Country in Central Asia. Tajikistan differs from the other Central Asian Republics in its Aryan-Iranian heritage. For nearly two millennia before the arrival of the Turkic people who now predominate in Central Asia the area was part of a great cultural melting-pot that included the Persians, Sogdians, Seleucid Hellenes and Kushans and the Parthians. At least two branches of the Silk Road passed through the area that became Tajikistan, bringing religions, goods, ideas and music. The arrival of the Huns, Arabs, Turks, Mongols and Uzbeks ensured a rich cultural mix.
It was only in the 1920s that the Soviet neologisms Tajikistan and Uzbekistan were created from the broader geographical area of Transoxania. Consequently, Tajik musicians are traditionally located in both republics. In Uzbekistan, female sozanda and male mavrigi wedding entertainers of Bukhara, Samarkand and Shakhrisyabz have developed special styles that suit these urban contexts (see Uzbekistan, §I, 1(v)).
Uzbek and Tajik musical symbiosis is the result of a long and complex process, which began around 1500 with the Uzbek invasions. The Tajik culture to which the Uzbeks adapted was formed during two periods: that of a Persian (later Tajik) substratum developed before the earliest Turkic incursions (i.e. by 500 ce) and that which evolved in a millennium of pre-Uzbek Turco-Persian contact (500–1500). Tajik music culture is a product of the same conditions, which Uzbek culture influenced later. Perhaps the area of most significant musical cooperation has been that of the classical style of Transoxania, which reached its height in the court music of the Kingdom of Bukhara, the shashmaqom (‘six maqām’).
MARK SLOBIN/ALEXANDER DJUMAEV (I), LARISA DODHOUDOYEVA (II)
Tajik instruments, repertories and practices fall into two broad categories, those of the mountain dwellers and those of the plains and river-valley Tajiks. The latter group shares many components of its music culture with the neighbouring Uzbeks, while the former maintains highly distinctive, at times archaic, traits.
The mountain Tajiks consist of the inhabitants of the Karategin, Darvaz and Gissar zones, who speak dialects of Tajik (eastern Persian), and the Pamir peoples, small isolated populations near the Pyandzh river (on the Tajik-Afghan border), who speak ancient Persian languages. The distinctiveness of Pamir music rests primarily on a type of lute, often called robab, and on characteristic types of song. The Pamir robab has a bent pegbox, broad fingerboard, thick hide soundboard, bowl-shaped belly and wide flanges. Its most obvious morphological ties are with the damyan of Nepal, confirming a pattern of cross-mountain relationships between the Pamirs and Himalayas. The robab is played with sharply accented strokes of a thick wooden plectrum and often accompanies songs in a low register and tremulous, hoarse timbre. Women's antiphonal work songs are another Pamir genre. The Pamir share many musical traits with neighbouring mountain Tajiks (who also live in adjacent Afghan Badakhshan), including masked and animal-imitation dances, brief folk scenarios (generally humorous or satirical) and depictions of occupations (textile-making, hunting etc.). The mountain Tajiks' three main instruments are the tulak, a fipple flute, the dumbrak (or dambura, dutar-i maida), a two-string fretless lute, and the ghidjak, a spike fiddle with a tin-can resonator. (The dumbrak is a close relative of the southern Uzbek dombra or dömbra and of the Afghan Turkestani dambura.) Each of these instruments has a characteristic repertory among mountain Tajiks without parallel in the lowlands regions. A general term for some of the styles is falak (‘firmament’, ‘fate’) or gharibi (‘poor man's music’), whose typical features include a narrow melodic range, considerable chromaticism, extremely protracted final syllables, free rhythm or frequent use of heptameter quatrain verse form, and parallel 4ths on the lute and fiddle. These features also characterize the music of Afghan Badakhshan.
The instruments of the plains and river-valley Tajiks are largely the same as those of the Uzbeks (see Uzbekistan). The two groups share the tanbur (see fig.1), dutar, Kashgar robab, chartar, panjtar and shashtar (long-necked lutes), tar (a Caucasian instrument, recently widespread), chang (a struck dulcimer), ghidjak (fig.2) and sato fiddles, surnai (shawm; fig.3), karnai (horn), juftnai, a paired single-reed pipe (Uzbek qoshnai), naghara and doira drums (fig.4), qairaq stone castanets and safail jingle. Among those not shared with the Uzbeks are the Afghan robab lute, the Dulan robab and the panjtar as a fiddle.
Within the framework of these two groups – the mountain Tajiks and the lowland dwellers – there are differences in the music found in some of the local regions, each having its own specific styles and genres. In the northern regions (Khojand, Ura-Tyube, Isfara) the vocal genre known as the naqsh (literally: ‘pattern, ornament’) is widespread, and it exists also in other parts of Tajikistan. Usually it consists of a cycle of pieces (naqsh-i-kalon, naqsh-i miyona, naqsh-i khurd) performed by male singers during wedding rituals in both the Tajik and Uzbek languages. In recent times the naqsh formed part of the spring calendar ritual: a festival of tulips (sair-i gul-i lola).
In the southern part of Tajikistan – Kulyab, Kurgan-Tyube, the Garm region and the Gissar valley – the tales (dastan) of the Gurugly epic cycle are common. These dastan, accompanied by the two-string dutar or dumbrak, are one of the most popular and important features of the oral epic tradition. The repertory of a bard who performs this epic (guruglikhon) comprises more than 30 such melodies. There are two principal schools of guruglikhon: the Kulyabian and Karateginian.
The Yagnob, a people of scant population, are the descendants of the ancient Sogdians. They inhabit villages of the Upper Zeravshan and Yagnob river and retain their own musical traditions. Their vocal and instrumental pieces are not melodically expanded. The most widespread song genre (both in the Yagnob and Tajik languages) is the bait. It forms the basis of such genres as the muhammas, khavozi, askari and the baithoi oshuqi. Wedding songs are performed separately by male and female singers. Women sing barakallo (exclamations of approval) and muhammas with dances. Usually, the Yagnobs use the doira drum and the two-string dutar or short-necked dumbrak. In general, the music of the Yagnobs forms part of the stylistic unity of northern Tajikistan.
It was posited by the Uzbek scholar Is'haq Rajabov (1927–82) that the formation of the shashmaqom was already in progress during the 18th century. The earliest written reference to the shashmaqom was discovered in the bayaz, collections of poetry for shashmaqom performers dating from the time of the Bukharan ruler Nashrullah Khan (1826–60). The crystallization of the cycle was based on the system of 12 maqām (duvazdah maqām), which had its own local school in Bukhara in the 16th and 17th centuries. The founder of the school, the poet and court musician at the time of the Sheibanid rulers, Mawlana Najm ad-Dim Kawkabi Bukhari (d 1531), created new maqām theory in his treatises on music written in Persian-Tajik. The theory influenced the science of music in northern India and Iran. His successor in Bukhara, the court musician, scholar and poet Darwish Ali Changi, who lived during the late 16th and early 17th centuries, wrote an important historical treatise on music in Persian-Tajik.
From the late 19th century until the 1920s, the principal centre of the shashmaqom was the court of the Bukharan rulers Muzaffar Khan (1860–85), Akhad Khan (1885–1910) and Alim Khan (1910–20). At this time a number of treatises on music and the shashmaqom in a light and popular form, as well as many bayaz, were written in Bukhara. The shashmaqom and their various branches were also widespread in the educated strata of urban society. The prominent performers of the shashmaqom at the close of the 19th century until the 1920s were Ota Jahol (1845–1928), Ota Ghiyos (1858–1927), Levi Bobokhan (1873–1926), Domla Khalim (1878–1940), Hoji Abdulaziz Rasulov (1852–1936) and others. The six maqām (in standard order) are buzruk, rast, nava, dugah, segāh and iraq. The last five terms are also names of classical Persian āvāz (modes), while buzruk is an archaic variant of Persian bozorg (‘large’). All six maqām have the same basic internal structure, with some variation in detail, and exist in both Uzbek and Tajik versions. Each maqām is divided into an instrumental section followed by an extensive set of accompanied songs. The former (mushkilot: ‘difficulties’) is considerably shorter than the latter (nasr: ‘text’). The mushkilot consists of five movements known as tasnif, tarje, gardun, mukhammas and saqil. Except for the gardun, all movements have a rondo-like structure consisting of a recurring phrase (bazgui) and varied khana (‘departures’); the gardun contains only khana sections. Ex.1 gives the first two khanas and the bazgui of the tasnif movement of maqām buzruk.
In contemporary practice the nasr, or text section, of each maqām employs a small chorus of singers in unison with a group of instrumentalists, who also play in unison with only minor embellishments. The internal structure of the nasr is complex. The largest subdivisions are termed shuba (‘branches’); of these the first group of shuba has a unique configuration, while the remaining groups (up to three) each follow a standard outline. The first group of shuba contains four extended songs known as sarakhbar, talqin, nasr and ufar, the last being in a dance rhythm. Between each of these weightier songs are up to six lighter and briefer compositions called tarona, which may be based on folk texts and rhythms rather than on the complex metrics of classical Persian verse. The second and subsequent groups of shuba have five songs called sawt, talqincha, qashqarcha, saqinama and ufar; there are no taronas. A principle is introduced whereby each movement employs the same melody but varies the rhythmic structure according to the metre of the poem being set. The basic structures are 15 (4 + 4 + 4 + 3) for the sawt, 14 (7 + 7) for the talqincha, 20 (5 + 5 + 5 + 5) for the qashqarcha, 10 (5 + 5) for the saqinama and 13 (5 + 5 + 3) for the ufar. Apart from the groups of shuba there are usually groups of separate movements in each maqām, sometimes bearing the name of an outstanding performer who has left his mark on the repertory.
Complex musical material fills out the structural skeleton of each major song. There are four main components of the maqām songs, each involving a different aspect of performance. Two are rhythmic factors: the verse metre (the sole differentiating element in the later groups of shuba but important in every movement) and the usul, or drum pattern, beaten out by the tambourine unvaryingly throughout the song; these two rhythmic components are interrelated. The other two factors are melodic and structural. One is the tendency towards an asymmetrical arched contour for each movement, which reaches its peak (auj) nearer the end than the beginning of the song. This basic contour is terraced, with each successive rise or fall of tessitura marked by an instrumental interlude setting the new pitch level. The other important melodic factor is the grand scheme of modal relationships within each maqām and within each movement. Extended melodic patterns (namud) are identified by a modal name and are grafted on to the melodic structure of the given maqām. A namud often occurs as an auj culmination section. Ex.2 illustrates namud-i nava (Uzbek version), which appears definitively in the opening of the sarakhbar movement of maqām-i nava and is found in the nauruz-i saba group of shuba of maqām-i rast, in the sarakhbar, talqin-i nasr and ufar of maqām-i segah and in various shuba of maqām-i nava proper. As a namud such as the one in ex.2 appears in various metro-rhythmic contexts (including diverse drum accompaniments), it takes on new characteristics.
It is worth noting that the only indigenous Central Asian system of music notation was developed for the shashmaqom. This is the ‘Khorezmian’ notation, a tablature for the tanbur lute (the leading instrument of the maqām ensemble) developed for the Khan of Khiva, Muhammad Rahim-Khan II (1865–1910), by Niaz Mirzabashi Kamil (d 1899). The entire shashmaqom was transcribed into this system: it consists of a horizontal grid indicating frets, with vertical connecting lines to show melodic motion and dots to represent the number of back and forth right-hand strokes (e.g. quaver values) for each note. The underlying rhythm is notated by stating the usul drum pattern. The relationship of the shashmaqom to surrounding classical music, such as that of Iran, Azerbaijan, Turkey and the Arab countries, has to a certain extent been established, and links to other neighbours such as the Kashmiri maqām and the north Indian rāga have been explored.
In the Soviet period, the practice of performing the shashmaqom was extended within the context of concert forms; they were performed by state organizations such as radio, television, the Philharmonia and educational organizations. These organizations were concentrated in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan. A separate local tradition of performing the maqām has been preserved in Khojand.
After the October Revolution in Russia (1917) and creation of the Soviet Empire, the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic was formed within the borders of the USSR and European genres of classical music were introduced.
During the 1920s professional training in music composition was organized in colleges in Bukhara and Samarkand, then the capital of Uzbekistan, of which the Tajik Autonomous Republic was a part (1924–9). The Russian musicians A. Listopadov and N. Mironov were the first teachers in these colleges. In 1929 in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, the Tajik State Dramatic Theatre, consisting of the dramatic and musical ensembles, was opened. Opera, ballet, orchestral and chamber music were introduced. Tajik musicians became members of the Tajik Composers' Union (1940), and many musical schools and centres were opened in Dushanbe, including a musical-ballet school (1934–7) and the Tajik Philharmonia (1937–40), comprising an orchestra of national instruments, the ensemble of masters of the robab, the Folk Dance and Song Ensemble, the Pamirian Ethnographic Ensemble and a children's ensemble.
Russian professional composers, teachers and ballet masters took an active part in the formation of a new style of Tajik music. Using the national Tajik ritual ‘sair-i gul-i lola’ (festival of tulips), the composers S. Balasanian and S. Ubakh and the librettist S. Saidmuradov created the musical performance Lola. In 1937 Balasanian, together with the poets A. Dekhoty and M. Tursunz-ade, presented the first Tajik opera, Vosstaine Vose (‘Rebellion of Vose’), which synthesized Tajik traditional arts with the new musical forms. Several Tajik musicians trained in Russia; these include A. Mullogandov, H. Tairov and B. Turayev. At the Dekada (ten days festival) of Tajik Art in Moscow in 1941, a new opera, Kuznetz Kova (‘Blacksmith Kova’) (libretto: A. Lokhuty, music by Balasanian and Sh. Bobokalonov), the first Tajik ballet, Du guls (‘Two Roses’) (composer A. Lensky, libretto: M. Rabiyev), and other performances were staged. During World War II musicians created politically motivated works relating to the war, for example the musical comedy Rozia, 1942 (by Balasanian and Z. Shahidi), the musical drama Pesnya gneva (‘The Song of Wrath’) by Balasanian and many popular songs by Bobokalonov, F. Saliyev and Shahidi. During the war, the Ukraine SO was evacuated to Dushanbe. This stimulated and supported the development of the ‘new’ Tajik music. In 1945 a Music College was opened in Dushanbe. In 1940 the Pamirian Ethnographic Ensemble was organized by F. Saliyev, P. Uzakov and A. Proclenko; among its artists S. Bandishoyeva, G. Gulomaliyev and G. Khudoyarbekov became famous singers.
Balasanian’s ballet Laily and Majnun (1947) received a state award of the Soviet Union (1949) and was made into a film. Some Tajik composers and musicians found their own particular styles (including the songs and romances of F. Shakhobov, Shahidi and Sh. Sahibov); others developed new genres, such as the first Tajik string quartets composed by Y. Sabzanov, D. Aakhunov and Sh. Sayfiddinov, while a sonata for chorus and orchestra was written by A. Lensky and Y. Sabzanov.
In the latter half of the 1940s the traditional musical form shashmaqom (see §2 above) was notated by F. Shahobov, Sh. Sakhibov, B. Faizullayev and U. Rodalsky. Five volumes with a preface by eminent scholars E. Bertels and V. M. Belyayev were published in the 1960s in Moscow. Barno Iskhokova, now resident in the USA, was considered one of the best singers of shashmaqom; G. Gulomalye, A. Alayev and N. Shoulov were the most eminent instrumentalists.
There was no professional popular music group in Tajikistan until the 1960s. In 1962 the first vocal–instrumental ensemble was organized (director: L. Sharipova); a popular music ensemble called Gulshan (director: Sharipova, composer: M. Muravin, since 1966 director: O. Orifov) followed in 1964. The music group Daler (director and master of modern and ancient instruments: D. Nazarov, together with M. Mirzoshoyev, I. Zavkibekov, A. Gulomkhaidarov, Y. Iliyayev and others) has been popular since 1979 and is internationally renowned. Popular Tajik songs were written by the composers H. Abdullayev, F. Odinayev, D. Dustmuhamedov, K. Yahyayev, Sh. Pulodi, F. Bakhor, A. Yadgorov, Z. Zulfikarov, Z. Mirshakar and D. Nazarov. Popular Tajik singers include M. Nabiyeva (1947–79), M. Hamrahulova (now resident in the USA), R. Shaloyer, U. Ziyayev, B. Negmatov, H. Shirinova and D. Nazarov.
Against the background of socialist realism during the 1970s and 80s an entirely new style of music emerged from musicians including F. Bakhor, T. Shahidi, Z. Mirshakar, U. Mamedov, A. Aleksandrov, Sh. Pulodi and B. Pigovat. This school took its final shape during the late 1980s and is associated with such composers as A. Latifzade, L. Pulatova, H. Niyazi, P. Turabi, P. Tursunov, K. Tushinok, M. Khasava, K. Khikmatov, T. Sattorov and B. Yusupov, all of whom used the artistic traditions of the East, the organists Y. Aripov and D. Valamat-Zoda, and the pianists A. Finkelberg, D. Khakimova, G. Inoyatova, V. Orlov and N. Obidova. In the late 1970s and early 80s an interest in Tajik history, culture, folk tradition and religion began to play an increasingly prominent part in the musical life of Tajikistan. Many attempts were made to revive national traditions on all levels and to create orchestral works using national instruments, for instance Falaq by V. Odinayev, Rubayat of Omar Khayam by T. Shahidi, the ballet Legend of Mountains by U. Ter-Osipov and songs to classical Persian–Tajik texts by A. Khamdamov, Sh. Sayfiddinov and Dustmuhamedov.
Since independence in 1991, many talented Tajik musicians, singers and composers have emigrated because of the unstable political situation, worsening cultural prospects, professional isolation, a declining standard of living and low or non-existent wages. Musicians have perhaps found it hardest of all to adjust to the new demands of a struggling market economy. Until recently almost every musician, singer and composer was employed by the state. In contemporary Tajikistan there is a lack of resources for creative projects and thus difficulties in attracting new audiences.
In December 1995 the Ministry of Culture and Information, assisted by the United Nations Development Programme, organized a ‘Dekada’ (ten-day festival) of peace, art and culture in Dushanbe and the region of Khatlon. Famous Tajik musicians included the conductors I. Abdullayev, A. Kamalov, F. Soliyev, N. Niyazmamadov and E. Ayrapetian, the opera singers A. Bobodulov, L. Kabirova, H. Mavlanova, O. Sabzaliyeva and P. Miradjabov and the folksingers M. Bokiyeva, T. Fazilova, D. Murodov, R. Galibova, M. Bakhodurov, M. Nazardodova and H. Rizo.
Many informal popular groups appeared on the Tajik stage during the 1990s, such as Parem. Contemporary musical centres and institutions include the Theatre of Opera and Ballet, named after A. Aini in Dushanbe (founded 1940); the Republic Theatres of Musical Comedy located in Khujand, Khorog, Kulyab, Kanibad and Nan; the Tajik Composers' Union (founded 1936); the Tajik Philharmonia in Dushanbe (1938); the Ensemble of Masters of the Robab (1940); the Symphonic Orchestra (1965–93); three Ensembles of Song and Dance; a quartet of string instruments (1978–93); the State Radio Orchestra of National Instruments; the Ensemble of Shashmaqom Masters (1964–91); the popular music ensemble Gulshan (1964–91); the children's choir (1982–91); the Department of Art of the Ministry of Culture (1940–91); the Department of Art and Culture of the Historical Institute of the Tajik Academy of Sciences (founded 1958); the Institute of Arts named after M. Tursun-Zade (1973); the Musical College; musical schools; the Museum of Musical Culture named after Z. Shahidi; and the Gurminj Museum of National Instruments.
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