Fereydoun Farahani
urban design doctoral researcher
master’s degree in architecture
A cursory glance at the history of infusing western instrument with Iranian spirit:
The first time a piano was brought in Iran during the reign of Fath-Ali Shah Qajar, it was placed in the corner of the royal court, and surely they had no idea what to do with that advanced western instrument. Until such time that, as accounted by Sasan Sepanta in his book The Perspective of Music in Iran:
“In his first trip to Europe in 1870 A.D., Naser al-Din Shah Qajar brought back some big pianos for the royal court, and since no one had the skill to play them in Tehran, Mohamad Sadegh Khan Sarvarolmolk started playing the piano, given his expertise in playing the Santoor, and tuned the piano to play along with Iranian instruments. Moreover, the first person to play the piano in the correct and standard manner was Gholam Reza Salar Moazzez, followed by Motamed Almolk Yahyaeian, and Mahmood Mofakham. Among Mofakham’s pupils were Hossein Ostovar and Morteza Mahjubi.” (Sepanta, 2003: 114)
We will refer to Mahjubi in the following lines.
The first Iranian pianist was Moshir Homayoon Shahrdar (1886-1969 A.D.), who trained under Sarvarolmolk and obtained the first Iranian experiences of playing the piano from him. Moshir Homayoon collaborated with Salar Moazzez at the same time, and his attempt was that what he plays with the piano is not far from the originality of the piano.
In summation, he left behind some quite valuable works of art and played the piano as Iranian as he could during the later years of the Qajar dynasty, the Constitutional Revolution period, and the Pahlavi dynasty. The responses of his songs to great singers such as Reza Gholi Mirza Zalli still exist to this day, and they are indicative of his attempts to infuse Iranian spirit to this western instrument. After a short while, Morteza Khan Mahjubi (1898-1965) gave a complete Iranian tone to this western instrument, so much so that it became hard to believe it was the same instrument used to play Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata or Chopin’s Nocturnes. One of the best legacies left behind of his art of playing the instrument is Banoo Fakhri Malekpoor, whose accompaniment with the singing of Mohammad Reza Shajarian in the album Ah Baran (O’ Rain) is widely remembered.
Sepanta has written about the method of Morteza Mahjubi’s playing, “his method of playing the piano manifests the accents and stresses of Iranian music, especially the melodies that he plays with his right hand are quite indicative of the special spirit of Iranian music. When playing the piano, Morteza would at times close his eye and say, ‘I want to be myself.’”
The playing style of Mahjubi and Moshir Homayoon was brought under criticism by modernists in Iranian music, since they believed this western instrument had gotten away from its originality in this style of playing, and its capabilities were not fully exhausted. For instance, they expressed that the left hand of the piano player did not play as significant a role as it should have, etc.
Javad Maroufi (1912-1993) set out to adjust this style of playing the piano and his attempts at doing so exhausted the capabilities of piano to a higher extent in Iranian music. Having learned the main method of playing the piano from Colonel Ali Naqi Vaziri and Tania Kharatian, Maroufi believed that the full potential of the piano had to be implemented in Iranian music, so that in addition to its new auditory color and mark, its musical potential would also be exhausted in Iranian music. Among his musical works there are pieces that given their time of creation can be considered to have a modern spirit, and among them, the most prominent is the well-known yet simple and lasting piece of Khabhaye Talaei (Golden Dreams).
The same phenomenon happened for violin in Iranian music, and this instrument made its way to Iranian music as a result of efforts by composers and music masters including Hossein Hang Afarin, Hossein Khan Ismail Zade, Hossein Yahaghi, Reza Mahjubi (Morteza Mahjubi’s brother), and Majid Vafadar. After the presence of violin in Iranian music, it was Abolhasan Saba who gave this western instrument an Iranian identity. Among his significant actions we can refer to creating a curriculum for teaching violin in Iranian music, Radif[1] in Iranian music for violin, composing Iranian pieces for this instrument, and training numerous pupils to play the violin. The culmination of his actions was that violin became intertwined with Iranian music, such that today we can see various distinct schools of Iranian violin; masters including Habibollah Badiei, Asadollah Malek, Parviz Yahaghi, Ali Tajvidi, Homayoun Khorram, Mehdi Khaledi, Shapour Niakan, Mojtaba Mirzade, and many others.
However, in this artistic ascension, one must not neglect the evolved nature of these instruments and their auditory capabilities; as such violin was able to reach a high status in the music of all eastern countries (such as India and Arabian countries) and represent a global instrument in its truest sense. But in the years we are considering, the
same phenomenon was seen for other instruments, even though we were not able to reach an Iranian systematic and academic musical school such as violin and piano, but many westen instruments (especially brass instruments) were able to enter the Iranian culture since the Qajar era.
The most important of these instruments were trumpet and clarinet (quarter tone clarinet), which after the establishment of the music branch in Dar ul-Funun school in Tehran, their prevalence became much stronger in the Iranian culture and they made their way to Islamic passion-plays. Clarinet was even able to be the most significant brass instrument in the Golha orchestra and many others. The most salient of such pieces is the well-known song “Navaye Ney” composed by master Morteza Mahjubi and sung by master Gholam-Hossein Banan, in which the melody of Ney is visualized alongside the clarinet of master Vaziri Tabar, and Iranian Ney instrument is still not present in orchestras and radio program.
[the first piano that was brought to Iran was a small piano from France and had five octaves, which was a gift from Napoleon to Fath-Ali Shah Qajar in 1806 A.D. (Sepanta, 2003: 113-114)][Iranian Ney instrument was revived in Iranian music as a result of the efforts made by master Hassan Kassai, and was successfully entered into accompaniments and orchestras with the help of masters Hassan Nahid and Mohammad Mousavi.]It was during these years that the melodies of Iranian Radif were heard from the flute instruments by artists like Changiz Asgarpoor and Emad Raam, and in many songs of Iranian music, it was used for the repose songs.
All these efforts and the works of art that have been created during all these years in Iranian music with these instruments, cemented the status of piano and violin and some other western instruments in Iranian music. A lot can be said about this status and the process by which it was obtained; however, in this writing there is no room for the historical and artistic analysis of these western instruments in Iranian music.
References:
- Sepanta, Sasan. (2003). The Perspective of Music in Iran. Tehran: Mahoor.
- Mallah, Hossein Ali. (1990). A Passage through the Architectural and Musical Space and Getting to Know the Book “Music of Architecture.” Essay collections of architecture and music. Compiler: Mansour Falamaki. Tehran: Faza.
Published on the Weekly Journal Sobhe Andishe, Issue 336, August 14, 2021
