Dariush Tala'i (Setar) - The Instrumental Radif of Persian Music - Radif of Mirza Abdollah - A box of six cassettes, released in Iran in mid 1990s

Before we proceed on our journey further towards Afghanistan and India, we return back to Iran for another unexpected post by Dariush Tala'i. We received this box recently as a gift from a very dear Iranian friend, Mohsen. Many many thanks to him.

This Radif was recorded in 1992 at the University of Washington, School of Music, Seattle. It was first published in 1994 on 5 CDs by the French label Al Sur. These CDs are no longer available for many years. The Iranian edition on six cassettes was probably published shortly after the French edition. It is also no longer available for quite some time and never has been released on CD in Iran.

Mirza Abdollah (1843-1918), whose Radif is performed here, was one of the most important musicians in the recent history of classical Iranian music. His father Ali Akbar Farahani was the one who collected all the remaining parts of the old classical music and organized them into a Radif. His two sons, Mirza Abdollah and Mirza Hossein Qoli (Agha Hossein Gholi) (1853-1916) transmitted two different versions of this Radif to many students. These two Radifs are the basis of most classical Iranian music since then. 

Ali Akbar Farahani 

Mirza Abdollah

Aqa Hossein Qoli

Ali Akbar Khan Shahnazi

Dariush Tala'i himself is a student of Agha Hossein Gholi's son, Ali Akbar Khan Shahnazi (1897-1985), who was considered the greatest Tar player of his generation. Ali Akbar Shahnazi transmitted the Radif of his father to many excellent students. He also created his own Radif, which he also transmitted. 

But Dariush Tala'i learned also the Radif of Mirza Abdollah, which is the most widely known and used Radif, probably from another of his masters, Nur Ali Borumand (1905-1977), who was the main transmitter of this Radif to later generations. In the booklet to the French edition of this Radif Dariush Tala'i thanks all his masters. Next to the two already mentioned, these are Abdollah Davami, Yusuf Forutan and Said Hormozi. By three of these masters we recently posted recordings.

The Radifs by Mirza Abdollah, Aqa Hossein Qoli (another transcription of his name) and Ali Akbar Shahnazi are all available on CDs and also as books, with complete scores of the Radifs, from the Iranian label and publishing house Mahoor.

Volume 1:

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Volume 2:

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Volume 3:

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Volume 4:

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Volume 5:

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Volume 6:

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Unfortunately on side 1 of cassette 6 something went wrong. We have replaced the faulty file now by a correct one. Sorry for the inconveniance.

Ostad Bahari (Ali Asghar Bahari) - Kamancheh - Cassette released in the US in 1987

Here we present a cassette by the great Kemencheh (Kamancheh) master Ostad Ali Asghar Bahari (1905-1995). Though he cooperated with many of the so-called radio artists, also called Motrebi (entertainers), his playing always remained very authentic and very much his own. Later in his life he joined the Center for the Preservation and Propagation of Iranian Traditional Music and taught many students. Since the 1940s the violin had replaced the Kemencheh in classical Iranian music. It was Ali Asghar Bahari who was practically the only arist who held onto the Kemencheh and revived the instrument in the end. Nowadays violin has completely disappeared in classical Iranian music and the Kemencheh is widely played again, due to our artists influence.

He is very beloved in Iran and there are many CDs by him available there. This cassette probably was first published in Iran.

Here he plays on side 1: Dastgah-e Shur and on side 2: Avaz-e Dashti and Avaz-e Afshari, both derived from Dastgah-e Shur.

Last month we posted an LP on which he performed.

On the artist see:

http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bahari

http://www.iranchamber.com/music/abahari/aliasghar_bahari.php

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali-Asghar_Bahari

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Yusef Forutan (1891-1979) - Setar - Recordings which appeared by accident on a faulty pressing of an Ocora LP

Yusef Forutan was one of the handful of outstanding, incomparable masters of authentic Iranian music in mid 20th century. Amongst instrumentalists there were only two or three others of the same quality: Sa'id Hormozy and Ali Akbar Khan Shahnazi and perhaps Abolhassan Saba. At the end of his live he joined the The Center for Preservation and Propagation of Iranian Music and formed many young musicians like Dariush Tala'i, Jalal Zolfonun, Hossein Alizadeh, Dâvud Ganjeyi, Parviz Meshkatian and many more. He recorded there also a good part of his repertoire.

My friend Werner Durand had the bad, he first thought, but in the end very good luck, that, when he bought the re-edition of the Ocora box of two LPs "Iran 5 & 6 - Musiques d'Extase et de Guérison du Baloutchistan", orginally published in 1981, he got a faulty pressing of the first LP: instead of music from Balouchistan it had all pieces played on Setar. He soon realised that it was exceptional music. A friend of his, the percussionist Saam Schlamminger, who knows Iranian music well, told him that these were recordings by Yusef Forutan. At that time no recordings by the great artist had yet been published. We only can guess how these recordings ended up on the LP. Perhaps Jean During, the editor of the LP box, had handed in the wrong tape. He probably got these recordings during his long stay in Tehran at the Center for Preservation and Propagation of Iranian Music from the beginning of the 1970s, where he studied Tar and the Radif for many years. He might have learned directly from Yusef Forutan. It could also be that the label mixed up the recordings. Perhaps Jean During had the intention to publish on Ocora in his series "Iran - Anthologie de la musique traditionnelle" also some older recordings by some of the great masters and had already handed in these recordings. Perhaps even Jean During recorded these himself. Anyway, this way these very precious recordings made it to the few music lovers who bought this faulty pressing.

Starting probaly in the late 1990s a number of CDs by Yusef Forutan were released in Iran: two single CDs and two boxes of 3 CDs each. These were partly recorded at the Center for Preservation and Propagation of Iranian Music, partly in private concerts in the house of Ostad Mohammad-Mehdi Kamalian. On the two sides of the Ocora LP are three longer pieces and six short metrical pieces which are called Zarbis. If these recordings are identical with some of those on the CDs, I couldn't figure out yet. As soon as I know more, I will add the information here. 

Many thanks to Werner Durand for sharing these recordings so generously.

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By the way: I don't have the Ocora box of two LPs "Iran 5 & 6 - Musiques d'Extase et de Guérison du Baloutchistan" anymore. I replaced it later in my collection by the re-edition on 2 CDs which has a huge amount of additional material. So I will not post it. Sorry.

Dariush Tala'i & Djamchid Chemirani - Le Son direct du Concert IRAN du 11 mai 1982 sur France Musique - Set of two cassettes first published in France in 1983. Re-edition from 1988

Just received two days ago from my very dear friend Werner Durand a rip of this rare set of two cassettes. I had completely forgotten, that it existed. I had it in my hands in a private house in Paris in the 1980s, but had no chance to copy it then. Many many thanks to Werner Durand for his very generous sharing.

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Daryoush Tala'i - Le Tar - Tradition classique de l'Iran - LP released in France in 1980

After the wonderful LP by Dariush Tala'i on Ocora now the one on Harmonia Mundi released one year later. Here his name is transcibed as Daryoush Tala'i. With accompanyment by the great Zarb (Tonbak or Tombak) master Djamchid Chemirani. Again an absolutely fantastic recording of authentic Iranian classical music by a great artist. Wonderful.

Unfortunately there was something wrong with the beginning of side 1. We now corrected this. Sorry for the inconveniance.

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Madjid Kiani - Santour - Radif - LP released in 1977 in France

Now we continue with our Iran series. There will be two more posts after this one. Then there will be three posts by the outstanding Kemencheh master Habil Aliyev from Azerbaijan. Then a Ney cassette from Turkey, a double LP of traditional music from Tajikistan and finally an LP with music from Afghanistan. After this we will return to Indian classical music, insha'Allah. So now back to Iran:

Around the same time the two outstanding LPs by Dariush Tala'i and Majid Kiani were released on Ocora, Harmonia Mundi also released LPs by these artists. First we post the one by Majid Kiani released in 1977. These four LPs are perhaps the most beautiful ones of authentic Iranian music ever published. They were for a long time my favourite LPs and are still. Just now while preparing these posts I have listened to each of them again at least 10 times and will certainly many more times.

Regarding the term Radif, on which all classical Iranian music is based, we have included into the download files a pdf file taken from the booklet, written by the Radif master Dariush Tala'i, to the 5 CDs by him: Radif - Volume I to V, released by Al Sur in 1994 in France (ALCD 116 to 120). 

The Radif is a very refined and rich system of modes and melodies, very different from the Raga system and also the Near Eastern Maqam system. The Radif is normally never played in its entirety, except for educational reasons. The musician either chooses parts from a Dastgah of the Radif and performs them, eventually adding some improvisations and developments. Or the main body of the performance is improvisation and development based on a limited amount of selections from a Dastgah from the Radif. In order that these really turn out well with depth and meaning the musician needs a deep understanding of the Radif, which most of the contemporary and even a lot of the older musicians don't have. In effect the Radif is something, one has to dive deep into and the really good and authentic musicians never stop to do that.

Today the Radif is most times understood just as a body of modes and melodies, from which one can borrow pieces freely and then create ones own thing out of it. They don't realise that there are many meanings and secrets hidden in it and many levels of understanding, which only unfold slowly if one dives deep into it and searches to discover them. And this search never has an end. This is also true for the listener. Musicians like Majid Kiani and Dariush Tala'i are completely permeated by the Radif.

All this is described in a very detailed way by Jean During in his excellent book Musiques d'Iran - La tradition en question.

See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radif_(music)

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Mohammad Reza Shajarian - Mahur - Concert in 1989 - Cassette produced to be sold at the 1989 European tour.

Here a concert by the very well-known Mohammad Reza Shajarian (born 1940), a very accomplished singer who touched publics world wide with his very refined, deep, introverted art. The 1989 tour was especially noteworthy as the repertoire and the musicians were the most traditional imaginable. He was accompanied just by a trio of very traditional artists. 

Especially Dariush Pirniakan, the Setar player, is a great master of both the Tar and Setar. He studied with the great Radif masters of mid last century, especially Ali Akbar Shahnazi, more or less the same masters Dariush Tala'i had, but he seems to stick even closer to what he had inherited. Mahoor released a while ago two solo CDs by him, both on Tar, both outstandingly beautiful. He worked in the late 1980s and early 1990s very closely with Shajarian and made about seven CDs with him: the three volumes from this tour of 1989, first published as cassettes, in Mahur, in Abu 'Ata and in Bayat-e Zand & Afshari, from the tour a year later one in Shur with the same group except that as Tombak player for the first time Shajarians son Homayoun Shajarian appeared. And then three CDs with Ensemble Ava under his direction: "Aram-e Jan" - Concert in Afshari, "Rosvaye Del" - Concert in Segah and "Aseman 'Eshgh" also in Segah.

The other two musicians are Jamshid Andalibi, a fine Ney player, and Morteza Ayan, who plays very elegantly the Tombak. 

I was at a couple of these concerts and bought this cassette at their concert in Cologne. In total I saw over the years at least fifteen concerts by Shajarian, most times with my wife who loved his music very much. At the last ones I was a little sceptical if the concert would still touch me and went there mainly because my wife wanted to go, but it always did touch me surprisingly strongly. He is a strongly introverted artist and hardly moves, everything coming from the chest. The maximum movement I noticed was that in very intense moments his hand would rise about a centimeter or two from his knee and then fall back on it again.

On the artist see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad-Reza_Shajarian

http://www.iranchamber.com/music/mshajarian/mohammad_reza_shajarian.php

He published over 30 CDs and DVDs. There exist also some books written on him and his art. In 2016 we posted another cassette by him.

One good thing about the 1979 revolution in Iran related to music: as popular, westernised and night club (casino) music was forbidden, including the entertainment version of classical Iranian music played on the radio, a young generation educated by the great Radif masters at the Center for Preservation and Propagation of Iranian Music received an enormous chance to come forward. Starting in the early 1980s singers like Shajarian and many others and instrumentalists like Dariush Tala'i had many cassette and later CD releases and had many chances to give concerts. In this era also the publication of the existing recordings of the great masters, who were completely ignored before, started in exemplary editions. The only downsize: female singers were not allowed to perform in public, except for a purely female public. 

The concert here consists of a long Dasgah Mahur with these sections:

Side 1:

Pishdaramad

Chaharmezrab

Saz va Avaz (vocal improvisation accompanied by an instrument) - Ghazal by Hafez

Tasnif - Ghazal by Hafez

Saz va Avaz (vocal improvisation accompanied by an instrument) - Ghazal by Hafez

Side 2:

Zarbi

Tasnif - Ghazal by Hafez

Saz va Avaz (vocal improvisation accompanied by an instrument) - Ghazal by Hafez

Tasnif

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Abdollah Davami (1891-1980) & Mohammad Reza Lotfi - Radif Avazi - The Vocal Repertoire

Here we present some recordings by the greatest master of Vocal Radif (Radif Avazi) of the past century. He recorded his complete Radif in the 1970s. It was published first in 1995 as a set of three cassettes and later as a set of three CDs, with the addition of his Tasnif recordings on 78 rpm records from the early part of last century. Only three of the Dastgahs have an accompaniment on Tar, played by Mohammad Reza Lotfi, one of his many students. The other Dastgahs were performed by Davami without any accompaniment. I had asked my friend KF many many years ago to put the three Dastgahs with Lotfi on a CD for me. Here the result, together with the covers created by KF, based on the cover of the original cassette box. Many thanks to him.

Ostad Abdollah Davami had many students, the most prominent being Mohammad Reza Shajarian and Mahmud Karimi, himself the great master of vocal Radif of the following generation. Karimi recorded his own version of the Radif, released by Mahoor as a set of five CDs, which he taught to many students, amongst them Parisa. We had posted an LP by Karimi in 2016. 

"The founder of Persian vocal radif repertoire and a very great master of tasnif and tonbak, Ostad Abdollah Davami, was born in Ta village of Tafresh city, Iran, in 1891. As a teenager he discovered that he had a good, audible and suitable voice, so he decided to learn the elementary principles of Persian vocal music. One day he had gone to a gathering in the house of Majd-al-Mamalek that he met Ali Khan Nayeb-al-Saltaneh. After that he became the student of Ali Khan Nayeb-al-Saltaneh for learning radif and Haji Khan, Agha Jan, Sama' Hozur (santoor player) for learning tasnif, and the art of tonbak playing. Because of his talent in learning music, he became friend of great masters of his time such as Mirza Hossein Gholi (tar player), Hossein Khan (kamancheh player), Darvish Khan (tar and setar player), Malek-al-Zakerin (vocalist) and Mirza Abdallah (setar player). He has trained many students. He passed away in 1980."

from: http://www.nasehpour.com/tonbak/ostad-abdollah-davami.html

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Hengameh Akhavan & Mohammad Reza Lotfi - Radio programs broadcast in the 1970s in Tehran, Iran

Here we post a cassette we received in mid or late 1980s from an Iranian lady running a shop of Iranian antique handicrafts in Cologne, Germany. I reguarly visited this very kind and very beautiful lady when I was in Cologne and also bought from her some very beautiful old saddle-bags made by nomadic Kords in Northern Khorasan. We always had long discussions about Iranian music, sitting in her shop surrounded by all these beautiful handicrafts. At that time it was still extremely difficult to find good recordings of Iranian traditional music, except for the few LPs released in the west. She always had one or two cassettes of either classical or regional music for me. I only have very few of these still as later most of them were republished on CD in Iran and from the early 1990s onwards one could obtain them through some Iranian shops in Cologne and Düsseldorf or with the help of an Iranian friend directly from Iran.

This cassette by Hengameh Akhavan was the most outstanding cassette I received from this lady. The music was also later republished on CD, in a series, released in the US, devoted to republish music programs from Iranian radio from before the revolution. These CDs were extremely difficult to get. I never succeeded to obtain this one. The only one I ever obtained - in an Iranian shop in Kensigton, London in the 1990s - was one by the singer Ghavami. The music of the radio program by Hengameh Akhawan sticks completely out from the rest of the music broadcast by Iranian radio.
Hengameh Akhavan was one of the two outstanding classical female vocalists coming up in Iran in the 1970s. The other one was Parisa. In 2013 we posted one of her cassettes and in 2017 an LP from Japan with one beautiful piece by her. 

Hengameh Akhavan was very inspired by and recreated a lot the repertoire of Qamar-ol-Moluk Vaziri (1905-1959), the greatest female voice in Iran ever. See on her:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qamar-ol-Moluk_Vaziri

http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/qamar-vaziri

On Hengameh Akhavan see:

http://www.iranchamber.com/music/hakhavan/hengameh_akhavan.php

Hengameh Akhavan in the period of these recordings

Lotfi around the same time

She never became really famous like Parisa and only rarely made tours to the west. Her style is a very pure, very intense old style - she studied under the great Radif master Adib Khansari - and, as we said, she was very inspired by the great Qamar ol-Moluk. 

The recordings we post here are parts of two different programs originally boadcast in the second half of the 1970s. She was accompanied on Tar by the great Mohammad Reza Lotfi (1947-2014) and on Tombak by Bijan Kamkar. At another time we might post one or two cassettes by Lotfi and share some memories. Here he plays in the very traditional Radif style he inherited from his teachers Ali Akbar Shahnazi and Sa'id Hormozi. Next we will post another recording by another singer, the legendary Radif master Abdollah Davami, also accompanied by Lotfi and from the same period.

These recordings were so different from most other Iranian music, especially from Radio programs, and so intense that I was completely blown away by them. The music is deeply emotional, but has not the slightest trace of sentimentality. This is so typical of old music - also in India - and completely got lost in todays music, where the music slips easily into sentimentality.

My friend KF made many years ago a CD out of this cassette and created the covers. Many thanks to him. And many thanks to that very kind Iranian lady. Unfortunately I lost contact with her after she gave up her shop.

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Hengameh Akhavan today