Achaemenian dynasty
(550-331 BC). The writing of Herodotus and Xenophon suggests that music
played an important role in court life and religious rituals during
this period. However, little else is known about musical activity in
the Persian Empire.
Sassanian
Dynasty (AD 226-642). Exalted status was conferred to court musicians.
Barbod, the most famous of these court musicians, reportedly conceived
a musical system consisting of seven royal modes, thirty derivative
modes, and three-hundred sixty melodies. (He is playing the 'ud in the
painting at the bottom of the index page.) This was the oldest Middle
Eastern musical system of which some traces still exist. Its enduring
heritage is the names given to some dastgahs in the modern system
of Persian music.
Arab Invasion
(AD 643-750). Musical activity was suppressed during this period.
Abbasid dynasty
(AD 750-1258). This increasingly secular dynasty reestablished music
at the courts, and Iranian musicians were scattered throughout the Muslim
world. Abu Nasr Farabi, whose Kitab al-musiqi al-kabir laid
the foundations of the musical tradition of the core Muslim world, for
example worked at the royal court in Baghdad. Abu Ali Sina, Safiaddin
Ormavi, who codified the mode into twelve divisions with six melodies
also lived at this time.
Social power
for the next few centuries was dominated by Shiite clerics who frowned
on musical expression, and were responsible for its suppression. The
imperial courts of the Safavid and Qajar dynasties did patronize the
arts, however, maintaining a faint link to the traditions of the past.
The modern dastgah system, a codification and reorganisation
of the old modes, dates back to the late Qajar dynasty.
The Pahlavi
Dynasty brought with it an intense push towards westernisation. In response
to this pressure, and in a misdirected effort to "raise" Persian music
to the level of Western music, two theories on the intervals and scales
of Persian music were proposed in the twentieth century:
The 24 quarter
tone scale
This conception
of Persian music was published by Ali Naqi Vaziri in his Musiqi-ye
Nazari. He proposed this reformulation to fascilitate the composition
of polyphonic pieces in a system which was traditionally monophonic.
His efforts also brought about the notation of microtonal raising and
lowering of pitches.
The 22 tone
scale
A 22 tone
scale was proposed by Mehdi Barkesli. This system is grounded in the
origininal theories of the Abassid dynasty theoreticians, Farabi and
Ormavi.
An Alternative
After extensive
laboratory studies of the Persian musical repertoire, Hormoz Farhat
has come to the conclusion that the notion of scale or octave is entirely
foreign to Persian musical performance, being no more than an artificial
construct imposed on the system to make it agree with certain Western
notions of what is essential to the concept of music. Mr. Farhat insists
that the more important concept in this music is that of the mayeh
or melodic type. These are melodic formulas through which the music
is articulated, and they transcend the notions of octaves or scales.
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