Nava Concert: The Chaotic Information on a Cassette Insert

The brochure you see here is all that remains of the Nava concert and its live performance by the Iranian Music Preservation and Propagation Ensemble, with vocals by Parisa, during the Shiraz Festival in 1977. CBS published This release in collaboration with the Iranian Music Preservation and Propagation Center. Group performances in Iranian music don’t have a long-standing tradition. Forming a musical ensemble requires numerous cultural, artistic, technical, and scientific elements. An ensemble only sounds cohesive when it achieves the following:

1. It must present a balanced range of high and low sounds, ensuring the performance is neither too piercing nor too deep and indistinct.
2. It must provide a variety of timbres and sonic textures, which depend on the structure and tonal characteristics of the instruments. We can categorize Instruments into wind, string, and percussion instruments. Each group is further divided into subcategories such as woodwind, brass, bowed strings, and plucked strings.
3. The dynamic range of the sound must be suitable for the listener’s ear.

These characteristics are typical in any well-rounded musical ensemble. The ensemble may have considered this knowledge during the initial group performances in Iranian music history. However, it’s unrealistic to assume that they handled every aspect meticulously. Iranian instruments were historically designed with the idea of not playing together in mind, and combining all these features in a single performance is a risky challenge to which we’ve seemingly grown accustomed and which now significantly influences our musical tastes.

It is evident that the Nava concert ensemble, following 50 years of group performance history, still lacks a proper bass section. The lowest sounds in the group come from the tar and santur, likely hitting a RE on the third line of the bass clef, and did not offer a rich or deep sonic experience.

It seems that many of these collaborations were formed through friendships, shared ideas, or perhaps fate-driven choices. Consequently, a few years later, almost none of the group members performed together again.

Nava Concert: Ensemble Performance in the Open Air

The cassette’s title is prominently adorned with the name of the singer, Parisa, reflecting the significant and uncontested role of vocalists at the time. After the revolution and into the 1990s, the singer’s role diminished, similar to how actors’ importance in cinema declined. A broader post-revolutionary trend emerged, emphasizing the behind-the-scenes aspects of art, revealing the mechanisms behind the magic, which didn’t necessarily contribute to preserving that artistic enchantment.

The next point of note is the mention of “slight sound fluctuations” on the cover, which draws attention:

“The slight fluctuations in sound are due to the recording made in open air.”

In my understanding, this statement illustrates the lack of precedent for releasing recordings of traditional Iranian music outside studio settings. This recording might be one of the earliest instances of Iranian music being recorded live in a format suitable for distribution. Other notable examples include the live recordings of Rast-Panjgah (Shajarian, Lotfi, Farhangfar) and Nava (Sheyda Ensemble), all of which owe their recognition to the Shiraz Arts Festival—an institution left an undeniable mark on Iranian culture and arts during the 1970s with few shortcomings.

Additionally, the emphasis on “live performance” at the beginning of the brochure’s explanations is noteworthy.  

  But the real story lies at the far-right edge of the insert of this historic cassette: The names of the pieces listed belong to the Nava suite according to the narration of Noor-Ali Borumand from the radif attributed to Mirza Abdollah. Among pieces, the following stand out:

• A tasnif (vocal piece) narrated by Abdollah Davami
• A chahaarmezraab (fast instrumental composition) in Nava, though the composer is not mentioned in the insert for some reason.
• Another chahaarmezraab, also without mentioning the composer in the insert.
• And a tasnif in Nehoft, according to the narration of Mohammad-Ali Kiani-Nejad.

The first two pieces are clear: the tasnif narrated by Abdollah Davami, based on a poem by Hafez, and the second, a well-known chahaarmezraab composed by Saba. However, the second chahaarmezraab is not attributed to anyone in the insert, but it belongs to none other than the very young musician of that year, Parviz Meshkatian. The second tasnif has often been attributed to Hossein Alizadeh in popular discourse, while in the insert, it is credited to Kiani-Nejad and his narration. This tasnif, indeed, is a composition in a mixed two-beat meter and originally was composed by Abolhasan Saba, which, it seems, Mohammad-Ali Kiani-Nejad, due to his Khorasani background, played in a five-beat meter. And then, according to the choice of someone unknown (himself? or someone else? or Alizadeh? Sayeh?), a poem by Hafez was paired with it.

The two-beat mixed piece is one of the compositions by Abolhasan Saba.

Lessons for Musicologists

Today’s musicologists must learn from the disorder in the transfer of information regarding the Nava concert:

• Oral narrations have protected Saba’s chahaarmezraab from incorrect attribution in the insert, and fortunately, despite this carelessness, the piece has not been credited to anyone else in history. The attribution of the tasnif to Abdollah Davami has also clarified its origin.
• The lack of proper acknowledgment for the chahaarmezraab composed by the 20-year-old Parviz Meshkatian has diminished listeners’ attention to him, his artistic status, and his role in shaping this program.
• The most significant confusion arises regarding the tasnif Nehoft as narrated by Mohammad-Ali Kiani-Nejad. He altered Saba’s rhythmic composition, and someone probably suggested a poem for the tasnif. In the form of historical carelessness, these compositions were later attributed to Hossein Alizadeh: Saba must have forgotten Kiani-Nejad’s contribution. The person who suggested the poem remains unidentified.
• On the cover, Hossein Alizadeh’s name appears as the “group leader” and “program producer,” while neither indicates composing or arranging the pieces. Even if he proposed the idea of vocal ensemble performance, this information was not properly communicated.

Do emotional listeners of Iranian music only pay attention to the information on the album cover?
One should also not overlook the role that the halt in official production of these works due to the revolution and the subsequent disruption in the flow of information played in this confusion. P.S.: Listen to part of Parisa’s cassette on CassettePlay.com.