Arash Mohafez & Farid Kheradmand

Neoclassical Approach to Persian Music

Arash Mohafez: santur
Farid Kheradmand: tombak, dâyere, bendir, vocals
Nima Noury: tar

Until 20 years ago, “Persian classical music” referred only to the repertoire of the Qâjâr era (late 18th to early 20th century), centered on the non-metric melody-types of “radif” as the traditional reference for musical learning and artistic performance. This tradition, with its seven dastgâh modal system and the dominance of non-metric improvisation, was long believed to represent “the identity and nature” of Persian music.

However, studies of medieval manuscripts written by musician-theorists such as Safioddin Ormavi (d. 1294) and ‘Abdolqâder Marâghi (d. 1435) have revealed a different classical approach, specially characterized by metric compositions, open modal framework and precise formes. This older repertoire of metric composition disappeared during the 18th century in Iran because of a radical socio-political change and other reasons, leaving a gap in Iranian musical history. But, more recently, musicologists discovered that Ottoman collections of notations − written by ‘Ali Ufki (mid-17th century), Demetrius Cantemir (18th century) and Kevseri (mid-18 century) − preserved tens of classical Persian compositions, generally by musicians who had moved or were brought to Istanbul and to the Ottoman court after the early 16th century.

Arash Mohafez and Farid Kheradmand are among the pioneers of the “neoclassical tendency of Persian music”;  a movement dedicated to the revival of forgotten pre-Qâjâr Persian repertoires but also to the composition of contemporary works inspired by this lost classicism.

In this concert, they perform their personal interpretation of some Persian pieces from Ottoman sources, linked by non-metric improvisations, as well as examples of 19th-century tasnif-s. Some of the Persian compositions of this program haven’t been heard for centuries, before the works of Mohafez and Kheradmand.