Ahmad Pejman
Audio of the Entire Interview
Interview Transcript
Part 01
00:37
I was born in Lar (Fars Province) in1935. They only had 3 school grades: 1, 2, 3 and that was it! As if 3rd grade was the university level! At first I was placed in Maktab (religious school). They had oil barrels with Pars Oil written (in Farsi) on one side and British Petroleum (in English) on the other side. They would cut out a section of the barrel, smooth out the surface, attach a piece of paper on it with our homework assignment and we had to copy the writing on the flat surface.
1:17
I really liked that because whenever I made a mistake I could erase the mistake with a cloth or sometimes just lick it off and rewrite the homework! That’s how I learnt the alphabet.
1:36
I became interested in the Latin letters. For example I’d write “British Petroleum” without knowing what I was writing! I didn’t like to go to school. Like other children, all I wanted to do was play, but they would force me to go.
2:01
My father didn’t live in Lar. He lived in Bandar Abbas so we moved there for a while. Bandar Abbas was a very small town with only one main street which was next to the bazar and that’s where I saw electrical lights for the first time in my life. Soon after, my father decided that we move to Minab (a city next to Bandar Abbas) with many gardens and fruit trees. A great place to grow up.
2:55
Behind our school there was a reed field. I’m not sure how I learnt to make an instrument out of them. I used to cut the reeds with knives or blades, and because they were divided into several sections, I would cut the middle with a hot sharp metallic stick to create an individual reed. Basically I was imitating what I had seen and then I would put marks on it with hot coal, and pierce holes on those sections, not knowing exactly if I was doing it right or not.
3:35
Then I taught myself how to make a mouthpiece tip for it with a small piece of the reed. I would stick it into the larger body and then tie it with a string or paper and also would add one strand of hair in between to create a space so that it would make a sound. I would then go home and take the funnel from the kerosene can and add it to the end to make an oboe type instrument and blow into it to make sounds.
4:10
I studied there for two years and don’t have many memories except that I spent a lot of time in the river and would stay till sunset.
4:38
Then the entire family moved to the city of Sirjan. My uncle had a commercial chamber and I used to spend a lot of time with him. He was more like my guardian because my father had moved back to Minab and I stayed in Sirjan with my mother. I finished 3rd grade in Sirjan. There was also one main street which passed through the bazar and at the end of the street was our school and a mosque.
5:06
After lunch we would go to the mosque for prayers. Since we were tired after playing, our favorite part of the prayer was the prostration when we put our forehead down, we would cheat and take a short nap. Our stay in Sirjan ended when the family decided that we should move to Tehran to my grandparent’s house.
5:40
It took a few days to get to Tehran. I went to high school in Tehran. We lived in the Hassan Abad square neighborhood on Masjed Majd street. Kids used to play volleyball and football on the street. At that time I had purchased a nay (reed), the metallic kind, where you would blow into the few holes and make musical sounds. As the other kids played, I would sit by the street stream and try to play the songs of the day, for example “gol-pari-joon”. That’s when I realized the reed needs other instruments to play all parts of the song, because the reed had its limitations.
6:39
The Aide (New Years day) was our favorite day because we would get presents and money. The first item I purchased with the money I had saved was a harmonica. That also had a limited range and couldn’t play complete songs with it. I learnt that there are some advanced harmonicas that have a chromatic range and that we could change the key signature with various thumb placements. I was happy to be able to play all the popular songs of the day with the new harmonica.
7:14
A friend once asked me if I could teach harmonica to a student. I told him I could only teach the songs that I have learnt. So my first teaching job was a harmonica teacher although I still had no music education and could only teach what I knew.
Part 02
0:28
I went to Adib high school. We lived near Azizkhan Intersection. Going toward Ferdowsi square to the east, there was an Armenian violin store run by Monsieur Vartan. He would repair violins and he was also a violin maker and would display them on the store window. I would stand at least ten minutes by the store window and look at the instruments.
0:59
At that time, there were rumors that whoever knows the English language, can get a better job. That was the beginning of moving from learning French language as a foreign language to English. When I first started high school, all of our foreign language teachers were French teachers, but they would have to go to night school to learn English and then teach us English in class the next morning!
1:30
In order to be able to enroll in those English classes, I got 40 Tomans (from my family) to go and register. On my way, I passed Monsieur Vartan’s store and noticed a purple violin on display. I had never seen a purple violin in my life. I decided to give up on the English class and asked Monsieur Vartan how much does the violin cost? He asked, “young man, do you have the money for it?”. I said never mind that, just tell me how much? He said 40 Tomans! I gave him the 40 Tomans. The violin only had a bow and didn’t even have a case and I carried it home just like that.
2:15
All the homes had a cool basement, and I would go on the steps of the basement and play. I would try to learn by myself and could only make distorted sounds out of the violin. I thought maybe if I could make vibrations on the strings, it would sound better. And I realized that vibrations from the strings produces a better tone.
2:36
I had learnt to play some songs with terrible distortions on the violin. There was a violin conservatory at Baharestan square which was run by the Moarefi Brothers. They used to also have a radio program so I went there to study. They taught me some basic music notes, for example where is “do”, “re” or “fa” but it was only through hearing and demonstration. For example to play any songs, they’d say where to position my finger first, and then to move it to another position, etc. So l learnt and memorized some songs that way but I didn’t know how to read the notes and didn’t know anything about solfege or what is rhythm or anything like that.
3:37
When I was in the 3rd grade of Adib high school, I was at the house of one of my classmates who used to study the violin with Mehdi Khaledi, and my friend became my first violin teacher. I learnt Saba’s first “Radif” from my friend Fariborz Baddakhsh and I don’t know where in the world he is now!
4:07
One night I saw a German black and white film called “The Black Eyes” about a violinist. The main character was in love with a girl and would go play a beautiful romantic song on the violin below her window which I liked a lot. I memorized the song and although I didn’t know it completely, I had learnt the main theme and would repeatedly play it and it made me become very drawn to this type of music.
4:42
I found a violin teacher who was a medical student himself by the name of Isa Rezaee. I studied violin with him. His brother, Mostafa Rezaee plus all his other 3 siblings were all interested in music. They had a record player and whenever I went to their house, we could listen to classical music. Even when Isa was late coming home, I would go there and listen to all their records. His mother and sister were fed up with me playing so much music loudly for so long.
5:33
Mostafa Rezaee studied with Heshmat Sanjari. He told me Sanjari is a very good teacher and you should come to him as well. Sanjari lived in an apartment in Jomhoori street and that’s where I met him for the first time and started studying with him seriously.
6:12
- Didn’t your family, mother and father ask you what you were doing with music?
No they never told me anything because I was also studying at the same time.
When 5th grade of high school ended, we had to choose a major, either math, literature or other subjects. I left Adib school and found a private school near Hassanabad square, where we had to pay tuition, and I enrolled as a literature student.
6:46
After studying literature, since I had to pay tuition, I went to the Training Institute (Daneshsaraye Aali) to become a language teacher. At that time I was still studying with Sanjari and sometimes I didn’t have enough money to pay him in time. I never forget that when I’d tell Sanjari that I am sorry this time…. he would interrupt me and say, “don’t say another word go play your instrument” – he wouldn’t let me even tell him that I would pay him the next week.
7:21
While I was going to Sanjari, the Music Conservatory had started an orchestra and Sanjari was the conductor. After him, the concert master of the Tehran Symphony Orchestra, Luigi Pazanari who was a great violinist and had come to Iran from India became the conductor of the Music Conservatory Orchestra.
7:50
At that time, they had live music at cafes and other places but they were mainly foreigners and slowly the Iranian musicians also joined them.
8:16
At the University, our teacher was Dr. Sooratgar. It was very strange that after learning very elementary English sentences like “this is your hand, this is water, etc.” suddenly we had to study Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet! I took me a whole week to read the first Introduction page of Romeo and Juliet because the only words I knew were “and” and simple words and didn’t know the rest of the words and had to look them up one by one in the dictionary.
8:54
When I was in the orchestra, we had a class by Dr. Isa Sadigh. He had written a book called “the Journey of Culture in Iran and the West.” It was a great book where we learnt the cultural movements in Iran and in Europe. Dr. Sadigh became ill and substituted a family member, I think his son-in-law, to teach the rest of the course. The students didn’t respect him because he was very slow and apathetic and the students used to make fun of him. I was continuing with my music and came to the college less frequently.
9:43
He gave us a test on the “Journey of culture in Iran and the West “ I was writing my answers when he told me the time is up. I told him to let me finish the sentence I was writing and he said “no, give me your paper!” and I got angry and tore up the paper and walked off. The kind of thing a person does in their youth! And I thought I am done with college, and I’m just going to go after music!
Part 03
0:49
At that time, there were no music books in Iran except a few music sheet scores at the Music Conservatory.
0:58
Professor Linton was a retired American professor from Columbia University, who had come to Iran to study Farsi. A friend of mine had gotten to know him and we used to invite him over or take him for outings on Fridays. He became ill and required surgery and I used to go visit him and he asked that I bring him his mail and mail his letters. After he recovered, he asked what he could do for me in return. I asked him to write a book on orchestration, to learn how orchestration works in a symphony orchestra.
1:49
I think that was the first book about Orchestration that was written in Iran. Soon after, more books and sheet music scores were accessible so that we could read the scores of the music we were listening to.
2:08
I collected many music scores, and when I was given a scholarship abroad, Mostafa Pourtorab bought all of my books, a full library! Later when I needed one, I would ask him to lend it to me!
2:41
I had a friend, Taymour Pourtorab who was the brother of Mostafa Pourtorab. He was also Sanjari’s student. Parviz Mansouri was their neighbor. He had written and translated many books. He was studying with Hossein Nasehi. I told him I want to study music composition. I knew that there was so much I needed to learn so that I could write the songs I had learnt to recite.
3:07
We had a beloved professor, Dr. Hooshyar, who was educated in Germany and knew about psychology and other subjects and I was very fond of him. During the time that I played the violin and had learnt writing scores, he passed away. It was very difficult for us and we cried a lot and at home I wrote a song for him. That’s when I realized I need to learn more so that I could fully write my ideas. That’s when I told Parviz Mansouri that because you are studying with Nasehi, I can become your student and learn from you! And he said okay.
4:01
He taught me all that he had learnt. I was so eager to learn, that he would give me four assignment problems at a time to solve, each problem had a melody and you had to add four more instruments to it. There is a process to write, then get corrected, etc. After a couple of months, one night he told me that’s all he knew that he could teach me. I didn’t know what to do because there was a lot more to learn. He said why don’t you continue with Nasehi? I said it costs too much to study with him and I can’t afford it. He said I’ll talk to him and you can go every other week. I said okay!
4:47
Taymour Pourtorab was like a brother to me. We used to play the violin together, I would go to his house and we became very close. He told me why don’t you teach at kindergartens so that you can have an income and be able to take more classes or change your instrument. He asked me to buy a small accordion and said that he’ll arrange for me to teach. I bought a small accordion and learnt all the children’s songs from him. I started teaching at a few kindergartens and that improved my financial situation.
5:30
I continued going to Nasehi and completed learning Harmony from him. When I told him that I want to write compositions, he said “no, you first have to finish all the classes before you can write compositions” but I couldn’t help myself because I was so thirsty to compose.
5:59
At that time Ministry of Arts and Culture had put together a few orchestras to have performances on television. One was Saba Orchestra. When Saba passed away, Hossein Dehlavi became the director of Saba Orchestra and kept the name Saba.
6:24
I used to play in a few orchestras. One was Dehlavi Orchestra, Saba Orchestra and Forootan Raad Orchestra. All of the conductors would compose music. Mr. Dehlavi said, “the orchestra needs food” and the conductor of the orchestra would provide the food. Dehlavi was also a student of Hossein Nasehi. When he was with Nasehi, Mr. Sanjari got a scholarship to learn conducting in Austria and stayed for almost 3 years. In his place, they brought the Viennese conductor Haymo Tauber to conduct the orchestra and also teach at the Music Conservatory
7:15
Both Hossein Dehlavi and Mostafa Pourtorab studied with him to get their Bachelor’s degree in Composition. At the same time I was playing at the orchestra and also started to compose without Nasehi knowing about it because he wanted me to finish my studies first. But I couldn’t wait and wanted to continue with composing.
7:45
In Iran at that time, everyone talked about the theory of writing music. I would write a composition but then I would be stuck as to how to elaborate on it. If I had one or two themes, what would I do next?
8:00
My first composition was with the Dehlavi orchestra. It resembled a folkloric melody. I called it something like “the Village Song”. We performed it on television and I liked the way it sounded. At that time Saadi Hassani had a radio program called “the Classical Music Program”. He had studied in Germany and later became the director of the opera. We became consumed listening to his radio programs. We thought Bach sounded a lot like Iranian music. The “Chahar Mezrab” in Iranian music was similar to the rhythmic parts of Bach and that made us very drawn to Bach. Beethoven also had a great influence.
9:00
When I heard The Egmont overture or the Coriolan, I memorized them. When I was with Sanjari, he was teaching a Beethoven piece to another student who was a better violin player. When I heard it, I told Mr. Sanjari that the piece sounded like Beethoven. He said to me, “how do you know about Beethoven when you are only learning do, re, me, fa, sol, la, si?” I told him that I have heard Beethoven and this sounds like Egmont. He said it’s not like Egmont, but it is Beethoven!
10:04
I would listen to all these compositions and also buy the scores and would listen to the pieces and analyze the scores: what chords are used, how the instrumentation is, and what the composer had done to make it sound good. I used to play in the orchestra at that time and was almost self-taught in composing. And they sounded good! Even now, when I find the scores to those early compositions. For example one of the students sent me the score to “Kenar Jooybar” (By the Stream) which became a popular song at that time and was performed several times and when I look at it now, I see that its not nonsense and I knew what I was doing!
10:48
It was basically because I would listen to the orchestra and also study the music scores. I liked it when Sanjari for example would say the woodwind section doesn’t sound good. I would then open the score and see where the oboe, clarinet, or the flute sounded good and where it didn’t. I learnt all of that on the spot.
11:19
When there was a problem the way the cello sounded during practice, I could analyze that it was low pitched, or too high, and that’s how I learnt.
11:37
The first song I wrote, I remember I was paid 300 Toman. I wrote another one that was “Theme and Variations.” The theme started with Santoor with different variations. For that I got 1,500 Toman! People couldn’t believe it. 1,500 Toman was a lot of money! Because every time we played in the orchestra we were only paid 150 Toman. That’s how it was!
12:39
Our rehearsals were broadcasted on the television. I was one of the players as well as the composer. The director of Ballet, Nejad Ahmadzadeh, when he heard “Kenar Jooybar” on television, told me that my music is good for the ballet and asked that I write them a ballet composition. I liked to write for the orchestra and he said, “if you write it, I’ll have it performed.” I wrote the piece and showed it to Sanjari. Sanjari said what kind of a song is this, and started criticizing it and asked if I could read the score. I tried, but I was not very good with solfege to be very precise, and he said I am reading it incorrectly. I thought the worst that can happen it won’t be performed!
13:36
Around that time, they were inviting opera companies to Iran to perform operas. They had brought an Italian company with a very good conductor (Ferraroti). He told me that I am very talented and that I have to go and study abroad. I said “inshallah”!
Part 04
0:48
At the Music Conservatory I used to play in the orchestra. We had to practice how to play in the orchestra. It was different from playing a solo instrument. There was a discipline in playing in the orchestra because even 1/16th of the second was counted. I had practiced for that and Taymour Pourtorab asked me to join the symphony orchestra because he thought I was ready. I wasn’t sure because I thought it was difficult and he encouraged me to join and said that I can also learn while I am in the symphony orchestra.
1:17
He introduced me to Haymo Täuber (the conductor) and he placed me as a second violinist in the back of the orchestra. They were playing a piece by Listz, Les prelude. It was very difficult and I had to look at the notes one by one and try to play the piece. I couldn’t just sit there. I had to play! So I started imitating as if I was playing!
1:49
I felt I was sitting in a bubble and didn’t know anything and that I was supposed to play the violin in this vacuum! It was a very odd feeling as if I had exited this world surrounded by various sounds of violins, clarinet, oboe, and the cymbal around me. It was so strange feeling like I was ascending to the skies, the seventh sky! I was just floating up!
2:18
That night I decided that I had to learn all of it correctly. I started practicing one note at a time every night until I was able to play the piece. I don’t know how well I played because it was a very difficult piece but eventually by practicing every night I learnt it and in the midst of it all, I was composing music as well, and was also playing at Dehlavi’s orchestra.
3:00
– Tell us about your marriage.
When I was with Nasehi and secretly writing music, I used to go to the Pourtorab family house because I was friends with the brothers. When Pourtorab was writing music, we would exchange opinions about each other’s pieces, although he was my teacher and I was his student. One of Pourtorab’s students was a very enthusiastic student who played the santoor at the conservatory and also played the accordion. Pourtorab himself also played the accordion and the piano. Her student’s name was Homa Bahrayni and she was also studying harmony . Pourtorab told her, who became my future wife, to show me her harmonies.
4:03
And that’s when our courtship started. We used to go to concerts together, etc. After a while her family started commenting that enough of dating, although this young man is a musician, hasn’t finished his studies and doesn’t even have a degree! When the time came for us to marry, my first wife’s family complained that I didn’t have a proper degree and was just a violinist! But my future wife convinced them that I only had one unfinished class…
- She came to your rescue?
Yes, she came to my rescue.
4:54
I then wrote a letter to the university saying that because of family complications I couldn’t finish that one class. I didn’t tell them that I tore up the paper and walked out of the exam! So they accepted that I go back and retake the exam. At one point I told her, “this is who I am, whether you like it or not”! and she told her parents who eventually agreed to our marriage.
5:50
So I was married. By then I played at the symphony, I was writing music and my financial situation had gotten pretty good. But there was one problem: I hadn’t done my military service. I was sent to Shiraz for military training. There were classes every morning, then having to learn to march, be at night duty, etc. and then suddenly I received a picture of my first born son, Babak. He is now a painter. So his father was at the military service with his own issues!
6:31
I used to study in secret late into the night under low lights, because I wanted to have good grades so that I could select what my service city would be. I never got enough sleep at nights and during the day there were so many activities; to march, run, attend classes, I was regularly being punished, because I was taking naps, and they would make me be a night guard! So on top of my sleepless nights I had to stay up as a night guard.
7:05
But I did get good grades and was able to choose my service city which was Tehran. In Tehran I was serving in the military all day till night time, so I wrote a letter to Mr. Pahlbod (Minister of Culture) explaining my situation and he arranged so that I could play in the orchestra several days a week.
8:00
There was a man by the name of Assadollah Payman who worked at the Radio but then came to the Ministry of Arts and Culture. He would come to the performances and watch the whole set up from the various angles where the cameras were. He would direct as to what camera to cut to during broadcast. For example cut to the singer, or the cello, etc. I had arranged a song and Monir Vakili, the singer. She liked what I had done and asked me to compose songs for her as well. Assadollah Payman was there and heard me tell her that the orchestra wouldn’t perform what I write. He asked me to write it and that he would then show it to Pahlbod.
8:52
Pahlbod used to come to many of our rehearsals. One day he asked (Sanjari), “why don’t you perform pieces by Iranian composers?”. Sanjari responded that we hardly have any composers, but he used to compose himself and sometimes would perform his own pieces. But he complained to Pahlbod that there were no other composers and Pahlbod responded, “why are you saying they are none? We have Pejman!”
9:20
Assadollah Payman had shown him my piece and told him this is a score to music written by an Iranian composer that can be performed. So after that, Sanjari told me that my piece can be performed. I played in the orchestra and we would practice for performing in the television the next evening. During rehearsal, Pahlbod called Sanjari to have a talk with him. I don’t know what they talked about but afterwards Sanjari said that Pahlbod wants to talk to me. I went into the yard, and he congratulated me for writing a beautiful piece, but said that the piece is not completely ready yet and that we should not perform it the next evening. He asked if I promise him to come back to Iran if he sent me abroad to study. And I thought, what would a blind person want? Two seeing eyes! And that was one of the best days in my life. Without exaggerating, I ran from Baherstan square to Keshavarz boulevard.
Part 05
0.35
At the Academy in Vienna, there was a professor (Thomas Christian David), who is no longer with us, who helped me a lot in every way possible. Even when I ran out of money he would want to lend me money, but I always refused. I showed him my work and explained that after a certain point, I was stuck and didn’t know what else to do. He sat at the piano and started playing a piece by Béla Bartók.
1:10
He was very good in sight-reading and could play the piece effortlessly without any practice. He explained a few things to me and I quickly figured out the solutions to the problems in my work. He had a class called, “The Music Form” where he explained what was Theme and Variations. He used Mozart and Beethoven’s examples and asked that we write themes based on those examples. I wrote a theme and was working on it variations. When he saw what I had written, he said, “if you finish this, I’ll have it performed”!
1:52
It was my first month at the Academy and he is promising me to have my piece performed if I finished it! I kept writing and he would advise me how to improve things, and I kept learning from him. It took the entire year. I asked him what I should call it and he said Concerto for 9 Instruments. I listened to him and called it Concerto for 9 Instruments and he said I’ll have it performed by the soloists of Vienna Radio Orchestra.
2:25
The piece was finally finished and he had spoken to them and arranged to start the rehearsals. I used to attend the rehearsals without knowing the German language well at all. I had only attended 7-8 sessions of German classes. We mainly used to speak English and very little German.
2:45
The soloists of the Vienna Radio Orchestra were experienced professionals and in Vienna it was customary to give the title “Doctor” to the top musicians and sports figures. For example Doctor Retehbacher who was the concertmaster. I noticed that they were playing with a very slow tempo. And with my broken German I told him that their tempo was too slow. He said, “it is a very difficult piece”!
3:17
He said, why don’t you recite it? He was probably thinking this young man has come from Iran and is criticizing us for playing too slow or too fast! But I had memorized the piece and started reciting the section. He realized that I did it all correctly! At that time Schönberg and a-tonal music had become very popular and many composers would write pieces in that form and if players performed it incorrectly, it was not easy to detect by the concertmaster. So he thought my piece was something like that, but as soon as I was able to recite it correctly, he sat down and they started playing!
4:17
We had a female piano teacher who was an avant garde composer and always argued with me. I would tell her that I don’t like to write in that style. She mentioned it to David and he told me that I should first go and study it and then criticize it and say that I don’t like the style. I agreed and took a class in dodecaphonic music. We had a very good instructor. He had studied with Schönberg and we had heard many of his works. I was learning from him while I was writing in the classical style for David at the same time, but also had to write for this class.
5:05
I wrote a piece, which was published, called Sonatina for alto violin and piano. David had asked me to write it. He was reviewing it and sight-reading as he played and it sounded terrible to me. Sounded like avant garde music. I said, “Mr. David, what are you playing? There is no such harmony in my mind.” He said, “well, this is what you have written yourself”. He showed me my own score and I noticed that he was correct! I thought my intention was to bring classical music to my own culture, and this was nonsense, so I never went back to that class again. I realized that form of music could influence my work whether I liked it or not. So I decided to stay with the style of Iranian music, and work on melodies, rhythm, or the theme of Iranian music… That’s what I waned to work on.
6:28
In my second year at the Academy, my mentor Mr. David had left and went to Iran. So I continued with Alfred Uhl. He was a very reputable composer in Vienna at the time. He also encouraged me a lot and kept saying everything I wrote was very good! I thought what does he mean by just saying “it’s very good”? At least David used to teach us in depth. What I learnt from Uhl was how to combine the percussive instruments with various rhythms. I used what I learnt in my works and they came out really well.
7:08
David was instrumental in all of my learning, because every time I saw him, he would show me how to solve a problem and I started composing. At some point, my scholarship money was delayed in coming in. I had a two year old son, my mother was also living with us to help, and both my wife and myself were studying at the Academy. That’s when David said that he’ll go to Iran and will talk to them to send the money on time.
7:40
When he returned for a concert, he asked me to write a piece. I started writing one of my better pieces, Rhapsody in the second year of the Academy. I called it Rhapsody and the Vienna Radio Orchestra performed it. Now, my instructor had changed again and I was taking a class on Instrumentation with Haans Sandaver. He had Iranian, Arab, Indian and students from all over the world. He started putting us down saying that students form Iraq for example don’t even know what an orchestra is. So he felt superior to us.
8:36
He asked if we had anything to show him. I was the only student who raised his hand. I had brought my scores and showed him the piece that I had written before getting my scholarship. He asked where I had studied. I said “Iran”. He asked, “you learnt all these in Iran?” and I said yes. He told the rest of the students that they had to show their pieces to me first before bringing them to him!
9:03
So the students would bring me their pieces but I wanted to learn from him and he’d say you can come to my house for that! I was writing the Rhapsody at the same time and he gave me a good idea for the ending which I found the idea very helpful. The piece was going to be performed because Alfred Uhl thought it was ready to be performed. There was a conductor by the name of Karl Etti who conducted works by all the Austrian and German composers.
9:41
He was supposed to conduct my piece, but Mr. Sandaver who was our Instrumentation instructor, and a very good pianist, had a small orchestra himself and told them that I am his student and attend his classes so therefore he wanted to conduct the piece! I didn’t care who would conduct it!
10:10
As the matter of fact, I had two pieces. One was Rhapsody and the other was called Parsian Overture. It was performed and recorded very well and was broadcast in the radio. Everything that was recorded, would broadcast from the radio and they would call my name Peshman! Alfred Uhl would call me Herr Pegman and another would call me Herr Peshman!
Part 06
0:36
I sent the Rhapsody’s Score to Iran and said this is like a thesis on my education. That’s when they commissioned me to write an opera. It was around summertime, I am not quite sure if I got a call or received a letter, but they said that they are building an opera house and sent me some texts to use and wanted me to write an opera.
1:02
I really wasn’t too fond of the opera. Like many others, I’d ridicule it and say it is just a bunch of singers, screaming! I would go to operas 3 to 4 times a week, but I would only listen to the orchestra to see what instruments were used. We didn’t have many of the instruments in Iran, and I wanted to learn everything about them.
1:26
For example, Wagner’s tuba. For his musical ideas, if Wagner needed specific sounds where there were no instruments, he would request for special instruments to be built. Sometimes when I listened to Wagner’s operas, it felt that I had fallen into the sea, floating, because the sounds were extraordinary and beautiful.
2:13
That’s when I was asked to write an opera and I really didn’t like the opera itself, and wasn’t sure what to do. Of course, they had asked me to write many pieces, but one of them was the opera that I wrote in once Act. We had a librarian that we could borrow music scores from. We could also ask if he had the accompanying tape recordings of the piece. I asked him for tapes of a Verdi opera, because it was performed in Vienna and I had sneaked into Leonard Bernstein’s rehearsals with some other students!
2:55
I listened to the tape recording while I was analyzing the score. The difficulty in writing an opera is that you have to balance the sound of the singers and the choir with the orchestra. Orchestra should not overpower or suppress the singers. Like film music, if it is played too loud, instead of watching the scene, you only listen to the music. It is similar to that.
3:27
Writing with that balance in mind, is very difficult. If it’s only music without singers, you write a completely different composition. Some composers like Wagner, use a full orchestra so he requires special singers, called “Wagner Singers”. They are usually heavy built with very powerful voices who can compete with the orchestra. If the voices are weak, the orchestra overpowers the performance and you can only see the singer’s lips moving. I have seen that.
4:13
The first opera that I wrote, had a very rustic feel to it, and was called The Rustic Festival.
- The Rustic Festival Opera?
Yes. That made me want to write something on Shahnameh or old epic stories.
4:36
Once the opera was performed, the members of the orchestra liked it, and I also became interested to seriously pursue writing operas. I found opera a very effective musical device. Otherwise you can just write something epic with the orchestra and someone can recite a Shahnameh poem and say this is the story of Siavash for example.
5:11
But opera is like theater, where you can dramatize it with emotional language. What I realized later on, is the importance of research. When you study and research it, that’s when you become engrossed and learn the language of the opera. I learnt so many different layers and depth in opera and its music. There are many epic operatic pieces and it would be a pity if they no longer exit.
5:52
What is very important in opera, is that you have to have a lot of conflict. If there is no conflict, the music won’t be as interesting. The Italians are masters in it.
6:25
For Delavare-Sahand (The Hero of Sahand) I had a contract. Mr. Pahlbod, at the Ministry of Arts and Culture had instructed them to have contracts with good composers, and I was offered 4,000 Toman. 4,000 was a lot of money at the time! And the contract was for the composer to write at least one piece a year. There were a few of us that our works were performed regularly. Other than myself, there was Malik Aslanian, Mr. Ostovar, or Baghcheban. Those in charge had realized that it’s better to promote Iranian composer’s works instead of foreign composers and they had to have contracts with them which I thought was a great idea and the right way to do it.
7:20
I had become very fond of the opera. I thought I was writing music in my own language and that had a different kind of an impact. I immediately thought that I’ll use Babak Khorramdin, and all Iranian other heroes in our history, because I had always thought that if I were a composer, I’ll write about those characters. We all have it within us, about the Arab invasion and all the heroes who fought against them. We all like to publicize them.
7:56
When writing Delavere-Sahand, I knew the story about Babak from what I had studied in high school and history classes, so I came up with the story of the hero of Sahand! But later I found out, he was not a hero from Sahand, Babak was from Sabalan!
8:56
When I came to Iran, I became friends with Mr. Ostovar although we had a big age difference. He told me that before I came back to Iran, many composers would gather and have sessions about how to write an opera, but now you have come and are quickly writing operas! There’s something wrong with you!
9:20
Once I finished the opera, I decided to revisit it seriously and do some analysis. I studied many books and decided to write an opera on the tragedy of Siavash. It’s an extraordinary tragedy, totally exceptional. I was very close with those who worked on the operas. I was always behind the scenes, talking with the singers and others
- In Vienna or in Iran?
When I came to Iran.
10:01
We had a set decorator by the name of Theo Lau (from Germany) who had lived in Iran with his wife for several years. He told me that Iranians love drama, Italian dramas, and although Mozart is great, but isn’t suitable for Iran because Iranian’s mentalities are very dramatic and that’s what they like. I possessed the same mentality and thought Siavash would be a successful story to tell. But unfortunately it was never completed (because of the Revolution).
10:42
My last opera in Iran was Samandar. Mohammad Reza Aslani wrote the libretto which was very effective. The opera started with people talking, with some music under it, and it worked well. I thought we should not treat this opera like a classical opera and instead called it a theatrical musical. It had sections where performers were in conversations, like an operetta , but it would have been boring, so I added rhythmic music which reflected the mood of what they were talking about. I wanted to experiment doing it that way. So I used many percussive instruments. But there was a problem, because the crew thought that this is not like Verdi or Puccini operas which are difficult and this work by Pejman will be easy.
11:53
So the making of this opera became very tricky. I kept telling them that the rhythmic sections are very complicated, but they thought since they only practiced Othello for two weeks, this was not going to be hard. I told them that of course Othello is a huge opera; Verdi and Shakespeare together is immensely complex, but my opera is even harder! It won’t be as good as Verdi, but it is difficult.
12:23
The night before the performance, I knew that they were not prepared. I omitted many of the parts. They complained, but I said it’s better than you ruining the piece. So it was very hard to comprehend what the opera was because in many of the sections the curtain would come down and the audience only listened to the music!