Parissa & Dastan Ensemble

[AmbroseBierce]

Yesterday I received a new album of Parissa, accompanied by the Dastan Ensemble. Parissa is probably today's best female singer from Iran. They came to Berlin early last year for a wonderful concert at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (House of World Cultures) and on that occasion they recorded a double album at the local radio studios which was published by Network in 2005, under the title "Gol-e Behesht". The album features compositions by Hamid Motebassem in Dastgah Isfahan on CD1 and by Hossein Behroozinia in Dastgah Abu'ata. Both composers are members of the Dastan Ensemble.

Here I just present the first piece of CD1, a wonderful Kereshmeh in Dastgah Isfahan on a ghazal from the divan of the famous 13th century Persian poet Mosleh ad-din Sa'di-ye Shirazi, generally know as Saadi or Sa'di:

"In the sigh of my dying I yearn for You;
I give up my soul to be the dust of Your path.
On resurrection morning when I raise my head from the tomb,
I shall seek You, I shall talk with You.
Even if the beauties of both worlds were to gather,
I would look for You, I would be a slave to Your countenance.
I neither tell the tale of Paradise nor smell the rose of Paradise,
Nor do I seek the beauty of the virgins of Paradise; I hasten to You.
I do not drink the wine of Paradise from the hand of the cupbearer,
I need no wine - I am inebriated by Your countenance.
A thousand deserts are easy to cross with You,
And even if I take the wrong path, o Sa'di, I shall run only to You!"


Besides Parissa, who was a student of Mahmoud Karimi, the ensemble consists of
- Hamid Motebassem, Tar & Setar
student of his father, of Habibollah Salehi, Zeidollah Toloie, Houshang Zarif, Hossein Alizadeh and Mohammad Reza Lotfi
- Said Farajpoory, Kamancheh
student of Alizadeh, Lotfi and Hassan Kamkar
- Hossein Behroozinia, Barbat (Persian Oud)
student of Lotfi, Reza Vohdani and Mansour Nariman
- Behnam Samani, Daff, Dayreh & Dammam
student of Djamshid Mohebbi
- Pejman Hadadi, Tombak & Pendariq
student of Asdollah Hedjazi and Bahman Radjabi

The whole double album is as good as this piece, so I strongly recommend it to every lover of Iranian classical music.

[Hakem]

Thanks! This is my first encounter with classical persian music. The poetry is lifting! Persian was made for poetry!

[AmbroseBierce]

Yeah. Persian is another language I regret not to understand, so I have to rely on translations to appreciate the poetry. My favourite is Omar Khayyam - I think there is a piece sung by Umm Khalsoum on Khayyam's Rubaiyat, a collection of quartrains on god, on wine, on the tavern and the maker of the cup for the wine, beautiful verses, even in translation, though I'm sure much of the magic has been lost lost in the translation:

"Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse - and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness -
And Wilderness is Paradise enow."

or

"There was a Door to which I found no Key;
There was a Veil past which I could not see:
Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee
There seemed - and then no more of Thee and Me."

alternative translation:
"The secrets eternal neither you know nor I
And answers to the riddle neither you know nor I
Behind the veil there is much talk about us, why
When the veil falls, neither you remain nor I."

Many of these poems in different translations you can find at
http://www.okonlife.com/
- more, but in the translation of Fitzgerald only, at
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/omarkhayyam-fitz.html
and many different translations plus additional material at
http://www.therubaiyat.com/

I'll end this brief excursion into Persian poetry with a short verse by Sa'adi, beautifully sung by Mahmud Karimi:

"Why does the cock not tonight?
The lovers have not come to the end of their caresses and their kisses!"

[Hakem]

Yes Ambrose, The Rubayet of Khayyam by Umm Kulthoum is close to my heart. Ahmad Rami learnt Persian specially to translate them, and his dream was Umm Kulthoum to Sing it.

I agree with you about the beauty of Persian. I wish I could read it, the alphabet is the same as Arabic! I hope one day I could do it.

Many thanks for the links!

I wanted to post for u the Rubayyat of Khayyam played by its composer, Riad el Sonbati, but was not able to. The file is 48 mins!

[AmbroseBierce]

That need not stop you from posting it (as you see I'm talking out of a very selfish position of wanting to have it, having been hooked by the your mentioning it): There's a nice, small program called hjsplit, widely available for download on the net, and extremely easy to use. It cuts any file into portions and renames them *.*.001, *.*.002, etc. To listen to them you have to rejoin the files, again with hjsplit. Easy to use, fast and reliable. Or you could upload the file to rapidshare.de or other filehosters like megaupload.com and just post the download link. That's maybe even more easy.

[Hakem]

Ok my friend. I will post the link in the Egyptian section.
H.