Dastgah Concept in Persian Music (Cambridge Studies in Ethnomusicology)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521542065 ISBN 13: 9780521542067

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2004

The tradition of Persian art music embodies twelve modal systems, known as dastgahs. Each dastgah represents a complex of skeletal melodic models on the basis of which a performer produces extemporised pieces. The dastgahs revolve around unspecified central nuclear melodies which the individual musician comes to know through experience and absorption. It is a personal and elusive tradition of great subtlety and depth. Through extensive research, including interviews with leading musicians and recording over one hundred hours of music, Hormoz Farhat has unravelled the art of the dastgah. In his study Professor Farhat analyses the intervallic structure, melodic patterns, modulations, and improvisations within each dastgah, and examines the composed pieces which have become a part of the classical repertoire in recent times.

Book Description:

In this book Hormoz Farhat has unravelled the art of the dastgah by analysing their intervallic structure, melodic patterns, modulations, and improvisations, and by examining the composed pieces which have become a part of the classical repertoire in recent times.

Review:

"Farhat's volume takes its place in musicological literature as an important contribution to scholarship on musical systems and as a lucid, useful, and satisfying introduction to one of the great Middle Eastern classical traditions." Notes