Music
Anyone wandering over the Embankment Bridge on Wednesday night last week would have been confronted by a tide of Iranians, mostly of a certain age, heading to the South Bank and Queen Elizabeth Hall. The occasion was a concert given by Ustad Shajarian, the man acknowledged as the master of traditional Iranian singing. The women, streak-haired and elegant in black, hung onto the arms of their men, urbane and elderly. The younger generation of Iranians, dressed in jeans and looking nonchalant, were there with their parents.
This being an Iranian concert held in London, the musicians took their places on stage at the appointed hour. The audience, however, were late. So while the band of master musicians tuned up their instruments, the crowd slowly filed in, waving to friends and taking off their coats. The demand for tickets had been so great that extra seats had been set on the stage behind the Persian rug-covered benches that the musicians sat on. Shajarian's entrance prompted the first standing ovation of the night, before a note had been played. Despite the entreaties of the organisers, cameras were wielded and the hall was lit up by an explosion of flashes.
Flanking Shajarian were six musicians with a variety of traditional instruments: the string instruments tar, santour, kamancheh and barbat, the Persian flute or ney and a hand-held drum, the tombak. Persian classical music is arranged in a series of radifs (sequences) which are made up of a collection of goushehs (melodic pieces), which in turn have sub-structures called dastgahs and avaz. Simply, this means that a pre-composed song would then be followed by an improvisation between the singer and an instrument. Radifs evolve very much as the interpretation of the master musicians of each generation, who pass them on orally to their students. Shajarian has studied his craft with some of the greatest master vocalists and is recognised as being technically brilliant, but the real artistry comes from the sensitivity and deep emotion that colours his singing.
He sat in the centre of the bench, dressed in a turquoise shirt like his ensemble, and when he opened his mouth, the swooping and dipping of his voice brought tears to the eyes of the exiles making up the audience. The improvisations were the revelation. To the approving exclamations of "Bah bah!" from the audience, the master and each instrument in turn embarked on a musical journey, a dialogue, swaying to the sound of a silent melody which they revealed to us. The first round of applause exploded for 23-year-old Homayoun Shajarian, Ustad's son, whose brisk fingers drew a range of expression from the tombak.
The old traditional songs were savoured by the audience, who sat entranced, just moving their heads to the rhythm. Despite the criticisms everyone has about the present regime in Iran, there was general agreement that the arts were flourishing there and that traditional music in Iran is experiencing something of a renaissance.
In the second half of the concert, Shajarian included a song by Aref Ghazvini, a poet and musician who had been part of the uprising that tried to establish a parliamentary democracy in Iran at the beginning of this century. During the Pahlavis' rule his songs were banned by the Shahs, who were afraid of the incitement to democracy and freedom inherent in them. When Shajarian sang "Na Ghodrat", many there wondered if he was making a statement about the regime under which he resides. Was the master throwing a subtle message to his countrymen? With the death of an opposition leader in Iran a few days before the concert, the inclusion of this song seemed loaded with meaning.
But in the end it was the music, the power of the voice that delighted the audience. After a long standing ovation, voices from the crowd demanded Shajarian's interpretation of the popular "Morgheh Sahar". Quietly, he thanked us and accepted our demands. The audience sang with him, dabbing their eyes. Shajarian's talent swept away all thoughts of politics. Outside, no one accepted the leaflets being handed out by dissidents.
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