The day before yesterday, October 8, Mohammad Reza Shajarian, the greatest singer of Persian classical music, died in Tehran.He has had kidney cancer for many years. As early as 2016, with characteristic sarcastic Persian humor, he referred to the disease as his “old friend”. But he kept performing. I, too, could hear him at concerts in Berlin and Isfahan, bony skin, but his voice… it was still the wonderful voice that dominated a thousand shades from pensive humming to roaring rebellion.
He was born in 1940 in Mashhad, Khorasan, one of the most conservative cities in Iran. His father was a Quran singer, who also taught his son to recite the Quran. For him, all other kinds of music were haram, forbidden, pagan music. His uncle, however, who was also a singer and a great music lover, introduced him to Persian classical and folk music.
Persian classical music is not yet well known in Europe, only a delicacy for gourmets. But it deserves to be paired with European classical music. Partly because it dates back many thousands of years. What is more, the music of Persian palaces even inspired European music through Greek music, being, among others, the source of the tonal system. And partly because it is just as sophisticated and stunning. The kind of music you listen to enchanted for hours, like a Bach solo sonata. I have already posted some examples here on the blog, you are invited to browse through them in the “Music” column of the Persian letters collective post.
By the age of twelve, Shajarian had learned the rigorously structured canon of Persian music, the radif, and at nineteen he performed on Radio Khorasan. and then on the Iranian state radio and television. Within two decades, he became one of the greatest figures in Iranian music. On September 8, 1978, when Shah Reza Pahlavi introduced martial law, and the army fired on the protesters gathered in Tehran’s Jaleh Square, the leading figures in Iranian music wrote a protest letter to the government, resigning from all appearances on state radio. The letter was written by Shajarian himself. It was during this period that he organized the Chavosh Cultural and Art Society, where, along with many other prominent classical musicians, revolutionary and protest songs were written and performed.
After the anti-Shah revolution won in January 1979, in February Ayatollah Khomeini arrived from the exile in Paris. Through his armed guerrillas he systematically destroyed the bourgeois and leftist organizers of the revolution, and established an Islamic republic. Shajarian withredw. The Islamic radio continued to play his songs as of the bard’s of the revolution, but it wasn’t until 1985 that he re-emerged, this time with songs against the new regime. The title of his new album, Bidâd both meant “injustice” and “without voice”. The lyrics of the classical melodies come from the 14th-century Hafez. “This home was the land of companions and the kindhearted”, sings Shajarian Hafez. “When did kindness end? What happened to the land of companions?”
From then on, he continuously performed and released a number of records with classical melodies and poems by classical Persian poets, and always with metaphorical allusions against the regime (which shows that the hidden rebellion against the oppressive system has long centuries of tradition in Persian poetry). I have already quoted one of his most popular songs, the Morning bird, widely sung today, along with a translation here on the blog, as well as the diagnosis of tyranny, It’s winter. These, although understood by all, did not yet blow the fuse of Iranian censorship. The regime needed him too much.
After the brutal crackdown of the “Green Revolution” of 2009, however, Shajarian openly announced – just as he did under the Shah –, that he would ban further performances of his 1979 revolutionary songs on state radio and television, because he considered it cynical from a regime that suppressed a revolution. The regime took primitive revenge, as is the custom of repressive regimes. The master was sentenced to silence, could no longer perform or record in Iran, and his famous Rabbana, the prayer breaking the fast of Ramadan each evening, that harkened back to his childhood roots as a Quranic reciter, and which had been continuously played by state broadcasters since 1979, was removed from programs. “Ramadan without Rabana is like Christmas without Christmas carols”, one of his fans explained to the Guardian. Since then, he could only tour abroad. I could listen to him several times in Berlin with the greatest performers of Persian instrumental music, Hossein Alizadeh on tar and Kayhan Kalhor on kamanche.
Speaking of personal memories: I first heard the Master live in 2007. We timed our trip to Iran so that we could attend the concert, the date of which I heard from my Persian friends. In Tehran, however, nobody knew about the concert announced in Vahdat Hall. For our ticket bought for the date, we could listen to an elderly chanson singer, a Persian Karel Gott (but during the break I was able to meet many figures from the elite of Tehran). Then it turned out that the concert had been moved to Isfahan. We immediately went there by train (which was not easy, since the train stations were still under military control), and we indeed found the temporary ticket office set up on the main square, in the ground floor of the Shah’s Palace. “But this is that kind of… Persian music, you know”, the ticket seller tried to explain so as we would not be disappointed later. “Of course. That’s why we came. I know the Master well, I have all his CDs”, I said with a radiant face. They called Shajarian’s personal manager, and I had to prove to him that I knew who I was talking about. When he finally believed it, we got VIP tickets in the front row, next to Shajarian’s daughter. And during the break the manager came to us. “The Master wants to see you.” We went up to the backstage locker room, where Shajarian thanked us infinitely modestly and gratefully for coming to hear him from far away Europe. He asked his photographer to make a joint photo, and presented us with dedicated CDs. On the way home – well after midnight, as the concert lasted four hours – the taxi driver put in a Shajarian tape. When it turned out I knew who was singing and what, he burst into tears and gave me the tape.
At the news of his death, thousands of his fellowers gathering around Jam Hospital converted public mourning into spontaneous anti-regime protests. “Death to the dictator. Shajarian does not die”, they chanted.
He was the best performer of one of the subtlest music in the world. A piece of the music itself died with him.
pour, oh rain, pour, with tears my heart is full, pour blood pour, oh rain, pour, with tears pour, oh rain, pour, with tears my heart is full, pour blood pour, oh rain, pour, with tears pour with tears of my heart, pour | ببار ای بارون ببار دلا خون شو خون ببار ببار ای بارون ببار ببار ای بارون ببار دلا خون شو خون ببار ببار ای بارون ببار با دلم گریه کن خون ببار |
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