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The
first
session
of
Isfahan
School
Music
Conference
went
underway
on
Sunday,
December
10 at
the
amphitheater
of
Museum
of
Contemporary
Arts.
As the
Public
Relations
of the
Academy
of Arts
reports,
the
session
began
with the
lecture
given by
the
scholarly
Secretary
of the
Congress,
Dr.
Fariba
Afkari.
Then Dr.
Abdolmajid
Kiani,
Mohsen
Muhammadi,
Elahe
Sabeti,
Anna
Bylińska,
Mansoureh
Sabetzadeh
and
Amir-Hussein
Javadipour
accounted
for the
music of
Safavid
era. Dr.
Darioush
Tala'ei,
the
Iranian
music
scholar
was also
present
at the
session.
At
first,
Dr.
Fariba
Afkari
read a
text on
the
development
of arts
in
Safavid
era with
specific
indication
to
Isfahan
in 11th
century
A. H.
Abdolmajid
Kiani,
the
scholar
and
master
of
Iranian
traditional
music,
made the
first
speech
on the
influence
of
Isfahan
school
music on
the
Iranian
music
today.
Pointing
to the
entertaining
music in
the
early
Safavid
era, he
said:
"In
the
early
Safavid
era and
at the
times of
Shah
Abbas I
and II,
like the
other
arts,
music
was also
didn't
considered
significant,
there
was just
a kind
of
entertaining
and
joyful
music.
Compared
to the
arts
presented
by
architectects
and
painters,
music
was not
that
much
powerful.
At the
times of
Shah
Tahmasb,
even
that
type of
entertaining
music
was
banned,
but from
that era
a kind
of music
called
Naqareh-Khaneh
has
survived
in the
realm of
Iranian
music
which
has
profoundly
influenced
the
Iranian
contemporary
music.
At those
times,
the
music of
Naqareh-Khaneh
was a
music
mostly
used for
succeeding
to the
throne
ceremony
or
religious
and
official
ceremonies.
Although
Naqareh
is not
an
Academic
and
scientific
Iranian
musical
instrument
and
frequently
regarded
as a
type of
religious
music,
but it's
totally
corresponding
to the
contemporary
Iranian
musical
Dastgah.
But the
question
is this
still
remained
that
whether
nowadays
a type
of music
which is
closely
associated
with
religious
ceremonies
has come
from
Naqareh
music or
not,
whether
Iranian
musicians
have
transcribed
it into
Radif,
or the
religious
music
has been
adapted
from
traditional
music?"
The
next
lecturer
of the
session
was
Mohsen
Muhammadi
who
presented
an
article
titled,
"The
Categorization
of Tones
in the
System
of
Iranian
Music in
Safavid
Era".
In this
article
he based
his
research
on the
ancient
books,
particularly
a book
by
Muhammad
Naishabouri
(7th
century
A. H.)
and
introduced
an
scholarly
article
on the
names of
various
categories
of tones
which
has been
written
as
theories
in the
musical
system
of that
era.
After
presenting
the
article
and
making
an
analogy
between
the
various
theoric
categories
and
whatever
has
actually
remained,
he
concluded:
"The
categorizations
and
arrangements
of tones
have not
that
much
musical
and
structural
association.
Later in
Safavid
era,
another
categorization
was
formed
which
merely
used for
the
simplification
and
theorizing
the
music
and have
no
significant
actual
function."
Following
the
session,
an
archeology
expert,
Elahe
Sabeti
whose
M.A.
thesis
is on
the
atmosphere
of
performing
Iranian
music
made the
next
speech
titled,
"Music
of
Safavid
Isfahan:
Festive
or
Martial?"
She
indicated
to the
source
of
research
for the
Iranian
music,
"The
sources
comprise
writings
and
pictorial
sources
including
clay
statues,
inscriptions,
the
designs
on the
vessels,
paintings
and the
remaining
photographs
from
Qajar
era,"
she
said.
"The
results
show
that the
86
percent
of
portrayed
chambers
were
festive
and the
number
of
instrument
players
and the
festive
instruments
reaches
to
87percent.
This
clearly
proves
that the
mentality
of
banning
music at
least
for the
society's
elites
had no
basis,"
she
added.
Dr. Anna
Bylińska,
the
scholar
and
teacher
of
Iranian
studies
and
musicology
in the
University
of
Warsaw
presented
her
article,
"Behjat
al-Ruh-a
Unique
Source
of
Knowledge
about
Beliefs
on
Music"
in
English.
Commenting
on
Behjat
al-Ruh
treatise,
she
said:
"The
surprising
richness
of
motifs
and
correlations
of music
and
cosmology,
alluding
at the
mythical-legendary
genealogy
of
music,
indicate
a very
subtle
and
refined
musical
and
astrological
conception.
Its
sources
can
perhaps
be
traced
in the
milieus
of music
practitioners
connected
also
with
astrologists’
circles
as well
as Sufi
currents."
"In
the
mythological
and
religious
layer
there is
the myth
broadly
spread
in Sufi
environments,
and
among
musicians
of
northern
Khorasan
and
India.
It is a
reworking
of the
Qur'an
story
about
the
creation
of the
first
man, the
father
of
mankind
(chapter
I, ff.
3a-4a).
It tells
how God
decided
to endow
Adam
with
spirit.
What was
supposed
to
allure
and
induce
the
spirit
to take
the
place
destined
for him
was the
sorrowful
singing
of
Archangel
Gabriel.
This
assistant
of Allah
and his
closest
angel
first
entered
Adam’s
body
himself,
and then
started
calling
the
spirit
with a
melody
in maqām
rāst.
The
author
considered
Gabriel
to be
the very
patron
of
music,
called
also the
science
of the
soul,"
she
stated.
"In
the
mythological-religious
layer we
find
also the
legend
known
from
Mantiqū’t-tayr
by Farīd
al-Dīn
‘Attār
(XI–XIII
w.),
telling
of the
mythical
bird
–qoqnūs
(f.
4a-5b).
The
bird,
symbolizing
immortality
and
cyclicity,
reborn
out of
ashes
like the
Phoenix,
is
portrayed
as the
source
of all
sounds
and
melodies
that can
be heard
in the
earthly
world,"
Dr. Bylińska
added.
Subsequently,
Mansoureh
Sabetzadeh
introduced
her
article
titled,
"Saqi-Nameh,
Moqani-Nameh,
a
Prevalent
Literary
and
Musical
Structure
in
Safavid
Era"
Indicating
that the
musical
structure
of
Saqi-Nameh
has
gained
the
attention
of
numerous
musicians,
she
said:
"The
significance
of
Saqi-Nameh
in
Iranian
culture
is due
to the
fact
that is
both a
poetic
and a
musical
structure
which in
Iranian
Radif-e
Dastgahi
has been
skillfully
constituted
and
performed."
She
stated:
"In
ancient
tradition,
the
grape
wine is
the tree
of life
and in
Persian
ritual
has been
known as
the
elixir
of
youth.
But this
question
is
raised
that
when
Saqi-Nameh
has been
emerged
in
Iranian
Radif-e
Dastgahi
music?"
Sabetzadeh
pointed
to
Safavid
era:
"We
can find
the
trace of
Saqi-Nameh
in
Safavid
era and
it's
been
said
that
Saqi-Nameh
has come
out of
Arabian
literature
in the
first
Islamic
period,
but the
prominent
Iranian
scholar,
Dehkhoda
rejects
such an
idea.
The
verbal
text of
Saqi-Nameh
initiated
by the
great
Iranian
poet,
Roudaki
and
subsequently
turns
into an
independent
style in
verbal
text and
evolves.
We have
two
genres
of
Saqi-Nameh
in our
music,
first
the
singing
of
Isfahan
Dastgah
and the
second
in
Mahour
Dastgah.
We must
reconsider
the idea
that
Saqi-Nameh
music
has been
initiated
since
Safavid
era."
On the
meanings
imbued
Saqi-Nameh-s,
she
noted:
"In
the
course
of
literature
we can
observe
that it
is
possible
to get
help
from
Saqi for
expressing
philosophical
issues
and
seeking
justice.
Furthermore
in the
poems
composed
by Hafez
and Khayām
there
are
indications
to Saqi
and his
upcoming
arrival."
In his
article,
"Amirkhan
Gorji,
the Last
Composer
and
Theorician
of
Safavid
era",
Amir-Hussein
Pourjavadi
focused
on one
of the
composers
of
Safavid
era and
his
endeavors
for the
renovation
of
Iranian
music."
"Working
on the
music at
the age
of 20,
Amirkhan
Gorji
collected
the
compositions
and
works
which
were
realized
in the
court
and
compiled
them in
his own
collection.
His
remaining
works
are the
compositions
of
Safavid
courts.
His
edited
collection
begins
with a
versified
treatise
which
totally
includes
the 43
compositions.
In this
book he
introduces
new
principles
or Iqa'āt-s
and
offers a
new
system
of
principals
which is
considerable.
These
compositions
have
been
created
in the
middle
of 11th
century
A. H.
and
their
composers
were
living
in
Isfahan,"
he said
He
regarded
the
regisrered
compositions
by
Amirkhan
Gorji as
significant
in
historical
terms.
Therefore
with the
lecture
of
Amir-Hussein
Pourjavadi,
the
first
session
of
Isfahan
school
conference
came to
an end. |
