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The East and the West met on the 23rd of October at the Great Hall of Moscow Conservatory.
Accompanied by the sounds of Iranian classical music and fascinating oriental poetry,
the audience of Russia's capital dug into the atmosphere of Ancient Persia's magic beauty and splendor.
Zarbi, chahar-mezrab, avaz - just the very names of these genres sound like a song,
though avaz is not only a genre, but also a singing style, a sound technique, and even a state of mood;
one of the brilliant performers of traditional avaz is Hossein Nourshargh.
Accompanied by Ghamar, a group popular in Iran, he managed to express the wisdom of oriental poetry and music.
This is Iranian kamancheh,
it is thousands years old and appeared much earlier than European violin.
and there is sheepskin under its strings.
The kamanche player twists the body of the instrument rather than the bow,
and its mournful sound penetrates the soul as an arrow.
It is not at all an easy task to tune any Iranian musical instrument, and there were six of them,
so the sound-check was taking over an hour. For example, the santur has 72 strings;
by the way, it is considered a Persian ancestor of today's grand piano.
The sticks, called mezrabs, are used in order to reach some special sonority.
The musicians were preparing this program in Tehran for several months.
Navid Dehghan composed several new pieces on the poems by Persian classic authors.
The avazes are spontaneous compositions: the singer puts tunes together in an occasional manner, like in jam sessions.
Conversely, the tasnifs are thought through in advance.
Our music remains classical anyway:
melodic idioms that have been performed during thousands of years
have underlain it we just add some rhythms of today, explains Navid Dehghan, the leader of the group Ghamar.
The Iranians called the Moscow concert in a wise oriental manner: Still.
The man always lacks something, thus they have been answering the question Why?
On the other hand, they would give a lowlier explanation as well:
every other performance of Iranian music in Russia brings more and more fans of it;
however, it is still too early to say: Enough!
We might find people who could come in deep touch with this kind of music, for, in order to listen to it,
one may need to prepare not only his or her ear, but also him or herself to be able to think in a certain way,
believes Hossein Nourshargh, a virtuoso of Iranian classical singing (avaz).
At the concerts of Iranian classical music, the audiences are asked to turn off both their mobile phones and their minds:
this is the only way to comprehend the ancient sources of this music, which is as intricate as famous Persian ornaments.