Iran | Persian Classical Music | Dariush Talai (setār) | Improvisation in āvāz- e Bayāt-e esfahān

Published on 12 November 2023
Dariush Talai is one of the most important masters of Iranian classical music. Master of long necked lutes tār e setār, he is one of the few musicians always faithful to the traditional repertory of radīf.
Writes Pejman Tadayon in the notes for the concert program that the word radīf in Persian means order, ordering, a system of melodies (gusheh) and musical formulas, which are rooted in the millennia-long history of different peoples (Persians, Afghans, Kurds, Azeris, Armenians, Turks, Baluchis) who all lived in the territory of ancient Persia, part of which corresponds to present-day Iran. Traces of this complex and intertwined history can be found in the titles given to the gusheh that refer to the music and poetry of these many cultures. The radīf system is organized into seven main modes called dastgāh, a term that is used in Persian music both to refer to a single, specific, musical mode (e.g., dastgāh shur or dastgāh navā) and to designate the modal system as a whole. The repertoire of a radīf may vary from master to master and, in some cases, from city to city; it is still transmitted orally today (sine be sine).
The radīf was formed mainly through oral tradition and was first formalized in the 18th century by great musicians. One of the most important instrumental radīf is that handed down by master Mirza Abdollah (1843-1918) a tār and setār player of the Qajar period (1794 - 1925), who profoundly influenced Persian music because he was one of the first to order and organize radīf together with his brother Mirza Hoseyn Qoli (d. 1915). Today Dariush Talai represents the third generation of Mirza Abdollah's students, and he has made seminal recordings of this radīf, as well as transcribed it in an innovative method that several students in Iran and around the world use to learn the repertoire.
The concert consisted of two parts: in the first, Master Talai played the setar solo, deciding according to the state of inspiration (hāl) of the moment which dastgāh to explore. In the second part, accompanied by 'ud and tombak he performed a program devoted to the dastgāh Nava (which for Persians is often a symbol of mysticism) according to the radīf of Mirza Abdollah. In radīf usually the pieces consist of an initial part in slow tempo called pish daramad followed by one or more sections called saz va avaz in free tempo that alternate with faster parts (chahār mezrab). The performance usually concludes with a section in which a measured genre, tasnīf, akin to our "song form," is offered, composed to verses by the great Persian-language poets, which can be performed in a vocal or instrumental version.
This video contains an excerpt taken from the first part of the concert, devoted to the improvisation of Dariush Talai with the setār, based on radif. In this video he performs in avāz-e bayat esfahan, which derives from the dastgah homāyun with a nostalgic and romantic character. In the video, one can hear a passage in which Talai improvises on the darāmad gusheh and then moves on to the bayat-rajè gusheh, which is formed around the second degree of the bayāt-e esfahān mode. Next, a chahār mezrāb (fast rhythmic forms, often in 12/16) develops in the same gusheh.
The concert also aimed at celebrating the 70th anniversary of Master Talai and was preceded by a conversation between him and Giovanni De Zorzi, professor of ethnomusicology at Ca' Foscari, which touched upon aesthetic, philosophical and musicological issues related to Persian radīf. The video of the meeting is posted on the Giorgio Cini Foundation's UA-cam channel:
• Iran | Conversation wi...
The performance was organized by the Intercultural Institute for Comparative Music Studies of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in collaboration with University of Venice Department of Filosofia e Beni Culturali and Casa della Cultura Iraniana di Venezia
Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice, March 31, 2022
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Video: Marco Lutzu, Costantino Vecchi
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