Music and Song in Persia (RLE Iran B)

The Art of Avaz

Lloyd Miller

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780415617284
• eBook ISBN: 9781136814877
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Regional Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This book is the first full-length analysis of the theory and practice of Persian singing, demonstrating the centrality of Persian elements in the music of the Islamic Middle Ages, their relevance to both contemporary and traditional Iranian music and their interaction with classical Persian poetry and metrics.

ONE

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF PERSIA AND PERSIAN MUSIC

Historical Background of Persia

There are various theories about the early history of the Iranian plateau and about how the Aryans or Indo-European speaking tribes migrated to the area and from whence they came. Without deciding whether the various writers, scholars and theorists on the subject are correct or not in their theories, a general look at the background of the geographical area will be helpful.

According to the Bible, Noah’s ark landed in the mountains of Ararat. This would be near the present day village of Doğubayzit in what is now Turkey not far from the northwestern Iranian border station of Bazargan. The legends of the Armenians, who have considered Ararat as their national heritage, link their ancestors to Noah and one of his descendants, the hero Haik.¹

According to Mellaart, the earliest settlements on the Iranian plateau were in the Zagros mountain zone.² Clair Goff Meade seems to agree that some of the oldest settlements on the plateau were in Luristan.³ T. Cuyler Young Jr. writes that late second millennium ceramics found in Azerbāijān show that settlements had also existed for some time in that area.⁴

As for cultural interchange and links between peoples of the area, Young states that there are indications of connections between tribes on the east and west of the Iranian plateau from before Achaemenian times (559–331 B.C.).⁵ Mohammed Bagher presents the idea that cultures of early Persia and the Indian subcontinent were continually linked from early times.⁶

Seifeddin Ghammaghami presents an interesting theory that deals with ancient megalithic monuments. He claims that, through dating, the megaliths indicate a line of cultural influence starting from Iran and spreading eastward, westward and northward.⁷ His theory of migration of megalithic cultures from Azerbāijān to Europe and the Far East may agree with the Noah story.

As for the Indo-European speaking tribes that came to the Iranian plateau and from whence they migrated, Indo-European linguist Emile Benveniste, in his classes at the Sorbonne and Collège de France, taught that Indo-European speakers came to the plateau from the north, from an area somewhere between present-day Lithuania and the Urals.⁸

Ghirshman suggested that the Indo-European speakers broke up into two branches which he classified as western and eastern (not to be confused with the general classification of Western or Centum and Eastern or Saturn (Indo-European linguistic groups). Ghirshman thought that the western branch, including the people commonly known as the Hittites, migrated around the Black Sea, crossing the Balkans and the Bosphorus to Asia Minor and subsequently replaced the Asiatic inhabitants. The Hittites extended their influence as far as Babylonia, Syria and Palestine. The eastern branch, he thought, moved eastward around the Caspian over the Caucasus and spread to the Euphrates, settling among the Asiatic substratum peoples of the area.⁹ The tribes in the east may have crossed the Oxus and stayed a short time on the Bactrian plain. From there, certain tribes seem to have come west while others crossed the Hindu Kush to descend along the Kabul and Pandishir plateau.¹⁰ The earliest evidence of Indo-European speakers coming to the Iranian plateau, according to George Cameron, is dated at the beginning of the second millennium B.C.¹¹ Ghirshman postulated that in the first millennium B.C. another wave of Indo-European speakers moved southward. This group consisted of Phrygians, Balkan peoples, Armenians, Thracians, Mycenaens and Philistines. They destroyed the Hittite empire and some of them, with a powerful cavalry, chariots and navy, moved on to Egypt. Ramses II (1290–1224 B.C.) held them off and they were forced to move across Syria and Asia Minor where they established neo-Hittite states at Aleppo, Hama, Carchemish and Malatia.¹² Ghirshman thought that Iranians coming from Transoxiana were unable to move south of the Hindu Kush since related tribes had already settled there during the previous invasions. Consequently, they turned west from Bactria into Iran. Iran was not as fertile as India and this gave rise to contention with Vedic tribes.¹³

Finally, after the Iranians took over towns and became powerful, two civilizations emerged, those of the Medes and Persians.¹⁴ According to Olmstead, the Medes and Persians were first mentioned in written annals in 836 B.C.¹⁵ Other wilder, more destructive tribes, the Cimmerians and Sythians, it is thought, moved from the north toward Asia Minor. The Cimmerians took over the Southern Black Sea area and the Scythian kingdom including most of modern Azerbāijān.¹⁶ Silver trays from the Scythian era bear designs not unlike modern Persian trays.¹⁷

By the reign of Cyrus the Great (550–529 B.C.), Iranians and non-Iranians occupying the area from the Caspian to the Indian Ocean had come under the jurisdiction of the Persian Empire. Cyrus took over Media, then Greece, and went all the way to the Jaxartes in the east and in the west to Babylon which he took without a battle.¹⁸ After the death of Cyrus, his son, Cambyses (529–522 B.C.) extended the realm to Egypt.¹⁹ Darius the Great (521–486 B.C.), the next ruler of the vast empire, was faced with revolts on all sides which he sternly quelled. Once the empire was resolidified, it stretched from modern Pakistan through Southern former USSR to Greece and down through Iraq, Syria and Egypt.²⁰ It was during the Achaemenian era that the Mazdaen religion, reformed by the prophet Zoroaster, spread throughout the empire, further unifying the area.²¹

It seems that during the sixth and fifth centuries B.C., trade in the East became more extensive than before and with it obviously came cultural exchanges. Ghirshman claimed that navigation became widespread, with Scyla sailing from the mouth of the Indus to Egypt, and Sataspes going far beyond Gibraltar. Greeks, Phoenicians and Arabs seemed to have carried on commerce connecting India, Persia, Babylon, Egypt and other Mediterranean port countries. Commerce may also have spread to the Danube and the Rhine during this period.²² Some suggest it even reached the New World.²³

From what information is available in written sources and oral tradition, Persian traditional music had already developed by the Achaemenian period and was perfected during the later Sasanian era (224–652 A.D.). The Arab conquest and advent of Islam served to spread Persian instrumental and vocal music along with music theory throughout the Islamic world. The later Mongol invasion served to carry Persian musical concepts eastward. Selected periods of history and key poets, some of which will be cited in the later section on the historical background of music, are listed in Table 1.

Table 1 Periods in Persian History

B.C.	Periods
5,000	Copper first smelted on the Iranian plateau
2,000	First Aryan migration
1,000	Second Aryan migration
	Zoroaster
900–550	MEDIAN
559–331	ACHAEMENIAN (see map, Figure 1, p. 5)
331–129	SELUCID & HELLENIC
249–224	PARTHIAN
(130 B.C.-)	Saka and Yueh-Chih invasions
A.D.
224–652	SASANIAN
(460 –)	White Hun invasion
(565)	Turks defeat white Huns
(637)	Islamic Arab invasion
650–1037	EARLY ISLAMIC
814–973	TāHIRID in Khorasān
819–999	SAMANID DYNASTY
864–1029	BUYID DYNASTY
(993–1030)	Sultān Mahmud
(1006–1089)	Khwāja Abdullāh Ansāri
(d. 940)	Rudaki
(941–1006)	Ferdosi
1037–1194	SELJUKS
1220–1385	MONGOLS AND SUCCESSORS
1258	IL KHāNID
(d. 1273)	Rumi (Molāvi)
(d. 1292)	Sa‘di
(1300)	Travels of Marco Polo
(d. 1325)	Amir Khosro
(1320–1389)	Hāfez
1370–1501	TIMURID
(1404 –)	Shāh Rukh, Herāt golden age of arts
1501–1734	SAFAVID
(1505)	Babur captures Kabul
(1501–1524)	Shāh Ismā‘il
(1524–15...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Transliteration of Persian Letters
• Preface
• 1. Historical Background of Persia and Persian Music
• 2. Music, Islam, Mysticism and Proper Performance
• 3. Preservation and Propagation of Persian Music
• 4. The Theory of Persian Music
• 5. Persian Vocal Music
• 6. Background of Perso-Arabic Poetic Structure
• Conclusion
• Appendix A. Attributes of the Beloved in Persian Poetry
• Appendix B. Radif Texts and Translations
• Appendix C. Metric Analysis of Karimi’s Radif
• Appendix D. Sequence of Gushe From Four Main Sources
• Appendix E. Persian Instruments
• Appendix F. Notation and Transcriptions
• Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Glossary Of Terms And Persons
• Index