During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,
music
slowly began to regain its social respectability.
In the second half of the nineteenth
century, Western music was formally introduced into Persia.
Nasir ed Din Shah (r.
1848-1896), most impressive of the Qajar monarchs,
imported a French musicmaster in 1858 to train his corps de musique. The third Frenchman to hold this
position, Alfred J. B. Lemaire, founded a school of music
that became important for the training of military band
players and music administrators.
This period is well
documented and reported by Ruhollah Khaleqi in his
three-volume study Sargozasht-e Musiqi-ye Iran.
Dominating the musical scene during the Constitutional
period are two Persian musicians, Mirza Abdullah and
Ali Naqi Vaziri (b.1886). |
|
Mirza Abdullah is the most significant figure in the area of
dastgah music, for he
collected and classified all the melodies that formed
the basis of classical Persian music from at least the
middle of the nineteenth century.
The musical contribution of Ali Naqi Vaziri is quite
different from that of Mirza Abdullah, which may be
considered one of conservation. Vaziri set out to modernize
Persian music. For this purpose he adapted Western staff
notation to Persian music, established a conservatory to
train musicians in Persian
music as well as Western
music (the other conservatory in Tehran taught only
Western music), and wrote countless compositions using
Iranian melodies harmonized in a Western style. |
