Mohammadreza Darvishi
Audio of the Entire Interview
Interview Transcript
Part 01
In Dialogue with Mohammad-Reza Darvishi
Part 1
Childhood, The Onset of becoming a Musician & University Life
I am Mohammadreza Darvishi. I was born in Shiraz on October 18th 1955. I started music with playing the violin in the Persian style when I was 10. I also learnt playing the Piano alongside the violin. I was then taken to the Shiraz Office for education and Pedagogy, where I was familiarized with wind instruments such as the Saxophone, we would be taken on trips to camps in Raamsar, where we would also take part in competitions. There was this one time that I won a competition, and a group of us students from all over the country were taken on a road trip to Europe which took around 40-50 days.
My family wasn’t very artistic at all. This all happened very much by chance. One of my relatives took me to take violin lessons for a 3 month duration of the summer holidays once, so that it would keep me busy. After the holidays I didn’t stop playing, and my violin was actually borrowed, it wasn’t mine. It was for the Shiraz Office for pedagogy and I never gave it back. I had it for years. I then enrolled myself for Piano lessons with my own money. I was then called forward by the Shiraz office to take part in a march band. That inevitably involved getting acquainted with and playing with trombone and saxophone and other wind instruments; until I got my high school diploma. There had been no musicians in my family in the past. The family on my mother and father’s side had been Sufis for eras, hence the reason behind my family name Darvishi. In 1974 I took the University entrance exam for Music and got into the Tehran University school of Fine arts. I then moved to Tehran completely and followed music professionally. I finished my degree shortly before the Islamic revolution (1979), I had 2 or 3 scholarships at the time and I also had a Scholarship from my alma mater as I had graduated with distinction, The Shah was still in the country when I finished my degree, as I finished in June 1978. When you became top student at any university at the time, you had the honor of being received by the Shah in graduation attire. I had revolutionary inclinations at the time and therefore I didn’t attend the ceremony which made me lose the scholarship I had from Tehran University, which I think was a blessing in disguise. There was a university at the time called Farabi, which was later merged with a couple more universities to form the Arts University of Tehran. I had a scholarship from Farabi University which was also dissolved due to the revolution. Both of these scholarships that I lost were sourced by the States.
At the time I also working for the Institute for the intellectual Development of Children and young Adults. Ms. Lilli Arjmand, the director of the institute also granted me a Japanese scholarship which I said I wouldn’t take because the revolution was happening and I wanted to stay in my country. These all turned out to be a blessing for me because I don’t know what would have become of me had I left; so much so that many of my classmates, tutors and masters left and ended up in completely different paths in life; their thoughts, their music and the product of their lifetime. I feel it was my destiny to stay in my motherland.
I remember my Music Masters very well; Even though I started music off with the Iranian style and used to play Abolhassan Saba’s pieces with the violin, I later started university with western music and started composing from my first year there. There was a very good atmosphere for learning at the time, we had very good tutors both for traditional Iranian (Dastgah) and western Classical music. Many of them where part of foreign Symphony Orchestras or operas; Êmmanowêl Melik’-Aslanean was a Piano Maestro, So was Ms. Yousaddeli and Ms. Pari Barkeshi, Dr. Hormoz Farhat, Mehdi Bahkeshli, Mohammad Taghi Massoudieh, each of whom were of incredible status; Parviz Mansouri, for Radif there was Nur-Ali Borumand, for Kamancheh Asghar Bahari, Mohammadreza Shajarian would come from time to time and generally speaking the professionalism through which music was beng taught and studied was astounding. In fact the years between 1975-1979 were the golden years which produced the most talented and active Iranian musicians up to this day. Maestros such as Lotfi, Parvis Meshkatian, Davoud Ganjeie, Kambis Roshnravan, Hossein Alizadeh, Daryoush Talai, Houshang Kamkar, whom were all graduates of this particular period, not before, nor after it. Then there was the cultural revolution which disrupted and caused the closure of universities and after re-opening nothing special really came out of it for a long time. Before the 70s the music group of the Fine Arts school of Tehran University had existed for quite a while and it hadn’t produced bright musicians as such. These four or five years in the 70s were absoloutely special. This was because of the combination of some of the countries most talented masters and professors, both in the traditional and classical styles. For example, Heshmat Sanjari was our conducting tutor, he was very busy and therefore sometimes we would be taught by his son Farshad Sanjari. Another one of my professors was ………. An American Polish Conductor of the opera ballet Orchestra whom I also had private tuitions with at his home learning Dodecaphonic composing. Or I was taught for two terms by Rouben Gregorian who had moved to Boston in 1945 having been taught by Parviz Mahmoud, from 3 or 4 generations before me. The University of Tehran had invited him to teach and this was a great opportunity for students like me. This amazing gathering of Maestros only happened during those few golden years. And today only a few of them are alive, Dr Hormoz Farhat in Dublin, Shahin Farhat, Ahmad Pejman.
You told me to narrate a memory from the past, I am not really a person of the past, although long term memory is more vivid in one’s mind, and we do not know what will happen in the future, so I live in the moment; now if you write this moment down, maybe you will leave something for the future generations to refer to but if not this moment becomes eternity and so a large part of your beliefs and thoughts and ideas will be a part of eternity but no one can refer to it. I remember the moment I was born, but what can I say about it; no one believes me and the more I say the worse it becomes. If man lives for 30 seconds or one minute he can still fall in love. You don’t have to live years to fall in love. Minds have become much more complex these days, I prefer simplicity in talking. In fact minds have become so complex that they fail to comprehend the simplest of words. People call me mad when I say a newborn child can fall in love. What can one say…
Part 02
In Dialogue with Moahammad-Reza Darvishi
Part 2
University, Becoming a Composer and Teacher
From the very early days at university I left playing instruments in favour of composing. Because the two are worlds apart, in each one needs a fulltime attention in order to be fulfilled. You either have to be a professional player of the instruments, or be a professional composer. It is not possible to do both. If you look at professional composers closely you will find that they do not play instruments professionally and vice versa. It was during the second and third year that I stopped playing any instruments, even though I did try the Setar for a while during university. I also used to attend the Centre for Preservation and Propogation of Iranian Music with Maestro Talai. Before and after the revolution I took Setar classes with Daryoush Pirniakan, it was not because I was interested in playing the instrument I was never specifically interested in playing, it was to get familiar with it for the pieces I would be composing. I started composing music in 1975. The music group director at the time was Ms. Pari Barkeshli, I think she resides in Paris now; she was the daughter of the famous Mehdi Barkeshli. I told her I didn’t want to play music anymore, she said “well what is it you would like to do?” and I said “composing”. She asked me whether I had composed anything before and I said that I had. She told me to show her. When she saw my portfolio she said she would talk to all my tutors to give me my instrumental pass grades so I could carry on composing. I kept writing music from 1975 and I would record some of the pieces at the Radio studios in Arg Square; the pieces were all kept by the studio and I only have the notes. I submitted my dissertation in 1979; it was supposed to be played at the Symphony Orchestra directed by Farzad Meshkat the following year, but the revolution happened and things changed. I started research on Iranian folk music in 1980, after the revoloution. I was a music teacher at the time. (Interviewer: Tehran or Shiraz?) At first in Isfahan, I would teach at the libraries of the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults on Thursdays and Fridays. Then I was transferred to Tehran where I was teaching at three libraries including the Niavaran Park Library. Then I took part in a teacher training program where I was training musician to become music tutors. I then formed an Orchestra comprising of the best graduates of these classes and the best tutors, we performed many times in the open air theatre of the Niavaran Palace before the revolution. I was the conductor and we would play pieces written by myself or Esmail Tehrani and others.
When the revolution happened, the department of music in the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults was closed. For a while I used to teach at Tehran University till the Cultural Revolution took place in 1980 and universities closed down. When they reopened the school of music was the last to open and I felt hat I wasn’t interested in being there anymore. I had two invites from the Arts University School of music and the Music Department of the Fine Arts school of Tehran; but being a part of teaching there did not really appeal to me, I felt out of place. (Interviewer; how do you mean?) it was chaotic, anyone was doing whatever they liked, there was no system; it was like they had set many glasses on the table and who ever would pass by would drink from one and leave. I left the Arts University 20 years ago and I left the Music group of Tehran University 12 years ago. I started travelling to different regions of Iran 1980 and these travels are still a part of my life.
Creativity is an important subject which must be expanded. Creating and discovering are two different things. In my opinion, art is more about discovering than creating. The Artist doesn’t create anything, he merely discovers it, Creation is not in the area of man’s abilities, It I always is something specific and special to the almighty creator, God. Similar to a scientist who also discovers, what I am trying to say is that up to this point in our conversation there is no fundamental difference between an artist and a scientist and therefore no difference between science and art. What science sets out to do is to discover the laws of nature; the artist however sets out to discover the laws of imagination so that the/she can turn this “imagination” to reality, now this is either manifested as music, painting, cinema, sculpture or installation. I always use this example that if you place 10 different blocks of stone in front of 10 different sculptors, each will end up with an entirely different sculpture; because 10 different imaginations will be at work. When they would ask Michelangelo whether he was a Sculptor artist he would say no I am merely carve stone; this statue exists in the stone, I only bring it out. And when they would say well you made this sculpture he would say no I didn’t it was already there I just took off the extra parts. If you don’t accept put a block of stone in front of another sculptor and they will bring something out of it. Every mind has its own realm of imagination. There are as many imaginations in the world as the number of people who exist. It is the same with music. Sound and musical harmonies already exist in our world, you just have to search and find them through the means of imagination, now every musician will imagine in their own way so will end up with his own special piece. Will every imagination lead to the production of an excellent piece of work? Definitely not. It depends on two things, nature and nurture. Now how much of it is down to nature and what portion of it is acquired through nurture? In my opinion a large portion of it is nature and whether you are born with it and a smaller part is fulfilled through training and learning and who you learn from. Just as how in those years that I mentioned before, from 1972-1979, almost 140 students were learning music, not all of them fulfilled music at the highest level maybe 8 or 10 of them, the ones who had it in their nature reached an outstanding level. So I prioritise nature, because the facilities and Maestros were there for everyone to benefit from, but only a few had it in them to go further and rise above. The sea is always there but the question is how much can you be blessed by it. What is your capacity? Those maestros were available to all students but each one could benefit from them only as much as they personally could. Now if an individual who innately has it in them is put in the right environment and given the adequate facilities the speed of their succession is suddenly multiplied, such as an ignition to a fire. I was sharing a two bedroom flat with Parviz Meshkatian around 1976, on Behboudi (Azadi street). We would stay up all night and work till the morning. Sometimes I would suddenly hear an interesting strike, I would go to his door and say, play it again and no matter how many times he tried it wouldn’t sound the same again. I would go back to my room but I would sharply listen; time would pass and at 2 or 3 in the morning he would play it again and when I would ask him to redo it he wouldn’t know which one it was. I asked him to buy a Walkman so he could record his work so that we could refer to it. We were both around 20 years old at the time. He agreed and he would put in 60 minute tapes and start playing from 8:00 pm onwards, but he was so drowned in his ideas and in playing that he would even forget to turn the tape around. So usually only the first 30 minutes would be recorded. All this playing got so immense and so elevated that he became the best SOLO Santur player that the modern time has seen. It was a lot of improvising and it was never about recording it. It came in the moment.
Part 03
In Dialogue with Mohammad-Reza Darvishi
Part 3
The Islamic Revolution, an Inner Journey
When I was student, there was a radical atmosphere at university during the years before the revolution. Generally speaking there were two types of radicalism; the religious and the left-wing.
Since my late years at high school in Shiraz I had more I inclination towards the left wing and when I moved to Tehran, at University there was more freedom and openness to discuss these things and so this was reinforced within me even more. I had classes with Dariush Safvat, who would advise us to read books on Sufism. In my early twenties I started reading about Sufism, western Philosophical history and Marxism. This created a massive chaos in my mind, a mind of a 21 year old. I would do Music in a ahaste and would sleep 3 or 4 hours at night. Till there came the revolution. The revolution did not give time to Sufi thoughts but I felt I was more drawn towards Marxism. I started travelling around, not in quest for music but in quest for myself. I felt lost. At that age I had taken too much information in without any depth. It was all half chewed. So I thought the only way to find myself was to travel my country. During those years, any university you would pass by, everybody was caught up in fights and arguments. In the city squares there were constant rows and swearing and beatings. I had to go away to be able to find myself. I wanted to see what the definition of mankind was in Iran. Was it what we were seeing on the main streets of the capital? Or does life go on? I found that it was as if we were wearing a mask or a pair of glasses through which we were seeing things in a totally different way, whereas in other parts of the country life was going on as normally as it ever would. Music would be pronounced Haram in Tehran where as in towns and villages people were having weddings with their traditional music filling the air. They wouldn’t even hear of the laws that were talked of in Tehran. People wanted happiness, and at the same time, musicians had to live and make a living, and they did not know any other way but to play their instrument. So life was going on as it would. Wherever man is, there is life and wherever there is life there is music. Now amidst all this some musicians would be beaten up or have their instruments broken by bullies or unreasonable individual. It is the wise who have to step in in these sorts of situations. It is the wise who have to design a proper way of governing society. After the revolution many sad things happened in the musical industry, musicians were being beaten up and having their instruments taken away or broken. I was a musician, my life revolved around music and so after a while I was more inclined towards everything to do with music. I first got a Walkman and then I got a more professional tape recorder, an Uher. I eventually started talking to government organizations such as the National Broadcasting Corporation of Iran and Hozeh Honari, the Arts department of the Islamic Development Organization, where I started working with more professional facilities. I organized a number of large festivals for Hozeh Honari, including Haft Orang, Ayin-e Avaaz and The Epic Music of Iran. Historically there had been no such festivals before or after the revolution during which some incredible pieces were recorded by the last generation of musical legends. For example in the Epic Music of Iran Festival in the late 90s we gathered and showcased all types of Iranian masculine dance on stage. Only a few might have remained to this day as most have them have either dissolved or passed away. It was the same with Ayin-e Avaaz (The order of singing), I brought 350 traditional musicians on stage, 80 percent of whom have now passed away.
Part 04
In Dialogue with Mohammad-Reza Darvishi
Part 4
Works (Film Scores)
Aslani, Beyzai, Makhmalbaf and Mehrjui
For a 10-15 year period I only composed film scores. The first ever film score I composed was for a film by Mohammad-Reza Moghaddasian, called An Anthem for Nimvar Plain. It was the time when Tehran was at its highest peak of air raids and missile attacks (Roughly 1987). The music was recorded in the National Broadcasting’s main studio. After that many famous directors came to me for their film scores; and I worked very selectively as that was not my major field of work. I only did it for the 10-15 years that I mentioned for very specific filmmakers, who were film authors in a sense; such as Bahram Beyzayi, the Makhmalbaf family; I did one film score for Dariush Merjui, or Mohammad-Reza Aslani who only makes a long film once in 30 years; for example he made The Chess Game of the wind in 1976 whicih was a profoundly meaningful film at the time. Around thirty years later he made The Green Fire, I told you I am a man of risks, it is in my nature. For instance in The Green Fire, for the first time ever, the music was composed before filming had started; or even before the decoupage in fact. The decoupage was designed according to the music.
Interviewer: So you took the script and composed the music straight from the script?
Yes I read the script and had many briefings with Mr. Aslani during which we exchanged ideas and conversed. I was making the music and the film location was an old castle in Birjand, South of Khorasan province. I would record the music and a courier would take it to Aslani’s team within 24 hours. The whole team from director, to actors, to makeup artists etc would gather and listen to the piece and would decide how the decoupage would be arranged. The film was based on an unwritten history of Iran. Aslani has a very specific and philosophical way of thinking. So the film does not ta all pivot on the music. A couple of times it is also accompanied by the voice of Homayoun Shajarian.
Another queer piece of work that I did was with the dear Bahram Beyzai for the film When we are all Asleep (2009). With utmost precision, Beyzai wrote me a musical script, precise to the second; which we had printed in the Film Journal at the time; I was immensely touched by his masterly attention to detail who went to the length of writing for his composer a musical script. I took the music to Ukraine to perform it live with a symphony orchestra so that we could record it. In a live performance, only one small change in the conductor’s gesture is enough to alter the timing; well in that particular moment, this is how the conductor is feeling, what if he goes like this instead of this (Shows with gesture). At the end of the film you notice that the particular scene is altered by approximately 10 seconds; it is because the studio we were recording in, did not have the means to project the film on the wall for the orchestra to sync with it, and we could not play it on a laptop either as the fan would cause a disturbing noise in the recording. We did our best in the end and the music was totally in sync with the film when we returned with maximum difference of one or two seconds. When I was composing the music, Mr. Beyzai would call me and say that he had taken out 15 frames; I assured him that I would do my best to stick by the timing; I would tell him however that, each second comprises of 24 frames and altering the film by 15 frames would not make a difference to my work or the work of the conductor who would be conducting the music live; he would say ‘ I just wanted you to know”, and I would say ‘ By all means, Master”. He told me that this was his “sickness for precision and aesthetics”, I said “I take a bow to this sickness of yours”. He said “what you are saying is right, this is a live performance, not a recorded film that we can take 15 frames out of, let’s see how it goes”.
The two works that I mentioned were the really special ones that happened in the 50 or 60 film scores that I composed. One was for an author of a director, A real talent who not only affected theatre and Cinema; when you look closely The Ballad of Tara which was never properly publicly screened was so ahead of its time when it was made in 70s, no one understood that film properly; or the book A Study on Iranian Theatre was written when he was only 30 years old and still acts as one of the reference books for university tutors. He is 70 years old now, but this is the nature I was talking about, did he study all of this at a university? Did professors teach him how to frame his scenes? Did he study all of this? No, this all came from somewhere within him. This is was an amazing experience for me in the cinematic world; someone writing a musical script for me was like I had gone to school for ten years. And the other incredible experience was the composition of the Film Score for Green Fire, writing music before filming had even started.
Interviewer; How was working with Mr. Makhmalbaf?
I was constantly arguing with him. He would say “My imagery is old and dusty, your music for my imagery should sound old” and he was right. In their later films the Makhmalbafs were not using professional actors, but were filming commoners in rural and often deserted locations. He kept saying that my music should be like the film sets. The work I started with him on his films eventually became an established style that some of my students are imitating up to this day. It was the combination of some very original and real sounds with digital pads. I would not alter the original sounds but I would use them as a base for the digital frequencies to sit upon, augmented in a sense. Both the original sounds and the frequencies were as ‘dusty’ as the imagery. I made 9 film scores in total for the Makhmalbaf family including The Journey to Qandahar, The Afghan Alphabet; for Samira I composed September 11, Apple, and At 5 in the Afternoon.
I also worked with an Afghan Filmmaker called Siddiq Barmak on a film called Osama which won many awards. The style I worked with for these films was composing music through the unaltered voice of humans or unaltered sound of instruments just the way they came out and augmenting them with digital frequencies that I was making myself rather than using from archives. And this is what creativity is; someone does something new and others carry it on; and this is a good thing. If people are following it, it can only mean that it is enjoyable.
Interviewer; how was your experience with Mehrjui?
For the film score I made for him I actually composed two film scores for one film. He told me the first time around that “my film is already very painful, your music is adding salt to injury, please change it, make it so that it won’t worsen the wound” (to Stay Alive 2002). Mehrjui had attended music school himself, he sat at my piano and played something, I said “is this the kind of thing you are looking for” he said “no not this, I am just saying my film is an open wound showing the self-immolation of Ilami girls, beautiful girls from Ilam Province who are forced into marriages with old men. These girls cannot stand living with those men so they decide to put themselves on fire”. I understood him. I composed a piece for a violin duet and a trio of two violins and a viola, a quartet with strings and the final title sequence for the orchestra also played with strings. He listened to it and said “That’s it”.
Part 05
In Dialogue with Mohammad-Reza Darvishi
Part 5
Publications
Till about ten years ago, I compiled a collection of essays with the help of a friend, and called it ‘From among Songs and Silences‘ which was first published by Mahur. It was a selection of lectures and interviews which were picked by a friend who ran them by me before having it published. Another book, ‘Where is Leili?’ Is a collection of aphorisms. I have a few different styles of writing. I was focused on a few subjects for over 3 decades. First, tradition; and then identity and cultural multiplicity in Iranian music. Each one became the subject of my books, lectures and essays. My first book was Westward look: a discussion on the impact of Western music on Iranian Music; an analytical survey. Then there is the two that I mentioned before. There is also Tradition and Cultural Alienation in Music of Iran. These are parts of my thoughts on those subjects that have been written and published. My research on Iranian Folk music also pivots around the subjects of tradition, identity and cultural multiplicity. When I said that I went on a journey around Iran during the early years after the revolution, it was because I had questions on these subjects. What is my identity? What are my traditions? At University I had studied modern western music in a very avant-garde manner. Now what have I turned into? What is my heritage? What is my tradition? When will the knot of my chaotic mind be untied? This is exactly why I went on a journey. And after years, I finally reached some conclusions which I have mentioned in my lectures and writings. This is only a part of my written work. Another part is purely professional such as Encyclopedia of the Musical Instruments of Iran. Even though it has references to identity, it is a merely technical piece of work. It doesn’t at all talk about who we were in the past or who we are now or our future. Or for example the book Twenty traditional songs from Fars is also a technical piece of writing. I also have a light book named Norouz Singing: Songs for Norouz and Spring from various regions in Iran which is also professional. Another one of my works is a book which is an Appendix to the album Āiine va āvāz (Mirror and Awaz Singing) which is also a collection of technical articles about the traditional music of Iran from various regions. The book Epic music of Iran: selected articles includes two essays by myself and the rest belong to others which I have edited and included in the book. These are books specialized in music, providing a viewpoint towards music. I know that over these years I don’t know anyone who has left so much writing, so many talks, so many pieces of work as such; having spoken so much for so many deaf ears; But I continue to talk and continue to express myself because I cannot move in the opposite direction of my thoughts.
Interviewer: Can you elaborate on the issue of Tabdilaat (conversions)?
Yes, there is a difference between Tabdilaat (Conversions) and Taghirat (changes). When something or a phenomenon changes (Taghir) its nature totally changes; for example wood will always be wood, even when you cut a tree the wood is still alive, if you throw it in water it will germinate again. Which is why they saturate the wood for instrument making so that it loses its vascular tissue, because you don’t want the Tar to suddenly germinate for example. Or if you take a bamboo from a swamp and if you put a piece of it in water it will continue growing sprouts. The wood doesn’t die. In instrument making we call it killing the wood, where its vessels are emptied. Only when you burn wood its nature changes from wood to carbon and this is Taghir. Otherwise a tree trunk is converted to branch to a leaf, and even if you cut it a tree is still a tree (And this is tabdil). In music there is a central innate core which is subject to conversion (Tabdil). In a plant a root turns into a stem, into leaves and a flower, the flower is no different to the root; it is of the same nature. They are all parts of the same being, but just different in form. But the root is the principle part. It takes on different forms as it turns into a flower which has its own details (Petals etc). If you cut the stem, the root will still turn into a new stem. If you pull the root out of the soil however, nothing can be done, it dies. In any kind of regional music there are fundamental roots that turn into different stems and leaves and flowers which have different functions; for example one is for festivity, one is for sadness, one is for work, one is for lullabies, one is for healing etc. but they all stem from their main root. For example in Baluchestan there is a key Maqam (rank) in the folk music called Zahirouk which has different types or tabdilaat in itself. Now with the same Zahirouk the Baluch will dance, mourn, pick dates, and bake bread, fish, heal the sick, wed, etc. the base for it is Zahirouk, It is the root.
Interviewer: during your quest where you after the root?
Yes I was. Everybody is after the outer layer, the garment per se, and I was too for many years. I know now that the root is the principle and the garment is secondary, a hypothesis merely.
In Torbat-e-Jam there are a few important Maqams (rank) in music. When you follow them all to their origin they all lead to one root, one main Maqam; the Sarhadi. The same happens in Northern Khorasan or Boushehr, Kurdestan, Azarbaijan, Gilan, Mazandaran, and in fact any region. You will be interested in the appearance until it is solved for you, then will have to go beyond it. If you look at this piece of paper from a very close distance you don’t see much. The more you move it further away the more you are able to see and the more you are able to comprehend. One has to move away. Like when you get on the plane you see much more as the plane takes off, your vision gradually expands from the airport track to the peripheral roads and houses, gradually to the city and its surrounding peripheries. If you use a system that can help you zoom out, it will allow you to zoom out to see the city, then the country and so on. Depends how advanced your facilities are. It also depends if one has the will to move further away or he simply cannot be bothered. It requires patience.
Interviewer: Have you edited these?
No I am just improvising in this interview. These things should nurture my own mind first. If I say that this is red not green no one will believe me.
So firstly I want to say that the traditional folk music of each region has one main root. And next I want to reach the conclusion that each o this roots are interconnected from beneath.
Part 06
In dialogue with Mohammad-Reza Darvishi
Part 6
Iran, Abdülkadir Meragi
*Resonating:* “And In Iran most of these works have remained unknown till now… and in Turkey only a few of them are being performed today”
[6 centuries and 6 Years]
There are three groups of us living in Iran at the moment; pre- Aryans, Aryans and migrants. Today these groups are not detached, they have married into each other and have become interconnected. Aryans have married migrants, pre-Aryans have married Aryans and so on. Turkmens are migrants, they migrated from Mongolia; some Arabs are indigenous and some migrated to the country. The Qashqai nomads are also migrants, but the collection of all these different groups of people is forming a whole, the Iranian nation which cannot be segregated. However, in a historical study, we are obliged to divide the whole into the three categories. It is not that we are treating them as different races, I don’t favour any of them, nor am I racist neither am I a nationalist. The important thing is we are one nation living in this geography. In this world we are all one family, we all have one root and origin, but due to circumstances we are compelled to live different to one another, wear different clothes and colours, but we are truly no different. Our Music is of different colours, and how beautiful is that? But why is it that we are killing one another? We are all even racially connected, we have the same root; only due to nature and geography or skin colours vary, and our appearance differs. This is nature. We share the same root in our languages, races, music etc, this is an argument for peace. I am a musician so music is my language. Everyone has their own language and direction in whatever profession they are.
Post to Abdülkadir, we do not really have any significant therians in music up to this day. He is a follower of Safi al-Din al-Urmawi Baghdadi school of thought in music. It took him from Baghdad in western Iran (Then part of Persian Empire) to Azabaijan then to Timur’s royal court in Samarqand, and Shahrokh’s palace in Herat in the east, this was his geographical transition. His written works are all in Persian, as opposed to his predecessors whose works were in Arabic, which was the academic language of their times so that all references would be easy to use all over the Islamic Empire. His works are in Farsi, however it is a Farsi specific to his own time, a combination of Persian and Arabic. Through these writings he also did a great service to our knowledge of the Persian language; especially for those interested in the language from the early Timurud (gurkani) period. So alongside music, he did the Persian language great favours. He was also a calligrapher, his writings are all in his own handwriting. He was the final most important theorist on music; after him apart from a few minor dissertations that emerged from the Transoxiana, nothing major was produced on the theory of music. Others have merely repeated some parts of his work, or even misinterpreted it. His work is the most important text on ancient Persian music and dates back to the late 8th and beginning of 9th century AH (Approx. 1400 AD).
Interviewer; when you say it was the last most important work, you are implying that there were texts on the subject before him?
Yes, there was the of Safi al-Din al-Urmawi, Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi, Farabi, parts of the works of Avicenna (Shifa; The book of healing, and Qanun)
Interviewer: Has there been any music composed based on these writings?
Not as such but there is one piece written by Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi in musical notation format in his own handwriting which is one of the most brilliant compositions written. Then there are the two books written by Abd al-Qadir Jami al-Alhan (Arabic for Encyclopedia of Music) and Maqasid al-Alhan (Arabic for: Purports of Music) which are in Abjaad and numeral form and so there is not much more left of ancient musical notations. The intervals have been noted but in terms of melodies and rhythms, there seems to be nothing there to refer to. Iranian folk music existed for centuries orally (Not on paper) until approximately 120 years ago in Late Qajar that you suddenly see the emergence of Radif (order in Persian music), no one knows where this melody came from.
Interviewer: is it not rather strange?
Yes it is.
Interviewer: there is quite a bit of it is well.
Which is why I believe Radif takes up no more than 10% of Iranian music. Some might like and some may dislike what I am saying; but the truth is that it takes up a small proportion of our traditional music, the remaining 90% is all folk music from different regions which has survived over the centuries and passed down through generations heart to heart.
During the 19th century a group was formed under the supervision of Rauf Yekta who set out to compile Ottoman Music through the most significant vocalists who were still alive at the time. It is as if though we would ask Abdollah Davami or Taherzadeh, or if Taj-e-Esfahani was still alive, what they would recall of ancient music. The group went and sought songs from some very old artists. Some may say that they could have sung these wrong at their age. But then it would mean that whatever we were sung from the past by the likes of Davami and Thaerzadeh meant nothing. At last, one has to be able to refer and hold onto something. We can’t say whatever Mirza Hossein-Qoli played on his Tar was a product of his own mind and none of it came from the past. One must be able to refer to respectable and old masters. And this is what Yekta’s group did; they trusted the word of the wise and re sung 250-300 songs; the yywere not necessarily after Abdülkadir but he was the Maestro of all Maestros in the history of music in the Islamic empire. And when these songs were song it was said that 30 of them were that of Abdülkadir’s. A series of a three volume compilation was then published under the name Dar al-Alhan, which had among them a few of the compoitions that were supposedly by written Abdülkadir and some weren’t published and remained merely in handwritten format; but the intervals were not defined in these publications. It was not like these days where everything is done in detail and to the point. Yekta’s team ultimately produced something valuable that became my point of references for my performance of the work of Abdülkadir. I used that together with scattered publications including the rest of his work which I found from many archives all over Turkey. This was my main resource. It also took me a large amount of time to reach a clear definition of intervals in music. This became the basis of a 7 year long project called Showqname, for which I formed three Ensembles, first we were a group of 7, then a goup of thirty something musicians which didn’t work and finally the project succeeded with an ensemble of 11, consisting of 9 instrumental players, 1 vocalist and myself.
Interviewer: just to clarify, what is the difference between your album and Mr. Fakhreddini’s work on the same subject?
Mr Fakhreddini has referred to one instance in Abdülkadir’s Jami al-Alhan and Maqasid al-Alhan which was written in Abjad numeric form, called the Hosseini Tasnif. Maestro Fakhreddini believes that he personally translated the piece to musical notation over a period of 20 years. I humbly told him years ago that others have done this prior to him, but he wasn’t convinced and said that this was a product of twenty years of his life. This was also expanded and played in the TV series which was sung by Siddiq Tarif. This became a point of controversy between Maestro Fakhreddini and Dr. Hajjarian the musician. Dr. Hajjarian wrote an essay published in Mahur and compiled a series of notations which had been written prior to Fakhreddini and came to the conclusion that he had not been the only one to work on this piece.
Part 07
In Dialogue with Mohammad-Reza Darvishi
Part 7
The journey of learning Music, Orchestras and Teaching
I experienced many different methods over my professional life, I composed music for symphony orchestras, String Orchestras, Iranian Instrumental Orchestras, for film scores I have composed for combinations of indigenous folk instruments and Avaz (vocals) with digital computer generated music. I worked in different ways based on various demands. I am very comfortable with and in control of all these ensembles and styles. The only forms I haven’t worked with are the ones associated with Iranian Dastgāh Music such as Chahar-Mezarb, Reng or Tasnif. These have never fallen in the field of my work and never will; because they fall under Radifi Persian music (Orders of Persian music) which is usually covered by musicians who specifically work on Radif or those who play traditional Persian instruments. So I have never worked on this particular form but I have a wealth of work in all other forms.
Interviewer: With which orchestras or ensembles have you worked with?
With Tehran Symphony Orchestra, Camerata String Orchestra, a coupke of orchestras in Moscow, The Ukrainian Philharmonic Orchestra which many of my works are recorded by, Haceteppe Symphony Orcheatra in Ankara, Liege Orchestra in Belgium, I worked with Simorgh Orchestra in Iran for Mr. Motebassems composition which I conducted; I also conducted and composed for an orchestra comprised of some of ORF’s 40 or 50 best musicians before the revolution.
I was very drawn to western modern musical styles during my university years; musicians such as Schoenberg, Anton Webern, Alban Berg, Penderecki, Olivier Messiaen. I had a few foreign music professors who might have inclined me towards these musicians; I was very much influenced by the second Viennese School and its composers. I was also influenced by Luciano Berio who was still alive at the time and was one of the greatest musical modernists. At the same time I was studying Dastgahi Iranian music as well, but my main style of work was the neoclassical musical style of Europe. My dissertation was composed based on a poem by Mehdi Akhavan-Sales. My compositions during those years were a combination of neoclassical European music and Persian music. When the revolution happened in 1979, I felt that what I was doing was not reflecting the path that I was truly passionate about following deep within me. So I started travelling to find myself, not music. And I got very caught up in different cultures and different regions of Iranian folk music, and this affected me after a few years and since then, I merged the techniques that years ago I had learned very well from the great maestros who directly passed onto me a wealth of knowledge and experience, with Dastgahi music and folk music in order to form an Iranian content for the Orchestral compositions I was writing. Whether it was with piano or Strings or Iranian instruments etc.
Any young individual, has to go through a process of acquiring techniques, prior to expressing any form of idea one has to read and write music. I was the same but I went through the process very quickly and acquired my personal style and signature in a short span of time, and this is why the album I am publishing now includes four tracks from a period of forty years; 1975-2015. I was 20 in 1975 and 60 in 2015 but when you listen to these tracks you hear one style, and it is also possible to change the dates of these tracks without knowing; as though they were written on the same day. So I went through Technique and reached my signature very quickly. Now there are a couple of important issues worth noting. A person’s nature is exactly like their fingerprint and is different for every human being. This is nature that turns on the imagination in the fields of arts, and imagination forms and manifests art in its different forms. More than 90% of art is Imagination. A maximum of 10% of art is down to experience and education. If you take the hypothesis that an equal amount schools, universities and teaching facilities are given to a population of 100 individuals, why is it that only one person out of this group will reach a level of excellence in the art they pursue? These facilities have been given to them all, what is the difference between this one person and the rest/ it is nature. Nature needs not an education nor is experience, nature that 90 percent of imagination, only the remaining 10% will need experience and teaching. There are some very young individuals in the world who are geniuses in many fields but have never had the opportunity to learn and grow. Suhrawardi with his amazing way of thinking, a brilliant mind and a vast wealth of knowledge and works only lived just over thirty years; where had he learned? How many years’ worth of time did he have? He had spent most of his life in escape and exile, maybe he used the wisdoms of teachings of ten clergies in total; same with Avicenna. It is innate nature, not education. What I am trying to say is that it is usually nature that causes great magnificence, acquiring through education and experience only counts for ten% OF the brilliance. Even though there are rare exceptions we cannot base world principles on those few exceptions. Yes everyone must be taught, everyone must be given an education; but a genius, a true artist does not emerge through these systems.
Part 08
In Dialogue with Mohammad-Reza Darvishi
Part 8
Drawing Inspiration from nature
Ideas from conceptualization to performance
My life is continuously formed by nature. Nature is a floral and colourful landscape which interconnects everything from below. One must profoundly feel it to become part of it. When you become part of nature, part of air, tree, soil, part of a creature, part of man himself; then you have become part of the law of nature. Inspiration is a very general term. Everyone thinks they have come from the sky, there is not much in the sky. God has created this beautiful Earth for us to live in; you just have to take a beautiful perspective towards it, behold an eye for beauty; for that of flowers, of human interactions for living creatures. It is a common misconception to think inspiration comes from above, it comes from deep within a soul who is in sync with his surrounding world. When you look at an insect or a leaf in a very detailed manner, you can see the life and music in it. Music is not something to be made forcefully for money. Everything has been created by god and exists in nature, the problem with human beings is that they have lost contact with the world and want to write music forcefully no matter what. They feel obliged to show love or kindness, everything has become obligatory and does not come from within. Inspiration is not an external thing. If you are connected with the world with all your existence you are connected to everything including music. Bach or Mozart never had the time to think, they kept writing continuously; they did not even have the time to review their compositions. If someone were to just rewrite the works of these two they would need a lifetime longer than the musicians themselves; and that is to only write not to even perform them. A Solo Maestro Sorna player who plays Sorna for 24, 48 or 72 hours nonstop (in a village wedding perse), what is he playing his music from? He is playing from his heart. I have seen these things. He plays from his heart, from his ancestral memory. Now you might bring a Dastgahi Santour Master and tell him to play for an hour; it will be over after an hour, he will say “how much do you want me to play I have played all the orders” but the Sorna player sees no ending because he is connected to nature and the world around him but the trained Santour player isn’t and he is only connected to things like stage, money, concerts, tickets, he is only here to give a concert for an hour. The other one has come to make people happy for three days and he might receive a small reward in then end. It is his ancestral art, he has sold no tickets for and he doesn’t need to finish to hand over the concert hall to the next performance. He plays with love.
Interviewer: what is the force that keeps you working so hard continuously?
It is an inner force that is actively being reborn and understanding it.
Interviewer; what are your future plans for composing music?
I have a lot of plans and not just composing. There is the Tabdilaat Project, the third volume of the encyclopaedia which I will delegate to another team for the fourth volume onwards. I have a lot of ideas for compositions one of which is for the poems of Mohammadreza Aslani. I have composed the singing parts of this Symphonic musical ensemble. I have given the poems to Mr Moradkhani to check whether it will receive the necessary licences in order for me to start writing the orchestra because that in itself will take 2 years to write. No one gives you an answer in this country. This is not a political statement. They don’t even tell me if it is ok or not. I just want an official letter that gives me the go ahead because it is a huge orchestral project that requires a lot of work. I spent a year writing the singing parts, I cannot spend 2 more years writing the orchestra and finding that they will not licence the work. This will be 3 years of my life gone. I am 61 years old, I exercise, I do yoga and my body is more fit than a lot of young people, I am not even talking about my hands and legs, I am talking about my mind. But I will not live as long as Noah, I have a large number of projects to fulfil. 3 years is not a short time to spend on a project that I will have to put aside. I have to spend these years on something I know I can see the result of in my lifetime. They don’t answer many things and this is upsetting. 20 years ago I wasted to form The National Instruments of Iran Orchestra, not the National Orchestra of Iran which is mainly all western instruments with a Tar and a Santour; an orchestra comprising of 60 musicians, National instruments from Dastgahi music and folk musical instruments from all over the country, I ran for 15 years and nothing. If someone tells me to do it now, I simply cannot go back to 15 years ago. I have new ideas now, that was a project I had 15 years ago, they didn’t let me do it; I had so many instruments made to the same size and specifications so that they would have the exact tuning to sound exactly the same, those instruments are all in the Museum of Music now.
Part 09
In Dialogue with Mohammad-Reza Darvishi
Part 9
Ideas, Conceptualization and Folk Music
Interviewer: Can you explain the process through which an idea is triggered to when it is manifested and finished?
It differs for different composers. For me, I follow an idea when I am able to find a focal point for it in my mind. I then start walking, it might take 1 or 2 weeks or 1 or two months in fact. I compose the music in my mind then I finally sit at the table and write it down. Not at the piano, I know some composers who make music using the piano, so I take it from my mind down to paper. Whenever I face complex combinations of harmonies, for instance for an accord which has 8 or 9 different sounds, I may or may not double check it on the piano. For example a music that comprises of 6 or 7 different lines of interconnected melodies is physically impossible to play on the piano, I do not have the techniques for it. Not just me but a professional pianist cannot do it either. These exist in the mind. And In writing I still use the old system with paper, pencil a ruler and an eraser. I don’t use computers myself. I have one of my very close friends who is a professional type the final version.
Interviewer: when do you consider a piece of work finished?
It finishes itself at some point. It’s almost like when a thirsty person drinks water. He will not drink up the whole jar; at some point he will think thank god my thirst is over. Obviously for films it is different because there is a storyline and a time frame; otherwise it finishes itself.
Interviewer: Have you ever felt stuck in the middle of any piece of work?
No, never. The more open the path is for me and the longer the music, the easier the job becomes for me. A dear friend of mine, a composer who usually produces film scores used to ask me years ago how was it that I could write an uninterrupted 20-25 minutes long piece. I would say 20-25 minutes is nothing but he would tell me that he would usually get stuck after the 4th or 5th minute. I would tell him that his problem as that he did not know how to develop his ideas. I would explain that he was presenting 2 or 3 ideas in the first 5 minutes and would be lost for how to continue thereafter. It is like reading two poems but not knowing how to interpret them. Reading the poems is not hard, it takes a maximum of 5 minutes but the main thing is to comprehend it in order to be able to analyse and explain it. Now that can take 5 hours. For me when I am not limited for time, I feel freer to express. My problem is that I am usually limited in time.
Interviewer: Has there been times that you have not composed?
Yes. Thirty something years ago at the beginning of my travels when I was searching for myself, I felt heavy and fell within myself. Do you know that happens? It is like when you overeat. From 1981 I went and stayed in villages and got to know a completely different world of people, cultures, foods; this was too much for me. I was already feeling lost and unwell. I had gone to get better but I ended up getting worse. I thought to myself well this is not good. So I returned and allowed myself some time to settle and gradually felt better as I got more acquainted with this new found world; it was amazingly colorful, and like I said before because music my profession I got drawn to the music side of it.
My first official work was Mazandarani Music which was first released in cassette form and then on CDs. This was based on 4 or 5 of Mazandaran’s main folk compositions which I developed a small symphony orchestra for. It was released in 1983. After that I left the method of working directly and literally from existing folk songs, and gradually drew the essence of folk music orders and used it in many of my works. I composed a trio for 2 clarinets and a piano called Avaz-e-Sahar (Song of Dawn) which is based on the Sahari Maqam, one of the most important maqams of Tanbour and singing in the Kermanshah Province. Or some of the works I composed with piano.
In some of the film scores that I produced I used the combination of original folk instrumental sounds with computer generated music. In other works I composed for Symphony Orchestras, string orchestras or quartet orchestras, I used an abstraction of these folk themes. It is almost like taking a photo of a flower and working on it in Photoshop; it ends up being that photo but also not being that photo in the end. This is how I am using folk music in my work. I am using not just the way it sounds but also its essence.
Part 10
In Dialogue with Mohammad-Reza Darvishi
Part 10
Teaching Music, Music Academies
The first Research Centre for Art, Simorgh Project
I used to teach alongside my professors at university before the revolution. I also started teaching from 1980 at the University of Tehran till the Cultural Revolution. I taught after the Cultural Revolution and the re-opening of universities as well but I never liked being officially employed by anywhere because it would limit me. I wanted to be free so I could travel. When you are employed you cannot take any time off teaching. Anyhow, I left The Arts University about 20 years ago and since 10-12 years ago I no longer attended Tehran University. I used to also teach at the Academic centre for Education Culture and Research, Soureh University. But I no longer teach, I also stopped private tuitions around 20 years ago as well. I have a theory you know; Teaching is a form of trading, I am not a man of trading. A tutor sells wheat and a student buys wheat; I am nor seller or buyer, some are mediators in this process, for example they harvest the wheat, grow it, store it, and in the end when it is ready someone sells it and gets money for it and someone such as the student gives the money to buy it. I am none of these. I am merely the one that throws the seeds, with no expectation. I do not harvest, nor do I buy or sell. Now how do I make a living? From selling my old ideas. My new ideas are no good for today. My old ones are.
Interviewer: Such as?
Such as my books, the encyclopaedia is an idea worth over thirty years of age, it is now good to be published. Or some of my essays and lectures, My CDs of folk music etc. these are all my old ideas. The new ideas are no good for now, they will be in 15 years. I will keep them for then. This is how I make a living, selling my old ideas. When my new ideas become old for me they will be new for the outside world; and I don’t trick anyone. I have been working for 15 years on the Tabdilaat Project but I have only been talking about it in droplets for two months; well it does come with benefits as well. I invested in it for 15 years and now it will pay me back in droplet. 15 years ago no one would listen to it but now 30 bright and genius minds listen.
The Music Maktabkhaneh (Academies) was my idea. It started 20 years ago and I gave an outline of it to Mr Moradkhani, who was director of The National Centre for Music at the time. I suggested 5 or 6 Areas which were very significant, influential and fertile for music but also in danger of annihilation.
Interviewer: Can you name where they were?
For example Gonbad, Kemanshah, Khorram-Abad, for instance a town in Baluchestan. Maktabkhaneh was not like the conventional academies with a usual office, tables and chairs and a PA, No. it was supposed to be an old building in the specified region, furnished with indigenous items. The masters of folk instruments or vocals from those regions would be teaching. The ministry of culture would rent or buy those locations and would direct it under my supervision. We would pick someone who would have the Ministry’s trust mine and the locals’ trust to direct each Maktabkhaneh; and people would be able to come and learn those exquisite musical styles from masters who were still alive. It wouldn’t be like your standard modern music academy.
Interviewer: What did it come to?
Nothing. One was in Torbat-e-Jam, One was in Quchan, I even went and found locations and prices; but nothing, after 20 years still nothing. The centres were supposed to be self-governing. The students would pay a small fee, or maybe there would be allocated a subsidiary; for example I remember that 20 years ago in Torbat-e-Jam it would cost around 200 dollars to buy a location, 33 to renovate it, 7 dollars to furnish it! It was ridiculously cheap, there was just no proper will behind it.
Interviewer: what about the Qazvin Project?
Qazvin was the closest city to Tehran. Karaj is fundamentally a chaotic city with no identity, and the plan I had, had no place in Tehran. I needed an old building which we were able to find in Qazvin. The governor general and the Qazvin branch of the Organization for preservation of Cultural Heritage were very cooperative with us in order to find our desired building; which we finally did in the Sa’d al-Saltaneh Caravanserai. We set out to form an Artists’ board of trustees and a governmental board of trustees to open that centre as the first centre for research for arts and music in Iran. Our artists’ board of trustees included some of the country’s most prominent artists including: Hamid-Reza Ardalan, Mohammad-Reza Aslani, Jamshid Haghighat-Shenas, Dr. Falamaki the architect etc. On the other board there would be one representative from each governmental organization as legal persons together with Mr. Moradkhani. The Institute was registered as a private organization for which we had an inauguration around 3 years ago. We had brought in the government representatives on the board of trustees in order to get their help, otherwise what good was it for? For example we had a representative from the municipality, the provincial governance, the Cultural heritage organization (Although the latter did provide the building and we are thankful for it). we kept asking for help and held various meetings with these government representatives, asking for their collaboration and they would say that this is a nongovernmental organization we cannot allocate any budget to it, you can define a number of projects that we can each sponsor. I agreed and planed 12 projects, but then they said they had no budget. So I said farewell.
The Simorgh Project was a composition that Mr. Hamid Motebassem had written for Iranian instruments. He lives in the Netherlands and called me and said that since he lives away he wanted me to be the conductor and to help him pick the musicians. He told me to take charge of orchestral practices and I agreed as we were friends. He came to Iran a few months later when we studied the composition, chose the musicians and arranged a couple of practice sessions. He then left and came back 10 months later. I had been practicing with the orchestra during that time in difficulty and ease, while he was away. I even told him that there was a problem with the finale of the composition. Till performance day came. It was held at the Azadi Complex Basketball hall with 3000 seats, I conducted for 3 nights but due to certain misunderstandings and disputes I never attended the recordings for it after the event.
Part 11
In Dialogue with Mohammad-Reza Darvishi
Part 11
Composing, Modern Classical Music
For me composing is all about discovering sound, just like a word being discovered by a poet, or the discovery of a picture or a certain frame by a filmmaker, or the discovery of a sculpture by a sculptor, or an image by a painter; it is all about discovery. When you discover something you will become overwhelmed with joy and this personal inner joy is the most important thing to you, the joy it brings to others is absolutely secondary. It is wrong for the artist to think they are doing the audience a favour, or I totally disagree with statements such as ‘as art solely for people’, no; art first and foremost brings joy to the artist more than anyone else. The artist is overjoyed by discovering himself through art, but if others enjoy his art as well, then even better. They might enjoy it right at the time when the art is presented, they may bring themselves to enjoy it thirty years in the future or they may never appreciate it, so what? The important thing is how the artist feels about his art. To say that we create art for the benefit of the people is false, as most importantly an artistic product is not a process of ‘creating’ but ‘discovering’, and It is about the artist feeling fulfilled, if he is a true artist then no doubt his audience will appreciate his work. When a solo musician is playing by himself on stage, he is the first person to enjoy the sounds of his work before any of his audience; this joyfulness is then transmitted to everyone else through sound frequencies. If he dislikes what he is playing, his audience will be averted from enjoying it too. Is it possible to expect people to like a film that is disliked by its own filmmaker? Impossible. So the pleasure is first and foremost all for the artist.
I am not a person of extreme ends of a spectrum, of poles, I am not black and white, this piano behind me has a series of black keys and a series of white keys, it is the way it has been made and we inevitably use it with that respect. I do however think it could have had some grey keys. The musical styles I listen to … Can you pass me that Album from above that shelf? This is an album by Luciano Berio, a brilliant modern Italian composer, who composes in a very Avant guard manner especially for string instrument combinations and vocals. Where does he extract these sounds from? Sounds that you can find in the most untamed of your natural surroundings if you listen closely. Or Sounds and voices that exist within us but we do not hear them. When we converse, our attention is mainly focused on words, but accompanying these words are o lot of other things like the sound of breathing, sometimes rustling, etc. but only because we are after the meaning of words we solely hear words on their own. Berio in his work has echoed the essence of such sounds, drawing them from the existing world. His work is considered very modern and Avant guard. Performing this kind of music is very hard for instance on the violin, it requires technique. But what is there to say it is modern? It is an immense discovery of existing sounds, it is not creation but a discovery through great attention and good listening. He is truly a great maestro, he has even taken notice of the smallest sounds of breathing in and out, to this sound (*slides hands against each other*) He has not only listened to the singing of a sparrow but also the sound of it bouncing and stepping lightly, This is a discovery of nature’s sounds, now they play it in string orchestras and call it modern, It does not matter what they call it, what’s important is that he has discovered these sounds, that his imagination is the discovery of imagination, now while this work is very significant to me, so is this (picks up CD), Mystic India. These two appear to be very different but for me they are the same, because this one also is made up of nature’s elements, overflowing by it in fact; just in the same way that Berios music is saturated with natural elements. They are all fundamentally the same. This one is music from Tibet which is also driven from natural sounds. The so-called modern music, when you study it closely is nothing but natural sounds which we have forgotten of. Different styles of pure and genuine traditional music, are made up of the same sounds, ones which exist in nature. So there is no difference fundamentally between genuine traditional (folk) music and classical music. You know when I said I am not a man of poles, this is what I meant. If you take these two poles, the space in between is full of unrest and turbulence. On one side we have the very traditional type of music, like this one from India or this one from Tibet, or I could play you some Sorna, or Kurdish Hureh music, or Lak Mour Music (mourning music from Lorestan province), it is as if though the music reflects the echoes in the mountains. So from our own music, to Tibetan music to Penderecki to Berio and many others in the west, neither of these are fundamentally different. These are all one to me, it is just that they are commonly wrongly referred to as traditional and modern. Like I said the space in between is a chaotic mixture, I don’t want anything to do with this ‘in between’. What is referred to as very traditional, sounds very modern to me and vice versa. So What I do is align the two.
Part 12
In Dialogue with Mohammad-Reza Darvishi
Symphony Orchestras
Music before and After the 1979 Revolution
Foreign travels
I usually travel once a year to Moscow, by invitation from the Tchaikovsky Conservatory, both for lecturing and performing. I used to go to Kiev to record my compositions at the National orchestra there. I had a close relationship with the conductor who is one of the best. I give lectures at Stanford University in the United States. I was there last September, I will go again this year. I have been to Turkey many times for the Abd al-Qadir project. I have worked with the Hacettepe Symphony Orchestra. It all appeals to me. The fact that I can go and stand at the heart of a professional symphony orchestra and come back and stand at the heart of Tehran Symphony Orchestra, and tell the difference in the sounds we hear; brings me to the point that this orchestra does not belong to us. If we want it to belong to us, we have to invest in it, we have to pay a big price. Nothing has the value it should have over here, neither symphonically, nor traditionally, nor from an identity point of view, does nothing matter here. There are times when you think, never mind our own traditional music; let’s give all our attention to western symphony orchestra; there are times when you thinking, never mind symphony orchestra, let us put our efforts in our traditional music. You know India with all its grandeur does not have one western school of music; they don’t have a symphony orchestra, is it that they don’t know better? No, they know what they want and this is not what they want. They have a dance academy instead that takes thirty years to get through, a girl goes in at the age of 5 and comes out a grown woman. Now they don’t have a music conservatoire or a symphony orchestra, and you think they can’t? The same goes to Pakistan. Again you think they don’t know better? No they do. They know vividly what their path is. With us we don’t know what we want. Do we want a symphony orchestra or our own identity? We are suspended in the middle, we are confused.
Music has given me everything. Music has taught me how to think, how to live, how to be, vision. I feel like I am 6 years old and with the little experience I have gained over the past 60 years I have quickly started learning things I didn’t have the opportunity of learning before. I am studying things I feel have been neglected in our time, I even have tutors and I am learning, I am broadening my horizons in life.
Interviewer: How have we developed do you think in our singing since before the revolution? Are we going forward or not? And how about in our playing and composing? How are we moving?
We can’t refer to it as backwards or forward, it is a transition process through conversion. We have lost somethings but we have gained new things this is what I refer to as Tabdilaat (conversion). For example our Dastgahi Singing has smoothened, it is almost as though a saw’s teeth has been sanded down to become smooth, the teeth in between which breath, emphasis, pause, and cuts come, and altogether create an epic feel, have softened. The same has happened in instrumental music, it has either become floppy or similar to the movements of an axe. It has distanced itself from the epic sort of indentations. So it is either fierce plectrum beats or soft ones. Together alongside these some very beautiful ideas have grown as well.
Interviewer: we don’t have ballads these days?
It is not important.
Interviewer: what about pop music?
Pop is the music of our days for a consumerist society.
Interviewer: you do not see any sort of transformation in it?
It is like looking for transformation in a tissue. Pop is consumers’ music, what transformation are you expecting within it?
Interviewer: you mentioned once that the capacity of our traditional music has reached its potential.
All traditional music from anywhere you can think of is the same. They all reach their limit at some point and from within them new capacities are born. Tradition is not an eternal entity. It is not like we are living like the Safavids or the Zands, we are living like our own times. Some parts of Tradition is filtered and some of it infiltrates music. From within it sometimes new sprouts arise, which becomes the music of those times. The music of our times will become part of the future generations’ traditional music.
Interviewer: do you see and innovation in our music these days?
Innovation does not mean much to me,
Interviewer: Aren’t the sprouts you mentioned the innovation?
Conversions are important to me (Tabdilaat) not innovations. When things convert into one another. Time after time. The same happens in folk music. We are nowadays witnessing an indolent kind of Pop music which is unfortunately quite popular amongst our youth. Don’t you think Viguen, Delkash or Aghasi or Susan’s music was Pop? They were singing a kind of Pop which at heart had Iranian ties. After more than half a century I still remember those tunes. Those were not at all tiring or indolent.
Part 13
In Dialogue with Mohammad-Reza Darvishi
Part 13
The Tabdilaat (Conversions) Project
A bit like this geographical map, and the way it is divided into provincial areas; I mean it’s not like it these geographies were divided like this from the beginning, we drew these lines. There is a tribe called Lak in the Zagros area, where is it on this map? It used to be called Lakestan. Here we have, Lorestan, Kermamshah and Ilam Provinces but there is no sign of a Lakestan province. This tribe is scattered over these three provinces. Well it is us who drew these lines not them. We are defining these divisions. We are deciding what is happiness, mourning, work, lullaby etc for them; this is not how they think. For example when a Lak loses her partner, she will mourn or Mouyeh to her child, sharing her sorrow; but wrongly we think that she is singing a lullaby. This is what Tabdilaat is about. There is one essence which spreads across different occasions in ways it is required to, sometimes with a different poem, other times the poem does not even change. These classifications are made by us and not them. Sometimes when you go to their ceremonies it takes a while to understand whether the music that is playing is for mourning or happiness or something else, sometimes towards the end you realize it is for an oblation.
Interviewer: how do you see the future of our music?
Our music like our people is finding its own path. It also has nothing to do with power. It is finding its path but where it is heading towards, we do not know.
Interviewer: what is our music threatened by?
The idiocy of governments. Which is not a threat but more like an irritation. People are living their own lives.
Interviewer: does globalization not threaten our music in any way?
Nationalism causes war and antagonism. Globalization while maintaining cultural identity is man’s only path to salvation.
Interviewer: you are mentioning cultural identity but my question is whether globalization by itself threatens it.
what I am saying essentially is glocalization, globalization while keeping the cultural identity of the locals of any geography, if the bullies of the world allow it. If they force everything and everyone to be the same then that causes antagonism. On the other hand too much emphasis on nationalism does the same and causes fights and wars. ‘I am Kurd you are Turk, I am right you are wrong, I am German you are French’ for example the European Union is a very good idea, whereby a group of countries fall under a flag while keeping their own language, identity and traditions. It would not be good if they all spoke French or German.
Interviewer: What do you think about Electronic music and instruments? Do you see it suitable for our music?
Electronic music or the electronic world or the virtual world or computers is a whole different sphere. But the fact that our instruments need a series of acoustic changes to make them easier to be played yes that is a fact. Master Ebrahim Ghanbari Mehr, the great instrument maker, has since 50 years ago been making changes to Iranian instruments to ensure more tuning stability and comfort and ease in playing these instruments. However, it is the musicians who play who have to accept these changes and start playing these adjusted instruments. If only students test these it won’t make a huge change.
Interviewer: what is the influence of computer generated music?
Well that is a part of music, but even in the west who is the greatest innovator of this technology, the largest symphony orchestras are still playing, one does not deny the existence of the other. Classical music is still being performed all the while these facilities exist. They all work independently and in combination, to suit different tastes.
Interviewer: can you explain the differences between the three generations of musicians we face today, the old the middle aged and the young?
I believe in the young. The old generation is in a sort of cocoon, which is preventing them from facing some realities. The middle aged are more confused between the past present and future. I believe strongly in the young generation. When I see a 20 year old and compare them to my 20s I realize that this 20 year old is way ahead of me in terms of comprehension.
Interviewer: how about facilities?
It is not just about facilities, that is only physical, understanding has improved in the past four decades. Not just facilities like projectors mobile phones etc. how the level of thought and perception has elevated this is very fascinating. So a 20 year old today and a 20 year old of my days is very different in their quality of thought? In my days there was no internet, social networks or phones, but we were exposed to masters much more important than the internet, excellent tutors whom we learned from face to face, we wouldn’t sit down and search, nowadays we don’t have that instead we have social networks. Modern music and traditional music, not just music but any art that is connected to the essence of nature falls out of any definition as such (classical or modern) they all become one; the classical becomes the modern and vice versa. Where did Picasso get his imaginations from? From the most basic of African Imagination, he was frowned upon, but I am saying they are all the same they are not in conflict but rather a continuation of one another.
Interviewer: what do you think about the critique and critics in the music industry?
Those who cannot become artists become art critics. We have more critics than we have artists.
Interviewer: do you see music as having a social role?
After the artist enjoys his work fully, if people enjoy that music too it can then have a social role.
Interviewer: how do you explain yourself?
I am a child thirsty to explore and discover.
Interviewer: what is your greatest wish?
Nothing, I have bit had any wishes for years now.
Interviewer: What hopes do you have and what hopes have you lost?
I have not lost hope for anything, all these years that I have lived have gone very well, and my will is for this child who wants to explore to grow and discover more.
What do you hold faith in, in this world?
Interviewer: what do you hold faith in?
The fact that I am. And I am very happy that I am.