documented excavations in more southerly parts of Iran (two from Astarabad, three from Tepe Hissar and one from Shahdad). The Bactrian objects belong to a wider assemblage recently defined as the ‘Bactrian-Margiana Archaeological Complex’ (BMAC; see Hiebert, 1994, p.376) and dated between 2200 and 1750 bce. Although the trumpet-like objects have not until now been considered part of that assemblage, they probably shared its general characteristics. The dates of the burials suggest that this kind of trumpet originated in the Bactria-Margiana region and spread gradually into the southern parts of eastern Iran (ibid., p.374).
The trumpet-like objects come in three basic shapes. All have a short tube expanding to a flared end, with a total length of between six and 12 cm and a tube diameter of about one cm. On one type the tube is decorated with reliefs of faces, often mounted several abreast (fig.5a–c). The second type has a bulbous sphere instead of heads (fig.5d–e). The third type has no face or bulb. The finely sculpted faces and the quality of the materials indicate that such instruments were élite objects. Some were made of gold or silver, others of copper-rich bronze. One of the Tepe Hissar finds (fig.5e) consists of two overlapping layers: an inner silver trumpet covered by an outer gold trumpet about one mm thick.
Although their shapes are trumpet-like, some scholars have suggested alternative interpretations: perhaps the objects were stands meant to be placed with their broad ends downwards, an arrangement that would bring the faces vertical; perhaps they were funnels or spouts. But such mundane objects seem unlikely considering the precious materials and the extraordinary workmanship. Hakemi suggested that a trumpet of the second type found at Shahdad may have been joined to a long wooden tube, which has since decayed (1997, p.635). Such contraptions are unnecessary, for the unaltered trumpets can produce a good sound.
Bactrian trumpets may not have been the first trumpets in the Middle East. A crudely sculpted object on a stone relief from Khafagi in Mesopotamia (Rashid, 1984, p.61) is probably earlier; it appears to be a 50 cm-long conical trumpet without the flared end.
In date and provenance the BMAC is close to the origin of Indo-Iranian mythology, in particular Zoroastrianism (Boyce, 1984, pp.1, 8, 11). Scholars have tried to connect Zoroastrian dualistic concepts to the visual symbols used in the art of the BMAC (Hiebert, 1994, p.374), but at present the association is entirely speculative. Bactro-Iranian trumpets may offer more solid evidence associated with the Zoroastrian myth about Yīma, mankind's first king, who reigned during a Golden Age when weather was fair and sickness and death were unknown. According to the myth, which has ancient roots but was committed to writing only about 1000 ce, at the onset of a severe winter Yīma's god, Ahura Mazda, ordered him to bring plants, animals and humans into a shelter. To help him, the god gave Yima two implements: a golden sufrā (‘trumpet’, see Duchesne-Guillemin, 1979, pp.540–41) and a gold-plated astrā (‘whip’). The myth implies that the instrument was used to call animals, a procedure still used by hunters when stalking their quarry and a task well suited to Bactrian trumpets with their high-pitched tessitura and flexible pitch. Moreover, many of the ancient trumpets are golden. The divine association could easily have caused them to multiply as cult objects. (The shofar, a much larger – and later – trumpet, is entirely confined to cultic use.)
Arched harps disappeared from the Middle East, about 1900 bce, when angular harps spread throughout the region. Shapes and proportions were everywhere similar except in western Iran (Elam), where smaller models flourished during the 2nd millennium and larger ones during succeeding millennia. Angular harps could be played with vertical or horizontal strings. In either case, the harps had similar bodies but vastly different numbers of strings and playing techniques. Vertical harps usually had more than 20 strings plucked by both hands; horizontal harps had about nine strings struck with a plectrum held in the right hand and damped by the fingers of the left hand positioned behind the strings (Lawergren and Gurney, 1987, p.51).
The main sources of information are terracotta plaques. In Mesopotamia horizontal harps were shown only with the player and harp in profile. Vertical harps were shown both in profile, and as front views with the player and harp en face (fig.6a–b). However, the latter could not be depicted realistically, for the strings would have to be lined up into a thin sheet protruding towards the viewer, and these would easily be damaged. As a result, strings were hardly modelled at all, although the rib to which they were tied is always shown running along the front of the harp, and the protruding rod at the bottom is contracted into a short knob. Both side and front views, however, show the same playing position, size and shape of the instrument; they are certainly identical harps. Both views show harps with slightly waisted bodies. Elamite representations adopt the same pose as the Mesopotamian front views, but the harps are much smaller (fig.6c). Horizontal harps from Elam are also small, but depicted differently from their Mesopotamian counterparts (fig.6d): the harp is always shown from the side while the player faces the viewer (fig.6e). To produce this composite pose, the harp body was turned parallel to the player's stomach. Unlike the Mesopotamian players of horizontal harps, Elamite harpists do not appear to line up their horizontal harps along the direction of movement, but this may, again, be an attempt to avoid a thin protruding part on the plaque.
In eastern Iran a horizontal harp is shown with normal size at this time (Shahr-e Sokhta, see Harp fig.4b) and the same large size is shown a millennium later at Kul-e Fara and Madaktu (see fig.7 below).
The first lutes appeared in 2300 bce in Mesopotamia, a millennium after the first harps; another millennium later lutes had become the dominant string instruments in western Iran.
Terracotta plaques from Susa often show lutenists as nude women and grotesque males. These may be musicians in a social class below those attached to courts and temples. The size of lutes increased during the 2nd millennium bce (Lawergren and Kilmer, MGG2, ‘Mesopotamien’, Abb.22–3). Depictions on Iranian bronze beakers from the 10th and 9th centuries bce show lutes that correspond to a length of 140 cm (see Muscarella, 1975, figs.5 and 12). During the 1st millennium bce the lutes largely disappeared from Iranian art, but the instrument must have survived nevertheless, since it reappeared in the 1st millennium in many different forms. It may have existed outside the realm of élite society, largely neglected by art.
See also Lute (ii), §1.
Angular harps continued to appear on the art of this period and formed the core of Elamite royal ensembles at Madaktu and Kul-e Fara (fig.7). A depiction of the former occurs on an Assyrian wall relief from Nineveh (c650 bce; now in the British Museum) showing the banquet arranged to celebrate King Ashurbanipal's defeat of the Elamite army at the provincial town of Madaktu. The scene shows the exodus from Madaktu and departure of the Elamite court ensemble (fig.7b). At the rear 15 women and children wail and clap their hands; in the front are players of 11 melody instruments: seven vertical angular harps, two horizontal angular harps and two double pipes. Many instruments play simultaneously, possibly in some type of heterophony. Although Madaktu was only a provincial capital, it was large enough to support a substantial court ensemble. Susa, the main capital, probably had an even larger ensemble, but no depiction of it is known.
The largest collection of Elamite musical instruments is shown at the provincial site of Kul-e Fara (900–600 bce), which lies in a narrow valley surrounded by cliff walls carved with numerous reliefs. Three of the reliefs show groups of harps in various combinations. Although some of the carvings are severely eroded, surviving details allow several different kinds of harp to be distinguished (fig.7a). The first group (Kul-e Fara I) has been known for a century, but Kul-e Fara III and IV were published more recently (de Waele, 1989). Angular harps dominate, but there is a remarkable variety of combinations. Horizontal (H) and vertical (V) harps are grouped in the following patterns:
Kul-e Fara I: (square frame drum) + V + H
Kul-e Fara III: V + V + V
Kul-e Fara IV: V + V + H; V + V + H
Group IV is drawn on an uneven surface, and it is difficult to determine whether it shows a single group of six players or two sub-groups with three players in each. Since a leader seems to be at the front, the former interpretation is more likely.
Unlike other Iranian depictions of vertical angular harps (of which those of Madaktu are typical), those found at Kul-e Fara show different arrangements of the ornamental tassels hanging from the rod. Group IV lacks tassels altogether.
During the 3rd millennium bce, music was often shown in religious scenes, but sources from the next two millennia begin to show it in wider contexts. A metal bowl, dating from c650 bce, found at Arjan, Elam, shows a lively scene (fig.8) with a seated king entertained by an ensemble of musicians, dancers, stilt walkers and acrobats, while cooks prepare food and drink, and others carry jars or pots. The ensemble consists of a lyre, two angular harps, a set of double pipes, a lute and perhaps small percussion. It is thought to be a purely secular occasion, although the absence of texts to support this interpretation makes certainty impossible.
Perhaps the most remarkable scene of music-making in the ancient Middle East is found on a Hittite vase from Inandık dated a millennium earlier (see Anatolia, fig.7). The scene has many features in common with that on the Arjan bowl but is interpreted as ritual activity. There are 15 instrumentalists playing six thick lyres (a giant one requires two players), two long-necked lutes and six pairs of hand-held cymbals. Statuettes of an ensemble (lute and cymbals) stand on top of a broad pedestal, and another pedestal (or altar) supports a pair of bull statuettes. Beneath is a depiction of a real bull with a knife at his throat. Acrobats bounce and tumble, while other participants cook and scurry about with jars and pots. A semi-nude couple copulate, an act interpreted as the sacred ritual of hieros gamos (Gk.: ‘sacred marriage’).
Whatever the interpretations of these two bustling scenes, they provide lively testimony on the contexts of ancient music in the Middle East. Many aspects of music-making were probably similar throughout the region, but the written documents are relatively few and rarely permit general conclusions or regional differentiation. When there is ample textual evidence in one area (as with the use of music in Hittite rituals; see Gurney, 1977, pp.33–4), there may be no corresponding information in another – as with the lack of texts in ancient Iran.
There is little contemporary information on music during this time. Drawing on later texts, Boyce concluded that minstrels had flourished and held privileged positions at court (Boyce, 1957, pp.20–21). Likewise, there is no pictorial evidence from Iran itself, but a musical artefact influenced by Achaemenid culture has recently emerged from China: a key used to tune the qin-zither during the Warring States period (5th–4th centuries bce) was decorated with a bull-man resembling the large bull-men atop architectural pillars at the Achaemenid capital of Persepolis (Lawergren, 1997, and 2000). Such long-distance musical influence on China was facilitated by horse-riders travelling along the east–west expanse of the Eurasian steppes.
Greek writers have left much information on the Persians of the Achaemenid period, some of which concerns music. Herodotus remarked on Achaemenid priests who did not perform their rites to ‘aulos music’ (Histories, i.132). Athenaeus mentioned a court singer who sang a warning to the king of the Medes of the acquisitive plans of Cyrus II. Xenophon, who visited Persia in 401 bce, tells of the great number of singing women at the Achaemenid court (Cyropaedia, iv.6.11; v.1.1; v.5.2; v.5.39). Athenaeus related that the Macedonian general Parmenius captured the 329 singing girls belonging to the court of Darius III (Sophists at Dinner, xiii.608) and that a royal officer at Babylon had 150 singing girls at his table (xii.530). Because Greek writers are fairly unanimous, they should probably be trusted in their account of the many singing girls. The tradition of women musicians entertaining men continued in the Islamic period by the tradition of Qayna girls. They were uneasily tolerated by the faithful, as was their music.
The evidence concerning music in this period is more substantial than that from earlier eras, in particular relating to the Zoroastrian religion, which had already been adopted as the state religion by the Achaemenids and restored by the Sassanians after a brief interlude of Hellenism under the Parthians (see Parthian Empire).
One Zoroastrian text has already been mentioned in connection with Bactrian trumpets (see §1(iii) above). It is part of the Avesta, the holy book of the faith, preserved orally and not written down until the 5th century ce; the oldest surviving copy dates to the 14th century. The earliest part of the Avesta is the collection of gāthā, some of which go back to the 2nd millennium bce (Boyce, 1984, p.8; Mallory, 1989, p.37). The language of these texts is similar to that of the Indian Rgveda, and other features, such as some deity names, are also shared. The correspondence indicates a common origin of tribes speaking Indo-Aryan languages, and their homeland is considered to have been on the steppes of south Russia. One branch moved into north India around 2000 bce, when the Indus valley civilization (including its language) came to an end. Another branch probably entered the Bactria-Margiana region of eastern Iran (for indications of the language change there, see Hiebert and Lamberg-Karlovsky, 1992, pp.8–10). The gāthā were hymns similar to the Vedic Samhitās, which are known to have been sung or chanted (Gonda, 1975, pp.313–16).
Modern translations render gāthā variously as ‘hymns’, ‘poems’, or ‘psalms’. Although there is no direct evidence that the gāthā were sung, songs played a prominent role in early Zoroastrian imagination, and it is likely that they were chanted. The Zoroastrian paradise (garōdmān) was known as the ‘House of Song’ (Boyce, 1984, p.28), where music induced perpetual joy. Similar ideas also entered Mahayana Buddhism where sūtras glowingly describe music as one the chief delights of Paradise (see Lawergren, 1994, pp.234–8). For Zoroastrians, this music begins when a righteous person dies. The soul of the deceased chants for three days outside the head of the corpse (Boyce, 1984, p.81). In the 5th century bce Herodotus claimed that Zoroastrian magi (priests) chanted at sacrifices (Histories i.132).
Although no instruments were used in formal worship, Zoroastrians used them to add a convivial element to the celebrations of holy days, ‘putting to rout, for a moment at least, the gloomy forces of darkness’ (Boyce, 1992, p.104). In the late 9th century ce a Muslim scholar observed that pillars were built before the time of No Rooz (New Year):
One column was sown with wheat, one with barley, another with rice, the other ones with lentils, beans … millet, sorghum … And the harvest thereof was never gathered but with song and music and mirth, which happened on the sixth day after the beginning of No Rooz. Among the presents which the kings of different nations gave to the Persian kings were the rarest wonders of their lands … Ministers, chief scribes and private courtiers gave gold and silver bowls set with jewels and bowls of silver enriched with gold … Wise men gave their wisdom; poets, their verses … (trans. Boyce, 1984, p.70).
Some silver bowls associated with Zoroastrianism were decorated with musical scenes (see fig.10 below).
According to al-Mas'udī (d c957), music was greatly esteemed at court and the founder of the Sassanid dynasty, King Ardeshir I (d 241), gathered singers, virtuosos and others involved with music into a special courtly class. Two centuries later, Varahran V (421–39; also known as Bahram Gur) elevated this class to the highest rank (Christensen, 1936, p.31). He was fond of music and recruited 12,000 singers from India (said to be ancestors of the Loris). But music was cherished even more highly by Khosrow II (591–628), whose reign was a veritable Golden Age of Iranian music. He is shown among musicians on a large cliff relief at Taq-e Bostan in western Iran. The king stands in a boat shooting with a bow and arrows and is accompanied by a band of harpists, who sail in his boat and an escorting one; in addition numerous shore-bound musicians play on a platform. It is a remarkable scene where the boats are shown at two successive moments on the same panel, and the harps are rendered in considerable detail.
There are many tales about the musicians at Sassanian courts. Since these were illustrated in hundreds of manuscripts centuries later, the stories are as important to Persian musical iconography as the Bible was to the European Middle Ages. Most stories were recorded in the Shāhnāmeh (‘Book of Kings’) composed by Ferdowsi about 1010. This national epic was based on old bardic tales preserved orally in eastern Iran at a time when the minstrel tradition had ceased in western Iran. Another source, Nezami's Khamseh (‘Five poems’) of 1190, is partly derived from the Shāhnāmeh. Of its five sections, two are concerned with music: Haft paykār (‘Seven portraits’) and Khosrow va Shirin. The former tells of Bahram Gur and his favourite mistress, the Greek harpist Āzādeh. They became the most popular musical image of Persia, being depicted in Sassanian art after 650 and in Islamic miniature paintings between about 1300 and 1600 (Ettinghausen, 1979, p.29).
Another story in the Haft paykār concerns Bārbad, the sweet-voiced lutenist who lived during the reign of Khosrow II. He outwitted the envious harpist Sarkash (also called Nakisā) and became the king's favourite. There are many other stories, such as the one about Khosrow II who fell in love with his singing girl Shirin, and some may be rooted in reality. Bārbad, for example, is generally assumed to have been an historical person. A variety of later texts affirm his fame as composer and lutenist and acclaim him the ‘founder of Persian music’. According to one tradition he died from poisoning at the hand of Sarkash, who had stayed on as a minor court musician.
The Sassanians employed large number of instruments, many of which are known only in name. In the story known as ‘Khosrow and his Page’ the king asks: ‘Which musician is the finest and the best?’ and the boy diplomatically mentions the players of all instruments he knew: chang (which he calls the foremost), vin, vinkannār, mushtaq, tunbūr, barbat, nād, dumbalak, rasn and 16 others (Unvala, 1917, pp.62–3). The identity of the chang is known, but many others are as yet unidentified, and sound-similarities in translations cannot be relied upon. Barbat, for example, has often been translated barbitos (e.g. Boyce, 1957, p.23); but the latter is an ancient Greek lyre not used after 400 bce, and the barbat cannot be the barbitos (although the name may be of Greek origin, probably via Byzantium).
Iconographic sources provide more reliable information on instruments. Aerophones include the reed pipe (sornā; see Surnāy) and the double trumpet. The Chinese mouth organ (see Sheng), shown on a wall relief from Taq-e Bostan and a silver cup from Kalar Dasht in the Mazandaran (6th century ce; Archaeological Museum, Tehran), flourished briefly in Iran and, like some other foreign instruments and instrumental details, probably owed its introduction to traffic along the Silk Route; it comprised five, six or seven pipes in a wind reservoir with finger holes and reeds and was known in Iran as the mushtaq. String instruments were the horizontal angular harp (possibly vīn), the short-necked lute (barbut), which had between four and six strings, and the chang – a ‘light vertical angular harp’, a type that could have been invented in Iran, Central Asia or China (see Harp, §1). The membranophones included the kettledrum (kūs), small drum (tās), frame drum and hourglass drum (kūba), which was related to Central Asian drums. To the idiophonic group belonged the forked cymbals (chaġāna), related to Roman cymbals, and pairs of wooden clappers (or castanets, chahār pāra).
Although little literary evidence has survived from the Sassanian period, some insight into the nature of music may be gained from, for example, the writings of Qutb al-Dīn (Mahmūd ibn Mas‘ūd al-Shīrāzī; d 1311). According to him, seven musical modes were recognized during the Sassanian era, including sakāf, mādārūsnān, sāykād, sīsum and jūbarān (Farmer, 1926). The names are probably corrupt and lack musical significance. Christensen (1936, p.38) tentatively translates some as ‘sixth’, ‘plectrum’ and a place name. Qutb al-Dīn also asserted that Bārbad (fig.9) composed seven royal modes (khosrovāni), 30 derivative modes (lahn), one for each day in the Zoroastrian month, and 360 melodies or airs (dastān), one for each day in the Zoroastrian year (neglecting the five intercalary days). Other Muslim writers (e.g. Nezami) name some of the tunes, but do not give the lyrics. Christensen has suggested (1936, pp.44–5) that a manuscript found at Turpan (Xinjiang province, China) contains the words of a poem composed and sung by Bārbad or one of his contemporaries. It is an odd text found in a trove of Manichaean manuscripts, and has the song Khvarshēdh ī rōshan (‘The shining sun’) written in the Pahlavi language used at the time of Bārbad. Its four lines, each with 11 syllables, reads:
The
shining sun, the beaming full moon
resplendent and beaming behind the trunk of a tree;
the eager birds strut about it full of joy,
the doves and the colourful peacocks strut about.
The title is reminiscent of the name of a Sassanian melody, Arāyishn ī khvarshēdh (‘The beauty of the sun’), known from Muslim authors. The small difference, Christensen suggests, could have arisen when the Pahlavi text was combined with New Persian by Islamic writers.
MGG2 (‘Harfen [Antiken]’, B. Lawergren; also ‘Mesopotamien’, B. Lawergren and A.D. Kilmer)
J.M. Unvala, ed. and trans.: King Husrav and his Boy (Paris, 1917)
H.G. Farmer: ‘The Old Persian Musical Modes’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1926), 93–5; repr. in Studies in Oriental Music, ii, ed. E. Neubauer (Frankfurt, 1997), 426–32
A. Christensen: ‘La vie musicale dans la civilisation des Sassanides’, Bulletin de l'Association Française des Amis de l'Oriente (1936), 24–45
E.F. Schmidt: Excavations at Tepe Hissar (Damghan) (Philadelphia, 1937)
M. Boyce: ‘The Parthian Gōsān and Iranian Minstrel Tradition’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, ix (1957), 10–45
R.N. Frye: The Heritage of Persia (London, 1962)
E. Porada: The Art of Ancient Iran: Pre-Islamic Cultures (New York, 1965)
S. Fukai and K. Horiuchi: Taq-i-Bustan, i: Plates (Tokyo, 1969)
P. Amiet: Glyptique susienne (Paris, 1972)
J. Gonda: Vedic Literature (Samhitās and Brāhmanas (Wiesbaden, 1975)
O.W. Muscarella: ‘Decorated Bronze Beakers from Iran’, American Journal of Archaeology, lxxviii (1975), 239–54
O.R. Gurney: Some Aspects of Hittite Religion (Oxford, 1977)
J. Duchesne-Guillemin: ‘Cor de Yima et trompette d'Isrāfīl: de la cosmogonie mazdéenne à l'eschatologie musulmane’, Comptes rendus des séances [Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres] (1979), 539–49
R. Ettinghausen: ‘Bahram Gur's Hunting Feats or the Problem of Identification’, Iran, xvii (1979), 25–31
P. Yule: Tepe Hissar: neolithische und kupferzeitliche Siedlung in Nordostiran (Munich, 1982) [based on work by E.F. Schmidt]
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M.-H. Pottier: Matériel funéraire de la Bactriane méridionale de l'âge du bronze (Paris, 1984)
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P. Amiet: L'âge des échanges inter-iraniens (Paris, 1986)
B. Lawergren and O.R. Gurney: ‘Sound Holes and Geometrical Figures: Clues to the Terminology of Ancient Mesopotamian Harps’, Iraq, xlix (1987), 37–52
P. Amiet: ‘Antiquities of Bactria and Outer Iran in the Louvre Collection’, Bactria, an Ancient Oasis Civilization from the Sands of Afghanistan, ed. G. Ligabue and S. Salvatori (Venice, 1988), 159–80
E. de Waele: ‘Musicians and Musical Instruments on the Rock Reliefs in the Elamite Sanctuary of Kul-e Farah (Izeh)’, Iran, xxvii (1989), 29–38
J.P. Mallory: In Search of the Indo-Europeans; Language, Archaeology and Myth (London, 1989)
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Very few countries have such a long history of national and political identity as Iran. As a great empire, Persia was a meeting-place of diverse cultural elements. Yet it maintained its own marked individuality. Famed for its creative genius, Islamic Persia has exerted powerful influences on other civilizations and, in turn, absorbed the impact of contact with other cultures. In music, the Persian element was the dominant ingredient in the amalgam known as the Islamic musical tradition of the Middle Ages. This tradition relied on ancient Greek theoretical concepts but leant heavily on pre-Islamic Persian musical practices. The musical nomenclature of the Middle East, whether in Turkic- or Arabic-speaking regions, is largely Persian, and throughout this vast region most musical instruments have had earlier Persian prototypes.
See also Arab music, §I and Islamic religious music.
2. Theory of intervals and scales.
5. Musical instruments and vocal techniques.
6. Music education and performance.
Persian classical music developed from the music of urban and courtly tradition. The first substantial historical evidence on music relates to the Sassanian dynasty (224–651 ce; see §I above). The Persians possessed a high musical culture where musicians enjoyed an exalted position at the imperial court. Emperor Khosrow II (ruled 591–628) was patron to many musicians, among whom were Rāmtin, Bāmshād, Nakisa or Sarkash and Bārbad. The most illustrious, Bārbad (fig.9 above), is known to have devised seven royal modes (khosrovāni), 30 derivative modes (lahn) and 360 melodies (dastān), corresponding to the number of days in the week, month and the year of the Zoroastrian calendar. The nature and calendrical applications of these modes and melodies are not known, but some names have survived in the writings of early Islamic authors, such as al-Kindī (c801–c866), Ibn Zayla (d 1048), and particularly through the epic poem Khosrow va Shirin (‘Khosrow and Shirin’), one of the five sections of the Khamseh (‘Five poems’) by Nezami (d c1203).
The Arab conquest of the Persian empire begain in 642 and eventually resulted in the incorporation of Iranian nations within the greater Islamic Empire. With the ascendancy of the Abbasid dynasty (750–1258) and transfer of the seat of the Caliphate from Damascus to Baghdad, Persian political and cultural influences became dominant. The Arabs valued Persian culture highly and soon Persian musicians and musical scholars were to be found throughout the Muslim world. Among the outstanding were Ibrāhīm al-Mawsilī (742–804) and his son Ishāq al-Mawsilī (767–850), Mohammad Rāzī (d c923) and al-Fārābī (d 950). The last was the most celebrated of early scholars; his famous Kitāb al-mūsīqī al-kabīr (‘Great book on music’) contains discussions on musical instruments and on musical theory, including intervals, modes, scales and rhythmic cycles (see Arab music, §I, 2(ii)).
Al-Fārābī’s investigations were founded on theories expounded by classical Greeks, as were those of his illustrious follower Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) (d 1037). In addition to discussing modes and rhythmic cycles, Ibn Sīnā considered the notion of harmonic consonance and dissonance, the concept of ethos (ta’thir) and the therapeutic effects of music. Significantly, the names of the 12 primary modes as described by Ibn Sīnā are still found among the modes of contemporary Persian classical music, although they do not necessarily identify the modal schemes of Ibn Sīnā’s time. These 12 are rahāvi, hosseini, rāst, busalik, zanguleh, oshāq, hejāzi, erāq, esfāhān, navā, bozorg and mokhālef.
In the tradition of classical Greece, medieval Islamic scholarship concerned itself with music as an aspect of mathematical philosophy. As such, most men of learning took an interest in musical theory. In the succeeding period, the most important of many writers on music was Safī al-Dīn (d 1294). His Kitāb al-adwār (‘Book of cycles’) and Risāla al-sharaffiyya fi al-nisāb al-ta’lifiyya (‘Sharafian treatise on intervallic relations’) were highly influential in establishing a uniform theoretical basis for urban musical traditions throughout much of the Islamic world. His pupil Qutb al-Dīn [Mahmūd ibn Mas‘ūd al-Shīrāzī] (d 1312) also wrote on musical theory and his Durrat al-tāj (‘Pearl of the crown’) was widely circulated. Other scholars of note were al-Āmulī (d 1352) and al-Jorjānī (d 1413). The last great theorist of this era was ‘Abd al-Qādir (d 1435) whose Jāmi‘ al-alhān (‘Compendium of melodies’) contains rare examples of musical notation.
From the beginning of the 16th century, however, with the reunification of the country under the highly nationalistic Safavid dynasty (1501–1722), Persia became increasingly isolated from the rest of the Middle East, where Ottoman rule was paramount. The Safavids established the Shi‘a faith – a schismatic offshoot of Islamic orthodoxy – as the state religion, thereby creating an even greater separation from other Muslim states. The Shi‘a religious leaders have generally maintained a hostile attitude towards music; it was viewed with suspicion as its effect on the listener cannot be reasoned or theologically explained. Furthermore, music was generally seen as an accompaniment to frivolity and merriment, which could lead to impiety. The consequence of such proscriptive attitudes towards music was a gradual decline of musical scholarship from the 16th century to the mid-19th. Within urban settings, music was gradually reduced to a private, quasi-clandestine art where solo performance and improvisation became the dominant features.
The comparatively fallow period from the 16th century to the 19th gave rise to performing practices in which the individuality of modes became subordinated to a system where modes were linked into groups known as dastgāh. The system of 12 dastgāhs, which represents the classical tradition as known today, is largely a legacy of 19th-century practices. The definitive codification of this system is attributed to Mirzā Abdollāh (1845–1918), an eminent player and teacher of the setār (long-necked lute).
In the second half of the 19th century, European musical influences began to be felt. A Frenchman named Bousquet was employed in 1856 to organize a military band for ceremonial occasions at court. He was succeeded by Rouillon and Lemair, who established a music school to train conscripts to play Western wind instruments. The European marches and airs that these military bands performed were the first examples of Western music to be heard by the Iranian public at large. Through this music school, Western musical notation, theory, harmony and the very concept of a fixed and stable – as opposed to free and improvised – piece of music were introduced.
Numerous treatises on the theory of music containing discussions on intervals, methods of their measurement, modes and rhythmic cycles were produced between the 9th and 13th centuries. They were mostly written in Arabic, the scientific language of the vast Islamic domain. Within the Islamic community, there was a common thread of scholarly pursuit indicating that, on a theoretical level, music was based on shared principles, whether in Persia, Arabic-speaking regions, or Turkey. These theories relied fundamentally on the works of classical Greek authors from Pythagoras to Aristoxenus of Tarentum (see Greece, §I, 6). As music was not learnt or performed from notation, the measure of a true correlation between the theories expounded by medieval Islamic writers and the actual musical practices of their time cannot be reliably assessed. In theory, modes were conceived with tetrachordal arrangements of tones and semitones, corresponding to the Pythagorean whole tone of 204 cents and the semitone of one limma (90 cents). Other intervals, smaller than the whole-tone but larger than the semitone, were also in use. By the time of Ibn Sīnā (11th century), in a tetrachord of say c-d-e-f, there were, according to different methods of measurement, seven possibilities for a flattened d and five ways of achieving a flattened e. In the structure of various modes, however, no chromatic progressions from the natural to any flat version of a pitch were employed. Similarly, two versions of a flattened pitch were not used in succession.
In the 13th century, Safī al-Dīn re-evaluated the many theories, proposing only two possibilities for flat notes within each whole tone. According to his system, each tone (204 cents) could be subdivided into either limma (90 cents) or limma + limma (180 cents). Thereby, a tetrachord, having two tones and one semitone, yields seven possible pitches, and an octave composed of two conjunct tetrachords plus a whole tone contains 17 pitches, as shown in Table 1. (For a detailed discussion of medieval Islamic music theory to 1500, see Arab music, §I.) This highly exacting scale system has given way to a more flexible system in the surviving Persian tradition. The degree of correspondence to past practices cannot be ascertained, but one can recognize traces of Safī al-Dīn’s 17-tone scale, albeit in a distorted form.
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TABLE 1: Subdivision of the tetrachord into Pythagorean limmas (L) and commas (C) (Safī al-Dīn, 13th century) |
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open |
Z1 |
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Z8 |
sabbābe |
V1 |
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V7 |
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bansar |
khansar |
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(90 c) |
(90 c) |
(24 c) |
(90 c) |
(90 c) |
(24 c) |
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In the 1920s Ali Naqi Vaziri, a distinguished musician who had spent some years pursuing musical studies in France, proposed an artificial 24 quarter-tone scale as the basis for Persian music. His theory was not based on historical or scientific research but mainly derived from his abiding interest in submitting Persian music to the tempered tuning system to render it compatible with harmonization. To this day, many Iranian musicians believe their music is founded on a 24 quarter-tone scale, oblivious of the fact that no interval even approximating to a quarter-tone is used.
Vaziri organized a National School of Music and for some 20 years trained a significant number of musicians who became dedicated followers of his ideas. New pieces were composed within the framework of the traditional modes, but with an additional thin harmonic layer, a ‘progressive’ move seen as necessary for rescuing Persian music from stagnation. Naive and questionable as this aim was, it gained a considerable following. By the mid-20th century, Western influences had brought about a general acceptability and overwhelming popularity for music (both Persian and Western), effectively bypassing any religious objection that may still have existed (see §6 below).
In the mid-20th century, a Persian physicist and musician, Mehdi Barkeshli, attempted to establish, through scientific examination, that the contemporary tradition is still based on Safī al-Dīn’s 17-tone scale, but with the addition of one more possibility for the subdivision of the whole tone. According to Barkeshli, a whole tone is divisible into: limma (90 cents), limma + comma (114 cents), and limma + limma (180 cents). With each of the five tones in the octave yielding four possible pitches, and the addition of the two semitones, his octave scale contains a total of 22 pitches. This scale concept is appealing for its implied connection with past theories but difficult to reconcile with the reality of Persian music today. All theories that set forth neatly ordered and precise intervallic structures would seem unrealistic if in practice the music involves string instruments with movable frets and bridges, or wind instruments of no standardized size, thickness or substance.
Later studies on the intervals of Persian music, carried out in the 1960s by Hormoz Farhat, have been concerned with the reality of music as known and practised today. His findings are based on measurement of intervals and analysis of recorded music. No attempt has been made to prove links with classical theories, nor has there been undue reliance on Western musical concepts. His studies showed that Persian music cannot be represented meaningfully by any octave scale concept. It is rather pointless to speak of ‘the scale’ of Persian music. Such abstractions have no practical applications and tend to mislead. It is the groupings of tones into melodic configurations, normally not exceeding a tetrachord or pentachord, that are significant. Another striking feature of Farhat’s conclusions is that, in Persian music, intervals are often unstable; they tend to fluctuate, within a certain latitude, depending on the mode and according to the performer’s taste and inclination.
Based on these conclusions, the whole tone is reasonable stable, approximating to the Pythagorean whole tone of 204 cents. The semitone, although more flexible, is usually close to the Pythagorean limma of 90 cents. There are two unstable intervals that lie between the semitone and the whole tone. The smaller one varies between about 120 and 140 cents (‘small neutral tone’), and the larger of the two fluctuates between about 160 and 180 cents (‘large neutral tone’). In most cases, the two types of neutral tone come in succession, combining to complete the interval of a minor 3rd. There is also a variable interval of between 260 and 280 cents (‘plus tone’); it is appreciably smaller than the augmented 2nd. This tone has comparatively little application; where it is used, it follows, or precedes, a ‘small neutral tone’, together completing the range of a major 3rd. Whether these intervals represent deviations from the more exact intervals suggested by the classical writers and by Mehdi Barkeshli is open to question. Indeed the flexibility of intervals in modern Persian music is such that any number of theories can be broadly accommodated.
The traditional music is learnt by rote and, within the confines of the melodic dictates of each mode, is highly improvisatory. Musical notation is not used and can have little purpose. On the other hand, during the last hundred years compositions of pieces within the melodic frame of reference set by each mode have become prevalent (see below §4). In this context, Western notation has found wide application. Two additional signs, to express pitches lowered or raised by less than a semitone, were introduced by Vaziri early in the 20th century, and are commonly used. The koron indicates an approximate ‘half-flat’, and the sori a ‘half-sharp’ (see Table 2). The degree of lowering and raising of a tone is variable.
Persian classical music is represented by a corpus of amorphous pieces that are subject to extemporized renditions. They adhere to a modal principle that is defined by a set of pitches (maqām) and a certain melodic contour (māyeh). The pieces are collectively known as the radif (‘row’, ‘line-up’). 19th-century performing practices have tended to place these pieces into 12 groups, known as the 12 dastgāhs (a large unit with inner components; ex.1). The pieces within each dastgāh are generically called gusheh, and they carry their own individual names. Some of the dastgāhs contain large numbers of gushehs, which represent numerous maqāmāt, while others are composed of only a few gushehs. The 12 dastgāhs are: shūr, abu atā, dashtī, bayāt-e tork (or bayāt-e zand), afshāri, segāh, chāhārgāh, homāyun, bayāt-e esfāhān, navā, māhur and rāst (or rāst-panjgāh). Five of the 12 are commonly considered as subordinate dastgāhs (āvāz). Four of these, abu atā, dashtī, bayāt-e tork and afshārī, are taken to be related to shūr; bayāt-e esfāhān is considered as a derivative of homāyun. This classification, however, is poorly reasoned as it is merely based on a measure of relationship in the pitch material of these dastgāhs and not on their melodic content, which is far more axiomatic to their identity.
The performance of a dastgāh usually begins with one or more sections called darāmad (introduction). It is in the darāmad that the mode (maqām) and the melodic character (māyeh) of the dastgāh are revealed. After the darāmad, selections from the gushehs that are constituent parts of the dastgāh are presented. They differ from the darāmad in their māyeh, and they may also present, through modulation, different maqāmāt.
Some gushehs belong exclusively to the repertory of one dastgāh; others may be found within the structure of more than one dastgāh. In the latter category, there are those gushehs that preserve both their modal and melodic identity and those that maintain only their māyeh but yield to the set of pitches (maqām) of the dastgāh where they are placed. Notable in this type are gushehs belonging to dastgāh segāh, all of which can also be performed in dastgāh chāhārgāh.
It is common to begin the performance of a dastgāh in a relatively low register of the instrument or voice. The gushehs that follow the darāmad section are usually chosen to give a gradual ascent to higher sound registers. This systematic rise in pitch level was more binding in 19th-century practices; it is not always maintained in more modern performance styles.
Given the fact that a dastgāh is comprised of pieces in different modes, a measure of organizational unity is achieved through periodic reference back to the opening mode of the darāmad, which properly identifies the dastgāh. This is done by a concluding melodic cadence, placed at the end of each gusheh, which has presented a distinct maqām of its own. This melodic cadence, which may be brief or lengthy, is called forud (‘descent’), since it requires a modulation to the lower sound register of the darāmad section.
The entire performance process of a dastgāh is carried out, in the main, through extemporization. This occurs on the skeletal melodic material inherent to the mode of the dastgāh, as represented by the darāmad section, and extends to the various gushehs within the dastgāh. These melody models (māyeh) are not clearly defined, and no performer is able to isolate and tangibly represent them; nevertheless, they act as nebulous themes for an infinite number of variations. A broad understanding of the constituency of these māyehs is attained through years of training and immersion in a musical tradition that remains intriguingly arcane and non-specific. It is no wonder that many of the governing principles of Persian music remain controversial. A rendition of a dastgāh can vary greatly depending on the number of gushehs included and the degree of improvisatory freedom taken, and it may last just a few minutes or well over an hour.
20th-century performing practice of the 12 dastgāhs led to the creation of a new genre of composed pieces by known authors. The stimulus for this development came from Western music, which found increasing popularity. Whereas the traditional pieces from the radif are improvised variations on existing melody models, these 20th-century compositions were predetermined pieces of more or less fixed content, either written in Western notation or memorized.
In the main, there are four types of composed music. Three are purely instrumental: pishdarāmad, reng and chāhārmezrāb. The fourth, the tasnif or tarāneh, is a vocal genre. All four are composed in set metres, which distinguishes them from the improvised performance of the traditional radif, which is essentially non-rhythmic. The most common metre is the compound duple; simple duple, triple and quadruple rhythms are also used. Melodically, most composed pieces begin with a theme suggestive of the maqām and the māyeh of the darāmad, followed by one or more sections referring to one or more of the prominent gushehs of the dastgāh for which the piece has been composed. The exception to this rule is the chāhārmezrāb, which is usually a monothematic piece for a solo instrument.
The pishdarāmad ‘pre-introduction’ owes its origins to a growing interest in ensemble playing. Early in the 20th century, Persian musicians came in contact with Western orchestral music. The richness of orchestral sound was in sharp contrast to the soloistic/improvisatory modesty of Persian music, and it made a great impression. For ensemble playing, compositions with fixed melodic and rhythmic content were needed. Innovation of the pishdarāmad has been credited to Qolam Hossein Darvish (1872–1926). Although essentially an ensemble piece, true to the classical tradition, the pishdarāmad is monophonic and, as such, it can also be played by a single instrument. In melodic content it draws on the darāmad and some of the more striking gushehs of the relevant dastgāh. The rhythm is mostly in duple time, less commonly in triple or quadruple time. The tempo is normally moderate and the piece may last some two to five minutes.
The reng is a dance piece. There are some very old rengs by unknown composers, but hundreds of rengs have also been composed in modern times. In form, the reng resembles the pishdarāmad; it also draws on melodic material of the relevant dastgāh. It is, however, in a faster tempo, is nearly always in 6/8 time, and usually concludes the performance of a dastgāh. A reng can be played by an ensemble, but, having an older tradition than the pishdarāmad, is also very often played as the concluding piece for a solo performance.
Unlike the preceding two forms, the chāhārmezrāb is exclusively a solo instrumental composition intended to display the performer’s virtuosity. Its melodic content is simple and slight, with emphasis on fast and flowing movement around a fragmentary basic motif. A recurring rhythmic motif in 6/8 time is a common feature. However, modern chāhārmezrābs have become more elaborate, sometimes involving rhythmic syncopation and melodic extensions requiring modulations. The chāhārmezrāb is less fixed than the other compositional forms, allowing for some expansion through improvisation. The position of a chāhārmezrāb in the course of a dastgāh performance is not fixed. It may be placed near the beginning as a part of the darāmad section, in which case it will derive from the basic mode of the dastgāh. Additional chāhārmezrābs may be placed before or after one or more of the prominent gushehs of the dastgāh. In that case, they highlight the mode of that particular gusheh. The chāhārmezrāb may also come towards the end, just before the reng, or at the end, in place of the reng. Contemporary instrumentalists (especially santur and tār players) tend to intersperse their rendition of a dastgāh with an ever-increasing number of such display pieces. The growing interest in a show of virtuosity, as opposed to the more contemplative nature of the older style of performance, is another unmistakable outcome of Western influences.
The tasnif is a vocal piece performed with instrumental accompaniment by a soloist or an ensemble. Its structure parallels that of the pishdarāmad, but it usually comes towards the end of a dastgāh, just before the reng. In modern times it is not uncommon for the same tasnif to open and close a performance. Tasnifs written in the early years of the 20th century have serious poetic content with a social and patriotic message. The works of poet-musicians such as Aref, Sheydā and Amir Jāhed exemplify this type of tasnif. In the 1930s and 40s most tasnifs were set to high-quality lyric verses by classical poets such as Rumi, Hafez and Sa‘di. In the succeeding period of increased commercialization, tasnifs deteriorated in poetic and musical standard. A style of popular amorous ballad emerged, known as tarāneh. This genre, heavily diluted with Western elements, sometimes includes a thin layer of elementary harmony. Following the 1979 Revolution, composition of tasnifs gave way to more serious songs that conform to the ideological tenets of the clerical régime.
Historically, a wide variety of instruments has been used in Persian music, although some are now obsolete (e.g. the chang). Evidence suggests Persia as the source of several musical instruments found outside the country. The Persian dulcimer (santur) is found in North India and Greece (santouri). The Persian word Ney (‘reed’) is applied to various flutes or pipes throughout the Middle East and North Africa. The Persian word sornā (‘festive pipe’), distorted to zurnā, is applied to a similar instrument in Turkey and all countries in the Balkan peninsula (shahnāī in India; see Surnāy). The North Indian sitār bears a Persian name, although it differs in construction from the Persian setār.
There are many instruments of regional folk music not used in urban classical music (see §III, 3 below). Currently the most widely used instruments of classical music are: setār, tār, santur, kamāncheh, ney and tombak (fig.10). The dāyereh (frame drum) was formerly important.
The setār (fig.11a) is a long-necked lute with a small pear-shaped soundbox and four strings. Its name signifies ‘three strings’; a fourth drone string has been added in more recent times. It has a range of two octaves and a 5th, and it is strummed with the nail of the right index finger. The more ancient name for this type of lute is tanbūr or tunbūr; the name setār found currency from the 16th century. Similar instruments used in the folk music of eastern Iran to this day are called tanbūr. The tār (fig.11b) has a tonal range identical with the setār. It has three double courses of strings (six strings in all); the first two courses serve a melodic function while the third course serves as a drone. The tār has a double interconnected soundbox covered with parchment. The larger resonating chambers, doubled melody strings and use of a metal pick (instead of the finger-nail) result in greater sonority, which has made the tār much more popular than the setār. However, it has not had a very long history in Persia.
The santur (fig.11e) is a small dulcimer with two layers of quadruple strings tuned in unison resting on movable bridges. It has a range of over three octaves and is played with delicate hammers made of rosewood. The kamāncheh (fig.10a and fig.11c) is a spike fiddle with four strings and a range of about three octaves. Its soundbox is round and deep, with a skin-covered surface over which the bridge rests. Ney is the generic name for many types of flute. A wooden rim-blown flute called ney-e haftband has found its way into the classical tradition. It is obliquely held, with six finger-holes and one thumb-hole. The tombak (fig.10b), also called dombak, is a vase-shaped wooden drum, held horizontally on the lap and played with the fingers of both hands. As it is used for establishing rhythm, the tombak is also popularly called the zarb (‘beat’).
The ‘ūd (lute; fig.11d) is believed to be a later development of a pre-Islamic Persian instrument called barbat. It has been a prominent musical instrument throughout the Middle East and is still widely used in Turkey and Arabic-speaking regions. In Persia, however, since the Safavid period, the ‘ūd gradually lost favour with musicians. Reasons for this are unclear, but by the beginning of the 20th century it was barely known. In the second half of the century, attempts were made to revive interest in the ‘ūd. It now has some use, particularly in orchestral music although there are still very few proficient ‘ūd players in Iran. The same holds true for the qānūn (psaltery; fig.11f), which has also enjoyed a limited revival, mainly in some orchestral formations.
Several Western instruments have found a firm place within the Persian classical tradition. The violin has been adopted very effectively as it is capable of producing intervals other than the tempered semitone and whole tone. In fact, it has largely replaced the native fiddle (kamāncheh). Other Western instruments used in Persian music include the clarinet, flute and trumpet. The most incompatible instruments are those with fixed tuning, such as the piano, which is severely at odds with the pliable nature of Persian intervals. Nevertheless, the piano’s majestic sound made it all too alluring to be overlooked. With some tuning alterations, it has been widely used, both as a solo instrument and in ensembles (with less than felicitous results).
The traditional approach to learning Persian music is through private instruction from a master-musician. The process is essentially centred on mastery of an instrument. Even singers usually study with an instrumentalist, singing as the teacher plays on his instrument. Learning to perform and to improvise are inseparable; the necessary knowledge of the musical system comes as a by-product of gaining proficiency in performance. This traditional practice is still widely followed, although music schools that use organized classroom teaching also now exist (see §7 below).
After discussing how to hold the instrument, the teacher is likely to begin lessons with a simplified version of a darāmad of one of the dastgāhs. As the pupil progresses, the various gushehs of the chosen dastgāh are introduced. It is all done by rote. Purely technical studies or dry exercises detached from the dastgāh repertory have only a marginal place in the teaching process. With continued work, the pupil becomes aware that the object is not to learn specific and unalterable pieces, but rather that it is a question of mastering mutable ideas for the improvisation of pieces that have aspects of identity (tones, melodic configurations, range, limitations etc.), but no fixed formation or duration. Through this procedure musicians come to know the implied models of the radif repertory. They learn to improvise upon them and become imbued with an understanding that can be articulated in performance but not verbalized.
In this music the preponderance of extemporization has mitigated against the use of ensembles. Moreover, a monophonic music that utilizes a limited range of sound has little justification for the employment of an orchestra. Nevertheless, the inroads of Western music and the introduction of fixed compositions (see §4 above) have resulted in the formation of small ensembles combining Persian and Western instruments, e.g. tār, santur, ney and tombak, plus violin and clarinet. The gushehs that are subject to improvised rendition are played by individual musicians within the group. In vocal performances the singer leads in improvisation. He or she is followed closely by the accompanying instrumentalist (who must have considerable experience and an exceptionally retentive memory), resulting in an inadvertent imitative counterpoint.
Persian music has a unique vocal technique, which includes tahrir, a type of ornamentation with a quasi-yodelling effect and high falsetto notes. This difficult art has been declining since the beginning of the 20th century. Outstanding early 20th-century singers were Qamar and Tāherzāde.
Until the early 20th century, performance of Persian classical music was limited to special occasions in private gatherings, mostly in aristocratic homes or at court. Religious constraints tended to prohibit large public forums for musical presentation. Since then, Westernization and the advent of recording, cinema, radio and television have combined to give music a wider social application (see §7 below). Whereas in the past great performers were known by the social élite, today they are familiar to the bulk of the population. Outstanding performers of modern times, such as ahmad Ebādi (setār), ali akbar Shahnāzi (tār), Asqar Bahāri (kamāncheh), abolhasan Sabā (violin), Farāmarz Pāyvar (santur), Hasan Kasāi (ney), Hoseyn Tehrāni (tombak) and Qolāmhoseyn Banān (singer), gained recognition through their recordings, broadcasts and concert presentations, and have been revered by all.
Increasing Westernization was the dominant feature of Iran under Pahlavi rule (1925–79). Significant strides were made in the promotion of music as a social force. Tehran was the hub of activity, but larger provincial cities also gradually benefited. In the 1930s a music conservatory was established in Tehran under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and Arts, with theoretical and practical courses based on European models, and there was a state-funded School of National Music. In 1965 the University of Tehran organized a Music Department modelled on the American system, covering theory, composition, music education and study of different instruments of Western art music. A separate section dealt with systematic study of theoretical and practical aspects of Persian classical music.
Before the 1979 Revolution, radio and television stations aired all types of musical programmes and employed many musicians. In a lighter vein, composed songs of a hybrid Persian/Western type became increasingly popular. An ever-growing host of male and female singers captured the public fancy, stimulating a profitable record industry. These songs were taken up by professional entertainers, as were musical items from films (see §III, 5 below).
By the 1970s, Iran had a number of competent composers, conductors, pianists, violinists and singers of Western music, mostly trained abroad; some enjoyed international recognition. The Tehran SO, founded in the late 1930s, improved steadily. By the mid-1970s it had a hundred musicians under contract, performing regular concerts of the standard repertory and newly commissioned works. An opera company founded in the late 1960s staged works in the splendid Rudaki Hall, including a few by Iranian composers. The National Iranian Radio and Television maintained an excellent chamber orchestra, and there was also a ballet troupe.
The annual Shiraz Festival, held in the southern city of Shiraz and nearby ancient ruins of Persepolis, was another highly effective area of musical activity. The accent was on the Western avant-garde and authentic music from Iran (fig.12) and other parts of the East, with internationally known artists and groups.
With the 1979 Revolution and political takeover by the fundamentalist religious faction, all public music was initially brought to a halt. Music ceased to be broadcast, music schools were closed, and the Symphony Orchestra, opera company and ballet troupe were disbanded. However, within a few years the government came to realize that such draconian measures are untenable: music cannot be expunged from the life of a nation. Furthermore, the hardline position against music, when theologically scrutinized, was found to be largely groundless.
A considerable softening in policy has since occurred. The Tehran SO has been revived, music schools are functioning again and music is heard on radio and television. However, pop music of all kinds is held in disfavour, and women are banned from singing in public. At the same time, large numbers of Iranian expatriates (particularly in the United States) include many musicians continuing to produce and market a vast quantity of popular music.
On the private level, interest in music is greater than ever. Since the régime blocks so many avenues of pleasure, large numbers of people now find joy in the study of musical instruments, both Western and Persian. A real shortcoming is the lack of cultural exchange with the world at large, but that too will no doubt be re-established as Iran’s self-imposed isolation is gradually, and inevitably, rescinded.
See below for bibliography.
Iranian civilization has long been sustained by complex interdependencies among settled and nomadic peoples, cities and their rural hinterlands. As musical instruments, performance genres and melody-types were transported from one environment to another, some were distinguished as ‘regional’, ‘rural’ or ‘tribal’. The names of a great many classical gushehs refer to cities, regions or tribes. Similarly, within regional traditions, the principle of marking musical differences with geographic and ethnic names is widely applied, though on a smaller scale than in the classical radif.
The current political boundaries of Iran separate ethnic groups from their kindred in adjacent nations. The music of Pakistani Baluchistan Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and the Kurdish regions of Turkey, Syria, Armenia and Iraq affords many parallels with that of corresponding groups within Iran. Musical practices in the Gulf region also share many common features, some of African origin (see Arabian Gulf).
Regional musical traditions are closely correlated with differences of language, and many performers have been bilingual or multilingual. Persian (Farsi) is the mother tongue of little more than half Iran’s population, but most people are exposed to it. Sorani Kurdish, Kurmanji Kurdish and Baluchi are the other major Iranian languages. The most important Turkic language spoken in Iran is Azeri (Azerbaijani), dominant in the north-west; others include the language of the nomadic Qashqa’i of Fars province, the Turkmen to the east of the Caspian sea and scattered groups in northern Khorasan. Arabic is widely spoken in the south-west and in towns along the Gulf coast.
In regional traditions, knowledge of repertories and performance techniques is often transmitted from master (morshed or ostād) to pupil (morid: ‘disciple’ or shāgerd: ‘apprentice’) in ways that resemble transmission of the classical radif. This applies both to instrumentalists learning a repertory of melody-types and rhythmic patterns and to singers specializing in some type of sung poetry. One specialist, the naqqāl (fig.13) might spend up to 12 years with an experienced master learning how to sing and recite the epic Shāhnāmeh (‘Book of Kings’) of Ferdawsi, which consists of more than 48,000 distichs. A morshed who recites poetry in a traditional gymnasium (zurkhāneh) acquires his arts of recitation and drumming from a recognized master. Long periods of study are made necessary by the esoteric aspects of much musical knowledge, whether these involve the trade secrets of service professionals or the spiritual insights attained by musicians who take pride in their status as amateurs. The value placed on amateur or semi-professional standing is one consequence of the low social status traditionally assigned to service professionals.
There are several types of singing and instrumental music among the goods and services best provided by specialists from outside the immediate community. In cities, music for weddings and other festivities is often provided by members of religious minorities, notably Jews and Armenians, many of whom are also instrument-makers. Peasants may call upon musicians from nomadic or itinerant groups for entertainment at weddings, and certain villages have a high concentration of musicians available for hire. Within some tribal societies, the responsibility for playing certain instruments and for performing other services is vested in a relatively small endogamous group, e.g. the Tushmāl among the Bakhtiyari and the Ussa or Changiyān among the Qashqa’i. Musicians of many regions have acquired stylistic elements from the music of ‘outsiders’ such as the Godar of eastern Mazanderan (who number about 3000).
Regional differences are most pronounced with respect to instruments and ensembles, the ceremonial uses of voices and instruments, and the performance genres cultivated by specialists. Moreover, each region has several musical publics, and some are suspicious or simply unaware of the activities of others. This situation has limited the scope of information on musical instruments and performance genres given by Iranian and foreign authors. The first comprehensive survey of Iranian instruments was carried out in the 1980s and 90s by Mohammed Reza Darvishi, who is preparing a multi-volume encyclopedia of instruments.
Most Iranian performing arts allow performers to select stylistic options that either intensify or diminish the demands placed on listeners and spectators. The most accessible music has a constant metre, a fixed rhythmic pattern and a narrow melodic range. Performers may invite spectators to clap in rhythm, and in some genres all participants are obliged to sing the refrains. Soloists invariably depart from the simplest forms of any pattern, and then return at appropriate points of the performance.
Ceremonial uses of voices and instruments vary significantly among the different regions, notably in relation to the functions assigned to specific instruments. Human responsiveness to divine ordinances can be thrown into vivid relief by the absence of instrumental sounds, as in the call to prayer (azān) and recitation or cantillation of the Qur’an. The effective coordination of group movements in a regular sequence can be underscored by use of percussion instruments. The semantic associations of particular instruments can be evoked as appropriate in ceremonial contexts. Instruments may also serve as surrogate voices, or as the primary vehicles for performance of a sacred repertory.
The spiritual assemblies in which members of Sufi orders sing poetry and, in some cases, play instruments have long provided a favourable environment for the cultivation of poetry, music and other arts. In no other type of venue have so many languages and stylistic levels been brought into play, though differences among the orders are expressed, in part, through stylistic preferences and through avoidance of styles deemed inappropriate. The term zekr (literally ‘remembrance’) applies both to whole ceremonies and to short formulae or pieces that are sung or spoken at appropriate points within a ceremony.
The sacred instrument of the Ahl-e Haqq order in southern Kurdistan and Lorestan is the tanbūr (long-necked lute, fig.14; see §3 below). It accompanies the singing of sacred texts (kalām) in the spiritual assembly (jam‘) using modal entities termed maqām (or, more recently, dastgāh) and often named after important figures in the order’s history. Hewrami (considered a form of Kurdish by the Ahl-e Haqq) is the sacred language of the kalām, though other languages (e.g. Lori and Azeri) are also used in ceremonies. The group sits in a circle as zekrs from various sources are performed responsorially, sometimes with instrumental solos on the tanbūr interpolated into the sequence.
By contrast, the zekr ceremony of the Qāderi order in Kurdistan has two phases, during which participants are first seated and meditative then standing and singing as they move rhythmically. To introduce the entire ceremony, and during the ‘standing’ phase (qiyām or here), hymns and zekrs are sung to the accompaniment of large frame drums (daff). The techniques of alternating verses and refrains in a fixed-time cycle and of varying a melody that inexorably returns to its foundation enable singers to activate spiritual energies and to induce states of ecstasy. The purposes of the Qāderi assembly do not require the diversity of melodic resources evident in the rich Ahl-e Haqq tradition.
For further details on zekr (or dhikr) see Islamic religious music, §II, 3.
Responsorial singing also binds together the members of groups that have no connection with Sufi orders. In villages and some towns, members of a dasteh or hey’at meet regularly to sing verses (nowheh) that express their anguish over the martyrdom of the Shi‘a imāms. The leader sings to a somewhat variable pulse; this contrasts with the group’s short, more metrical responses (ex.2), which are normally accompanied by rhythmic breast-beating (sinehzani) or by striking the shoulders with small chains (zanjirzani). The tempo gradually quickens as the leader’s singing rises in pitch and his phrase groupings lengthen.
Nowheh sinehzani is often performed during or after a mourning procession commemorating the martyred imāms. For these processions, the most important dates of the Islamic lunar calender are the 9th and 10th of Muhorram (Imām Hossein), the 28th of Safar (Imām Hassan) and the 29th of Safar (Imām Rezā). Men and boys walk in step, as cymbals (senj) and perhaps a drum, even trumpet and piccolo, are played. When the group pauses to sing nowheh, the instruments are silent, unless they relieve the singers with an instrumental rendition of a strophe.
In the city of Mashhad, on the major days of mourning, groups from many regions of Iran form processions that circle the shrine of Imām Rezā. In the city of Bushehr, each residential quarter traditionally mounted its own procession on the 9th of Muharram, accompanied by an ensemble of eight cylindrical double-headed drums (dammām), eight pairs of cymbals and one long serpentine conical trumpet (buq) made of reed, with an animal horn containing a blow-hole attached at the upper end. As processions encountered one another, the buq players were expected to coordinate the rhythms of their ensembles. (See also Iraq, §III, 1(ii).)
In the province of Gilan and parts of Mazanderan, an ensemble of ten long reed trumpets (karnā) performs exclusively in mourning ceremonies and the ta‘ziyeh drama. The lead player thinks of religious verses appropriate to the occasion and imitates their rhythms and melodic contours with the two (occasionally three) pitches; the other nine play different pitches in a loose rhythmic unison as they ‘catch’ the leader’s words.
Sung plays (ta‘ziyeh or shabih) depicting events surrounding the martyrdom of Imām Hossein and members of his family (or, less often, the martyrdom of another imām) are performed in most regions of Iran. The ta‘ziyeh reached its highest point of development in the late 19th century, when foreign dignitaries were regularly invited to witness the elaborate performances sponsored by the Qajar court. The efforts of the Pahlavi shahs (ruled 1926–79) to discourage performance of the plays were more successful in the large cities than in towns and villages. Some prominent classical musicians have come from families known for their expertise in ta‘ziyeh performance, and portions of the classical radif may have been adopted from ta‘ziyeh melodies.
The ta‘ziyeh dramas are produced both by circles of devotees and by professional troupes (who interrupt performances at strategic points to solicit donations from spectators). Knowledge of a role (nagsh) is sometimes transmitted orally from father to son, but considerable use is made of manuscript texts, which actors may even read during performance. A curator of texts (noskhe-dār) serves as a highly knowledgable source of assistance to neophyte performers (e.g. Āmirzā Ali Paknefas of Qazvin, d 1994).
The use of singing serves to distinguish between the forces of good and evil. Soloists portraying the martyrs sing their parts, whereas their enemies do not sing but declaim their verses: singing is held to express human emotions that are sorely lacking in these evil characters. Drums and wind instruments often provide appropriate references to the battle between good and evil. Melodic patterns used for sung dialogues have clearly defined tonal functions and allow for interpolation of exclamations (ex.3). The melody of ex.3 changes direction at the caesura following the sixth syllable of each hemistich.
Rowzeh is an extended poetic narrative about the martyred imāms, performed by a specialized singer (rowzehkhān) at devotional gatherings, which are held at any time of the year in private homes, mosques and other public places. Texts are drawn from a large repertory of printed and manuscript collections dating from the 17th to the 20th centuries. The singer shapes and articulates conventional rhythmic and melodic formulae to elicit highly emotional responses from the listeners, many of whom weep profusely. (For further details on Shi‘a religious music, see Islamic religious music, §III.)
No form of sound communication is more important to the ordering of Muslim daily life than the call to prayer (azān). Qur’anic recitation and the singing of monājāt (prayers) and other religious verses in the home is an important part of personal religious observance.
Many urban men attend the morning or evening sequence of athletic exercises in a traditional gymnasium (zurkhāneh). These are led by a morshed who sings many types of verse (including short sections of the Shāhnāmeh, accompanying himself on a large earthenware goblet drum (zarb). The exercises are tightly coordinated with the drum rhythms. Late in the sequence a heavy rattle (kabbādeh) is lifted above the head and shaken; it has small metal discs attached to the links of a chain and weighs up to 24 kg.
As in many cities of Central Asia and South Asia, the naqqāreh-khāneh (literally ‘drumhouse’) once played a prominent role in time-keeping. An ensemble of kettledrums (naqqāreh), shawms (sornā) and long brass trumpets (karnā) used to play immediately before sunrise and after sunset from a tower (naqqāreh-khāneh). The institution survives (though without the trumpets) at the shrine of Imām Rezā in Mashhad (fig.15).
All over Iran vocal genres connected with stages in the life-cycle or with everyday activities used to be performed responsorially and antiphonally. Some are now sung by soloists with instrumental accompaniment, e.g. the motk sung by women in Baluchi mourning ceremonies. Singing to coordinate the movements of workers was highly developed in some regions (e.g. Gilan, Lorestan, Bushehr and Hormozgan), but in living memory many such genres have been abandoned.
Instrumental music is far more prominent in marriage celebrations than in funerals. The instrumental voices that best fit both contexts are those of two shawms, the sornā and the larger karnā. In Lorestani mourning ceremonies, melodic formulae played on the karnā (or sāz-e chapi) effectively recall the accomplishments of the dead.
Healing ceremonies in Baluchistan and the Gulf region depend on the participation of skilled instrumentalists. In the Baluchi gwāti ceremony, various tunes are played on the sorud (double-chested fiddle) or doneli (double duct flute) until one pleases the spirit (gwāt) responsible for the patient’s illness. This tune is repeated as the spirit takes full possession of the sufferer. More than one session (le‘b) is usually necessary before the gwāt makes known his demands through the altered voice of the possessed patient. If healing takes place, it is attributed to divine grace, not to the gwāt.
Musical offerings and appeals to spirits are equally important in healing ceremonies of the Gulf region, which inlude the zār, nubān and liwah. The tambire, a bowl lyre with six strings, is the sacred instrument of the nubān on the island of Qeshm and elsewhere in the province of Hormozgan. It is normally accompanied by two large double-headed drums (gap dohol) and a belt-rattle sewn with sheep- and goat-hooves (manjul or manjur).
See also Iraq, §III, 1(iii) and Arabian Gulf.
Of the six primary instruments of 20th-century Persian classical music, santur (dulcimer), tār (double-chambered long-necked lute), setār (long-necked lute), kamāncheh (spike fiddle), ney (rim-blown flute) and tombak or zarb (goblet drum), all except the setār are also prominent in popular or regional traditions, where they are found in variant forms. In the 1980s and 90s the frame drum (dāyereh or daff) began to reclaim its former place in the classical ensemble, though current playing techniques are rudimentary in comparison to those of the zarb.
Before the 1979 revolution, urban popular musicians (motreb) exploited the virtuoso possibilities of the tār and santur in radio orchestras and entertainment troupes. The violin was readily assimilated in both environments, whereas its suitability for music based on the radif remains a controversial subject. Some urban popular ensembles adopted a santur with 14 quadruple courses of strings rather than the 9–11 courses of the classical instrument. The Azerbaijani tār (tār-e qafqāzi or tār-e torki) had a major role in the radio ensembles called ‘Azerbaijani orchestras’, which were active for several decades. In contrast to the Iranian tār, it is held against the player’s upper chest and has a shallower body, a thicker membrane for the soundtable, 22 rather than 25 frets, and five or six additional sympathetic drone strings (fig.16).
The kamāncheh (spike fiddle) and ney (rim-blown flute) are central instruments within both rural and urban musical practices. The kamāncheh with either three or four strings (fig.17) is found among the Qashqa’i and in Lorestan, Azerbaijan, Gilan, Mazanderan, the Turkmen plain and northern Khorasan. In Gilan and northern Khorasan, it shares a repertory of dance tunes with the sornā, and some musicians are proficient on both instruments.
The ney is commonly called ney-e haftband (ney with seven nodes), but oblique rim-blown flutes have many other regional names. They are virtually ubiquitous (except from Azerbaijan), as is their association with shepherds. The preferred rim-blown flute of a given region often has a substantial repertory. In most areas it is played solo or accompanied by a drum (dāyereh, tombak or occasionally small naqqāreh). Players of rim-blown flutes often hum or sing a fundamental pitch while playing. In the late 19th century, court musicians adopted the Turkmen technique of placing the ney against the upper teeth, using the tip of the tongue to direct the air flow.
The next most common aerophone is the sornā (shawm, often simply called sāz: ‘instrument’). Its wooden body (usually 30–45 cm long) has a cylindrical bore along two-thirds of its length, expanding into a small bell below the lowest finger-hole. Its melodic range rarely exceeds a 12th. The much larger karnā or sāz-e chapi of Lorestan and of the Bakhtiyari and Qashqa’i has a detachable lower section of copper or brass, somewhat longer than the wooden body; the total length of a karnā may reach 90 cm. One sornā or karnā, played with the technique of circular breathing, is normally accompanied by one or more drums, usually the dahol (but dāyereh in western Gilan and naqqāreh in eastern Gilan and Mazanderan). In Azerbaijan a second sornā may provide a continuous drone. The sornā of Minab (Hormozgan), a relatively large instrument with a range of two octaves, is accompanied on festive occasions by two types of dohol (the gap dohol or mārsāz and the smaller jawrre) and perhaps one or two tombak. The combination of sornā or karnā and dohol has long been associated with weddings and circumcisions, acrobatics, wrestling and other games of prowess; it is heard in some ta‘ziyeh performances, e.g. in Hormozgan.
Other aerophones have more limited distribution. The bālābān of Azerbaijan and Kurdistan (also called nerme ney and mey) is a cylindrical pipe of about 30 cm, played with circular breathing (fig.18a). The broad 10-cm double reed produces a warm, pliable tone. When a pair of instruments is used, one musician (the damkesh) plays a continuous drone. The drone function is inherent in the structure of the Baluchi doneli, a double duct flute related to those of the Indian subcontinent. The ‘male’ flute which plays the melody has up to 11 finger-holes, of which only the lower six are used: the ‘female’ has eight holes, some filled with wax to produce the appropriate drone.
Double clarinets are played mainly to accompany dancing, usually with dohol accompaniment. They are found in Khorasan, the Zagros mountains and the Gulf region. Two pipes of equal length (about 15–20 cm) are commonly tuned in approximate unison, but expert players occasionally tune them a 2nd or 3rd apart to raise the energy level of the music; often one pipe acts as a drone. In Khorasan, the qooshmeh, dosāzeh and dobugeh are usually made from bird bones (eagle or crane), having five, six or seven finger-holes. In Kurdistan, Azerbaijan and Lorestan, similar double clarinets are made of reed (duzele: ‘two reeds’; see fig.18b). In the south-west, a similar six-holed reed instrument (ney-jofti, qalam-joftī) takes an important role in religious ceremonies, and it provides accompaniment for sung poetry and dancing. A double clarinet set within a block of wood serves as the chanter of the neyanbān, a bagpipe sharing much of the same repertory.
The cylindrical double-headed drum (dohol) is found in many of the ensembles described above. One skin is normally beaten with a large bent stick (gorz), the other with a thinner, more flexible stick (tarke). The diameter of each membrane invariably exceeds the length of its cylindrical body (e.g. in the ratio of 80:30 cm). In Hormozgan a group of three double-headed drums accompanies the qalam-joftī, entering in a prescribed order: dohol (played on both skins with the hands), pipa (played on one skin with a stick) and the small keser (played on one skin, with the hands, supplying variations of the basic patterns). Ensembles of drums playing complementary parts are highly developed in Baluchistan and the Gulf region, e.g. the Baluchi pair of barrel drums played with the hands (male dorrokor and smaller, female tambuk).
The frame drum (dāyereh or daff) occurs in many sizes, with or without attached metal rings. It has found its way into the most varied social situations, from the Sufi zekr to performances of street entertainers. It never lost its central role in the classical and popular idioms of Azerbaijan, and the best Azeri players display a high level of mastery.
The most important feature distinguishing long-necked lutes is the manner of sounding the strings: they are struck with the fingers of the right hand on the dotār (literally ‘two strings’) and Ahl-e Haqq tanbūr, plucked with a plectrum on the tār and Azerbaijani sāz. These instruments often accompany sung poetry. Every asheq accompanies his songs on the sāz (see §4(ii) below): with the bālābān and qāval (frame drum) or (in the west) solo. In addition to accompanying singing, the dotār has regionally specific functions (e.g. participation in ceremonies of the Sufi Naqshbandi order in Torbat-e Jam). Khorasani players delight in producing dense sonorities, and ensembles of several dotārs have become common. The Turkmen dotār is often played with the Turkmen spike fiddle (qijak).
Various sizes of dotār are played in eastern Mazanderan, on the Turkmen plain and throughout Khorasan. The two strings, tuned a 4th or 5th apart, are often struck simultaneously. Similarly, the Ahl-e Haqq tanbūr has two strings tuned a 4th or 5th apart, the higher pitch doubled by a third string. Most modern dotārs have 14 frets yielding a chromatic scale, but in eastern Khorasan three-quarter-tone intervals are used as well.
Khorasani dotārs (fig.19) are some 100–110 cm in length; Turkmen dotārs are about 85 cm, having more elaborate melodic ornamentation since the frets lie close together. The sāz or bāqlāmā of Azerbaijan (also called chogur) is approximately the same length as the Khorasani dotār, but with a proportionally much larger sound cavity. It has three triple courses of steel strings; the melody is played on the upper course, and the lower two provide a rich drone. The 14 frets produce a chromatic scale with the option of two three-quarter-tone intervals.
Baluchistan has four distinctive chordophones, the most important being the sorud or qheichak, a double-chested fiddle with a skin soundtable over the lower section, four melodic strings and four to ten sympathetic strings (fig.20). Its large solo repertory is partly shared with the doneli flute. Melodies that are highly ornamented on the sorud are rendered in their simplest form on the rubāb, a short-necked waisted lute with a skin soundtable over the lower section, four melodic strings and 10–15 sympathetic strings (see Afghanistan, §I, 6(i)). The sorud is often accompanied by the tanburag (also known as tanbire and setār: ‘three strings’). This instrument is larger than the classical setār (about 125cm long) and has three strings. It is an accompanying instrument, providing a rhythmic drone. The benju is a plucked board zither introduced into South Asia from Japan, one metre long, with a mechanized keyboard. Its four drone strings serve as a substitute for the tanburag, a small plectrum effectively producing ornaments on the two melody strings. (See also Pakistan).
The ability to sing or recite classical Persian poetry is remarkably widespread and in no sense the exclusive prerogative of specialists. Passages from Ferdawsi’s Shāhnāmeh (‘Book of Kings’) were once sung in many settings: nomad encampments, village social gatherings, teahouses and gymnasiums. Most melody-types used for singing the Shāhnāmeh accommodate two lines, each with two hemistichs of 11 syllables in the quantitative metre – –/– –/– –/–.
Singing for oneself, small groups of friends, children and other family members is common in most regions. Inhibitions make many people reluctant to sing in public unless they are recognized as having good voices. Social gatherings in the Mukri region of Kurdistan may include an activity known as gerelawije, in which everyone present takes a turn in offering a song, and in Khorasan the instrumentalists hired to perform at village weddings provide accompaniment for any guest who wishes to sing chāhārbeiti.
Genres of lyric song emphasize such topics as the singer’s loneliness, yearning for home or separation from his or her beloved, themes that are easily extended to praise of the singer’s home, family and beloved. The beauty and unpredictability of nature are also major themes. Lyric genres are aptly sung by someone working or travelling alone, but the same verses remain appropriate when the singer has an audience of a few hundred guests at a village wedding. One of the primary functions of music is to alleviate the pain of the individual’s condition by acknowledging and articulating it.
The literary form known as dobeiti is a couplet with 22 syllables in each line, almost always in the hazaj metre: – – –/– – –/– – (twice). It has a rhyme scheme of AABA or AABB for the four hemistichs and is often called chāhārbeiti (‘quatrain’). Such couplets are usually sung to melody-types that can accommodate one full line, which allows singers to introduce subtle melodic variations in the second line and subsequent couplets (ex.4). A singer strings together a sequence of couplets, repeating lines, inserting refrains ad libitum, and interpolating vocatives and expletives ar various points, often with elaborate ornamentation (tahrir). Most melody-types respect the division of the couplet into four hemistichs of 11 syllables each but do not impose a rhythmic pattern with a regular grouping of beats. Such melodies are sometimes described as ‘non-metric’, despite the fact that the poetic metre acts as a strong constraint, controlling the placement of ornaments and extended durations. In some verses the number of syllables is kept constant with no hint of a quantitative metre. Although instrumental accompaniment is not essential, the dotār, kamāncheh, ney, ney-joftī and ney anbān are capable of playing alternate strophes with ornamentation equivalent to that of the vocalist.
The varieties of dobeiti (or chahārbeiti) have many names, pointing to the subject matter, melody-type or manner of performance. Gharibi, a common term in several regions, emphasizes the singer’s predicament as a stranger far from home. In the Talesh region of Gilan, the generic term is dastun and melody-types bear the names of localities (e.g. kargānrudi, asālmi, māsāli). In Fars and the Gulf region, the most important term is sharve, and many verses are attributed to named poets such as Fāyez Dashtestāni (1834–1911) and Maftun (1897–1962). Singing styles vary with respect to features such as emphasis on, or avoidance of, melodic climaxes in the sharve. In northern Khorasan the āhang-e sarhaddi (‘tune of the Sarhadd region’) is the preferred melody-type. Around Torbat-e Jam some of the same verses are sung in a number of genres, e.g. sarhaddi, jamshidi, hazaregi and kucheh-bāqi. (See Afghanistan, §II, 2(i).)
The quatrains sung in Azerbaijan (bayāti, similar in form to the Turkish māni) usually have seven-syllable lines with the rhyme scheme AABA, as does the ağit, a lament for the dead. Some scholars believe that bayāti and māni derive from a process of interaction between the Persian dobeiti and older forms of Turkic poetry. Qoshma is the other major type of Azerbaijani quatrain: lines of 8 or 11 syllables have the rhyme scheme AAAB and the final line is sometimes a refrain. Rhythmic and melodic considerations occasion the expansion of some lines, elimination of others and addition of refrains or vocables during performances. The qoshma is easily extended into a strophe of five hemistichs with the rhyme scheme AAABB.
In Kurdistan, lyric genres are not arranged in quatrains. The most popular Kurdish songs, known as gorāni or stran, are short and relatively easy to learn. Their refrains are sometimes longer than the verses. Lawik, heyrān and qetar are common genres calling for elaborate ornamentation as the melody gradually descends within an interval of a 4th or (more often) 5th. The distinctive melodic profile of each genre make it easy to recognize in instrumental performances. Singers make extensive use of syllables such as leyley, lolo and loyloy. These genres are often followed by a pashbend (‘suffix’, ‘after-verse’) in a dance rhythm.
Baluchistan, like Kurdistan, is exceptionally rich in lyric genres, which lend themselves to instrumental adaptation. Zahirok and liku, like the Persian gharibi, express yearning for home or anguish at separation from the beloved. The melodies may have a range of two conjunct or disjunct 4ths; they are highly ornamented and avoid any metric regularity. Both genres are often accompanied on the sorud, which provides introductions, interludes and conclusions, plus a constant drone. The metric genre known as sawt is usually sung to instrumental accompaniment and treats many topics. It has an unusually large repertory of melodies; a single song may contain phrases based on several different species of tetrachords.
Several types of professional and semi-professional performers have long been recognized for their large repertories and skill in holding an audience. These include the Persian naqqāl, Baluchi shā‘er or pahlawān, Kurdish beytbij, Azerbaijani ‘āshıq, Turkmen and Khorasani bakhshi. Prior to the 1979 Revolution, an elaborate wedding celebration (toy) in Turkic-speaking areas was incomplete without performance of stories (dāstān or hikāye) that include quatrains sung to instrumental accompaniment.
Other major venues for performance of narrative genres were upper-class homes and, from the 17th century onwards, teahouses (most of which were closed after the 1979 Revolution). The traditional patronage base of the great Iranian storytellers did not survive the social changes of the 20th century, although in current times a festival of traditional arts may bring together outstanding performers in most of the categories described.
Baluchi verse narratives (sheyr) used to be performed by a poet-singer (shā‘er) at gatherings of the ruling khans, and occasionally at marriage celebrations. Extensive stories such as ‘Chāker and Goharām’ might last as long as ten hours. They primarily tell of heroic deeds and historical events, but include tales of lovers who overcome various obstacles to their union. The singer is generally accompanied by sorud and tanburag. He should effectively combine three performance styles, moving from expressive singing (alhān, pl. of Arab. lahn: ‘melody’) to rapid declamation (dabgāl) or short metric songs (sāzenk); instrumental interludes are inserted at prescribed points. At the highest level of mastery, the poet-singer is termed pahlavān (‘singer of heroism’).
A Kurdish beytbij may sing throughout the epic (beyt) without instrumental accompaniment or may combine sung poetry with spoken prose. Presentation of a long beyt may extend over several evenings. Topics range from stories of ill-fated lovers to warfare between Kurdish princes or Kurds opposing Ottoman or Persian armies. Narrative poems by modern Kurdish writers such as Abdollah Guran (1904–62) often carry political implications; they are sung throughout Kurdistan in a style similar to the beyt. Traditionally semi-professional, the beytbij acquires his art through extended study with a master (westa). ‘Ali Bardashani, the celebrated beytbij active at the Bābān court under Abdolrahmān Pasha (ruled 1789–1812) was said to have received assistance from supernatural beings (jindōkān), and in return he supposedly sang at their weddings. Other early singers are also remembered by name.
Each strophe of a beyt generally has a variable number of lines of varying length, with a common rhyme. Successive strophes are often linked by a repeated word, phrase or thought. Although the parlando singing style avoids regular grouping of beats, the variation and expansion of short rhythmic and melodic ideas lend coherence to the singer’s discourse. Melodies generally descend within the range of a 4th or 5th.
The most richly developed narrative repertories are those of the Azerbaijani ‘āshıq and Khorasani bakhshi, memorized from manuscripts or inexpensive books and occasionally enlarged with new items. Versions of some Turkic narratives (e.g. the love story ‘Tāher and Zohrā’) are known to storytellers over a wide area extending from Xinjiang in China, through Uzbekistan, northern Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, northern Iran, Azerbaijan and Turkey. Musical presentation is particularly appropriate for two lovers’ exchange of strophes; prose narration explains the situations that motivate the lovers to sing and the strophic melodies are echoed in instrumental interludes. Most strophes are quatrains with lines of 8 or 11 syllables (the latter divided 4 + 4 + 3 or 6 + 5), grouped into larger sequences by common refrain lines and common melody-types. In Azerbaijan each tune (havā) has a proper name. Names are less important in Khorasan; some tunes accommodate verses in three languages (Khorasan, Turkic, Kurmanji Kurdish and Persian).
In western Azerbaijan an ‘āshıq accompanies himself on the bāqlāmā (sāz), and likewise every bakhshi sings to his own dotār accompaniment. The ‘āshıq and bakhshi also perform genres with religious connotations, some employing quantitative metres (derived from the classical Persian aruz metrical system and linked to specific melody-types) rather than the syllabic metres of Turkic folk poetry. A well-known example, transcribed from the singing of Asheq Hassan Eskandari (b 1947), is a strophe from the much-loved sequence Heydar Bābā-ye Salām by Shahriar (1904–89). Shahriar’s strophe has five hendecasyllabic lines (divided 4 + 4 + 3) with the rhyme scheme AAABB.
For further details on the ‘āshıq see Azerbaijan; for the Turkmen bakhshi see Turkmenistan.
Several types of performance described by 17th-century European travellers (Olearius, Chardin and Kaempfer) remained current in Iranian cities until the aftermath of the 1979 Revolution. By the 1990s, however, some had been abandoned. An example is the role of the luti, who sang and danced to his own dāyereh accompaniment, often transgressing the norms of ‘proper’ behaviour. Some performed as transvestites or sang verses praising opium and mocking the authorities. Another type of traditional entertainer, Hāji Firuz, was an actor with a blackened face who performed on the streets at the Persian New Year. He would recite verses in a high-pitched voice to dāyereh accompaniment. A high-pitched vocal style was also used in forms of puppet and marionette theatre (e.g. pahlavān-kachal and kheimeh shabbāzi), which are now rare.
In the 1960s, prior to the Revolution, a troupe of popular entertainers (dasteh-ye motreb) would include players of tār, violin, sornā, zarb, dohol and dāyereh, alongside dancers with finger cymbals, acrobats and actors, one of whom played female roles. Such troupes performed improvised comic skits at weddings and circumcisions in rural areas, and in cities they typically entertained crowds near bus stations. For several decades after the first Persian sound film (1934), films with musical numbers were a significant source for professional entertainers. Films with music in motrebi idiom are no longer produced.
These performers (motreb) enjoyed none of the artistic prestige carried by the cognate term, mutrib, in Arabic-speaking countries: in Iranian culture motreb carries derogatory connotations. Clowning is characteristic of the motreb and was highly valued at the Qajar courts (1779–1925). 20th-century rulers have not cultivated a taste for comedy and satire, although it remains strong in the population as a whole.
In some cities, notably Shiraz, Jews predominated in the profession of motreb, but numbers have declined dramatically through emigration to Israel. Motrebs do not work alone, since many solo lines require a response. Duos are common (e.g. a violinist and singer who also plays dāyereh or zarb); they are also less likely than larger groups to attract unfavourable attention.
Several regional traditions of instrumental music have gained a new respectability through the appearances of outstanding performers at festivals. The traditions have varying norms for linking together the components of a performance. In Lorestan the duo of sornā and dohol customarily begins with sangin se-pā (‘three steps, heavy’) and concludes with shāne-shaki (‘shaking shoulders’). Duos in northern Khorasan (sornā and dohol kamāncheh, and dohol or qooshmeh and dāyereh) are less likely to follow a prescribed sequence of pieces. They may freely mix the main dance-types (e.g. do qarseh, enaraki) with other familiar melodies (e.g. Köroğlu). Hemiola rhythms are extremely frequent in instrumental music at all stylistic levels throughout Iran.
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