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Introduction
It is a tremendous undertaking to write about the music of Alireza Mashayekhi. The breadth and depth of his catalog of works, spanning forty-five years of creative activity, defies easy generalization. To adequately comprehend his widely ranging integration of traditions, East and West, old and new, requires an broad depth of knowledge. My goal as author is to capture the seriousness and complexity of Mr. Mashayekhi¹s music while neither overly generalizing, nor becoming too caught in detail to lose the general reader. Thus, my goal will be to craft brief vignettes that seek to capture my personal perceptions of his works. The language will be simple, direct, and non-technical.
Alireza Mashayekhi, born in Tehran in 1940, is a major musical pioneer in contemporary Iran. Educated in both traditional Persian and Western music, he studied avant-garde and electronic music in Vienna and in The Netherlands. Hanns Jelinek and Gottfried Michael Koenig were among his teachers. Mr. Mashayekhi¹s music encompasses many traditions, including Iranian and Western, and is informed by philosophical inquiry. This composer views his work as a process of discovery in which contradictory possibilities point towards a multiplicity of truths. Alireza Mashayekhi has been a member of the composition faculty at the University of Tehran since 1970. In 1993, he co-founded The Tehran Contemporary Music Group, and in 1995, the Iranian Orchestra for New Music.
Since this author's comments are necessarily subjective, let me introduce myself. I am a Western-trained composer, pianist and historical writer who was born in the United States, in New York City. As a young adult, I expanded a traditional Western conservatory education by playing rock and roll and learning about Western avant-garde art music, jazz, music of central Asia, and electronic music. In recent years, I have embarked on writing historical narratives about the origins and development of electronic music outside North America and Europe, parts of the world that had been largely ignored in existing histories of electronic music. I discovered the music of Alireza Mashayekhi while writing about his students Dariush Dolat-shahi and the late Massoud Pourfarrokh and their work at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in New York City, and about the Shiraz Arts Festival, 1967-1977.
Exploring visual and kinetic metaphors
I am driving through a mountainous area in northern New York State, not far from the Canadian border, listening in the car to Mr. Mashayekhi's 'Concerto for Violin and Orchestra' (opus 96, 1987-88). In the distance, I see a tall and vast, seemingly undifferentiated and shimmering, white mass of snow. As I drive closer, it becomes clear to me that the mountain is anything but texturally undifferentiated. The closer I approach, what emerges is a complex array of rock and snow. As the sun shifts, a gray shadowy area comes into view and soon, it too displays the same type of variation of shape, form and color.
Sound example 1: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, opening passage
These visual perceptions about the mountains provide a useful analogy for how I experience Alireza Mashayekhi¹s 'Concerto for Violin and Orchestra'. At first I perceive only large sound masses. But as I listen more intently, a tremendous complexity of sonic detail emerges. I detect in the sounds something like the constantly shifting details of sonic color, densities, shapes and gestures that I see in the mountain. The listener is presented with two simultaneous perspectives: the whole and its parts, the overarching picture and its details. One finds in Sufi and Jewish mysticism the idea that the One may be experienced as the many or, the many differentiates from the One. Both perspectives are equally valid and one need look no further than 'Concerto for Violin and Orchestra' to hear this paradox expressed in music.
First impressions of music can have a lasting impact. For this author, who was trained in Western music, the associations that come to mind are the dense, shifting sound masses in the 1960s orchestral music of Gyorgy Ligeti, Krzysztof Penderecki and Iannis Xenakis, from the 1960s. I also think of the simultaneous multi-level sound events in Igor Stravinsky's 'Petrushka' and Charles Ives's 'Fourth Symphony'. Listening to music for a second time can change first perceptions. And indeed, as I listen more closely to the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, an entirely different, distinctly Iranian, framework soon emerges.
Let me explain by borrowing from another metaphor, kinetic energy. Imagine a soup or stew. The many vegetables and other ingredients rest on the bottom of the liquid. As heat is applied, energy enters the system, and bubbles begin to form at the bottom of the pot. Soon, ingredients, suspended in the liquid, begin to rise towards the surface of the water. As the heat increases, so does the energy level in the liquid. Thus the ingredients spin faster and faster within the soup. As soon as the heat is turned down, the energy level drops, activity slows and gradually, a quiet stasis returns.
The soup pot is a self-contained system. Its specific behavior is dependent upon the heat level and the choice of ingredients, each carefully cut into selected shapes and sizes, combined in different weights, densities and colors. Since the nature of the soup is dependent upon the nature of its ingredients, there is no separation between form and contents. So too is the behavior of sound masses that periodically stir throughout this Concerto for Violin and Orchestra. Each sound mass is ever so carefully prepared and tended. Each awaits its moment to gather strength and then takes flight, expending its energy and returns to quiet stasis.
Music is an art form that unfolds in time. Unlike Western musical models, Mr. Mashayekhi¹s Concerto isn¹t headed to a destination necessarily implied by a linear logic based on an externally imposed form. Rather, the work unfolds in response to the nature of its contents. Thanks to my colleague Shahroakh Yagedari, I have come to understand this model as that of the radif, where structure and contents are interrelated. One might say that contents create form as they unfold in time. This is how I experience Mr. Mashayekhi¹s sound masses in his Concerto for Violin and Orchestra.
East or West - defining the nature of musical sound
Having considered some of the features of one work by Alireza Mashayekhi, let me raise a broader question. Is there a single distinct tradition through which one can most clearly understand his music? Should Mr. Mashayekhi be seen as a composer steeped in the Modernist traditions of the West or does his work most essentially emerge from traditions of Iran? I believe that both possibilities are in fact true. How can it be that a composer legitimately and fully stands in multiple traditions? Let¹s briefly explore two core issues: the definition of musical sound and the relationship between form and contents.
Like Western modernists, Mr. Mashayekhi is fascinated by sound in the same way that a stone sculptor is engaged with the contours and fault lines in stone. In this respect, he follows the important innovations of Western Modernist composers, among them John Cage, Charles Ives, Henry Cowell and Edgard Varese, who treat all sounds, including noise as musical. Like these forebears, the expanded sonic sound pallet in all its varieties is a primary medium for Alireza Mashayekhi. Throughout his work, Mr. Mashayekhi pays intimate attention to the many possible qualities of sound.
But the West is not the only possible source for Mr. Mashayekhi's interest in an expanded definition of musical sound. Traditional Persian instrumental techniques incorporate sound elements that would in the West be considered noise. The performer of a ney attends to the unfolding nature of timbre (³tone color²) during the duration of a note or melodic phrase. Breath sounds are also incorporated in a meaningful way. The sound of the plectrum striking the strings of a tar is also an integral musical aspect of instrumental technique and aesthetics. This sensibility is shared throughout many musical cultures of Central and East Asia. In this way, they differ markedly from Western musical sensibilities which privilege purity of tone and thus a far more narrow definition of musical sound. For instance, the ideal sound of the Western oboe lacks breath sounds. Thus, a close attention to sound itself in all its great unfolding variety is already an attribute of a traditional Iranian musical aesthetic sensibility. Iranian music is thus an equally legitimate source for Mr. Mashayekhi's expanded musical sensibilities.
During my earlier discussion of Alireza Mashayekhi¹s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, I noted that one may experience the work as unfolding in response to the dynamic interplay of its contents. I connected this to the inner logic of the radif and the idea that musical form is not separable from its musical contents. In the radif, rules govern the nature of improvisation within a particular dastgah. Musical form emerges as a result of the improvisational process. This may be contrasted with Western classical traditions, where, in an ideal model, melody, harmony and rhythm assume musical coherence within the structure of externally defined forms, such as the Sonata Allegro form. In Sonata form, a melody will be played and repeated, sometimes contrasted with a second theme, then subjected to motivic and harmonic development, and ultimately repeated in a denoument. In many examples, form is actually more flexible than this idealized version. Nonetheless, Mr. Mashayekhi's work generally appears to follow more intuitive structures, a consequence of the unfolding of the inner dynamics of its contents, and in this way may be viewed as emerging from traditional Iranian models.
The silence of 'Sokut IV'
Silence can have deep musical significance. It can be more than a pause from musical activity. This is something that music in the West learned in the mid-Twentieth century from traditional Japanese music, from for example, the highly ritualized music of the Noh drama. Contemporary Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu has noted that sounds become resonant and significant in contrast with the deep silence the Buddhist concept of ma from which they emerge. He observes: "In short, this ma, this powerful silence, is that which gives life to the sound and removes it from a position of primacy. So it is that sound, confronting the silence of ma, yields supremacy in the final expression."
Alireza Mashayekhi's 'Sokut IV', for orchestra (opus 154, 2002) may be characterized as the periodic outpouring of mini dynamic systems, the details of which vary in texture, mood, color and intensity. When each system ceases, or rather, seems to exhaust itself, the dynamics of the system do not cease, but rather, continue in the silence that follows. In 'Sokut IV', silence functions in at least two ways. It is from within silence that musical activity periodically emerges and returns. From silence, the seeds of bursts of energy that comprise musical events emerge and play out. In the silence that follows each event, the listener is able to digest what has occurred. Silence is thus not only source and container, but reflective space.
Sound example 2: Sokut IV, 3:16 - 4:11
A pause of silence does not simply prepare us for the next onslaught. Rather, pauses in this work are akin to the aftermath of a snow or windstorm. Like storms, the music events of Sokut IV leave artifacts in their wake, the results of their effects upon their environment. After a storm, or even a singular wind gust, has abated, nothing is quite as it was prior. The air continues to move after the burst, maybe less perceivably, and only slowly does it return fully to rest. Twigs, dirt and leaves have moved. The close observer who witnesses this notes the changes. The brief disturbance does not leave our field of consciousness; even memory is not done with the activity that just transpired. We continue to live it emotionally within ourselves. And then, another burst begins, this time with a different level of intensity and different dynamics. Many times, theses patterns repeat. After several rounds, events more distant in time converge in our memories with the most recent. The composite magnifies the power of what we have witnessed, leaving us to sit in silence afterwards, seeking to more fully digest what has passed. Silences in 'Sokut IV' are anything but empty. They are necessary containers for what has transpired and, in the relative quiet of the moment after great activity, they remain filled with past events.
The Western piano as a non-Western instrument
The piano was designed as a polyphonic instrument, developed to suit the needs of the Romantic era in Western classical music. It is uniquely suited to simultaneously articulate, with equal clarity, melodic lines and dense chords. As Western music became increasingly chromatic during the late 19th century, composers of piano works faced a challenge. Their need was to develop expressive means to convey the increasing harmonic richness and ambiguity that coloristic orchestration allowed within instrumental ensembles. Beethoven, Brahms and later, the Impressionists explored new compositional techniques made possible by the piano's ability to articulate both horizontal and vertical detail.
Alireza Mashayekhi has studied and absorbed the canon of Western piano music. It is clear that he has thought deeply about how to adapt the piano to the needs of Iranian music, which is primarily horizontal, melodic but not harmonic. There are moments in 'Kristall No. 2' (opus 113, no.2, 1995) when one hears echoes, but not imitations, of the vertical elements of Johannes Brahms, Olivier Messiaen, Maurice Ravel and others. The most meaningful historical reference points for Mr. Mashayekhi's piano works may be Bela Bartok and Keith Jarrett, whose melodies are often modal and thus primarily horizontal. To incorporate vertical elements, these composers juxtapose modally-related material, rather than conventional chordal harmonies.
Sound example 3: Kristall No. 2, opening passage
In 'A la Recherche du Temps Perdu' (opus 111, no. 1, 1994) and 'Short Stories I' (opus 106, no. 1, 1994), Alireza Mashayekhi juxtaposes related modal material, not chords, to create vertical structures. Sometimes chordal fragments are heard. Rather, he utilizes elements from the modes, the dastgah of the melody has been constructed, to make evident the presence of that mode. One might use the words flavor, color or essence in place of harmony to describe Mr. Mashayekhi¹s subtle vertical references.
Sound example 4: Short Stories I, opening passage
Electronic music as an Iranian art form
I am flying in an airplane, peering out the window, down into the clouds. Amidst the puffy gray, I detect charcoal colors: browns and greens. What I am seeing are elements of the earth below refracted through the thinner sections of the clouds. As we fly, the earth-tone images constantly change. Sometimes, the rich colored fields and hills are clearly defined, but more often they appear distorted. At other times they are completely blocked by the clouds. I can always see the larger cloudy structures, but smaller elements of what lies below shift and change, sometimes disappearing from view. This is the mental image that I see while listening to Alireza Mashayekhi's 'Shur' (opus 15, 1968). Fragments of traditional Iranian melodies ebb and flow, heard as if refracted through changing lenses.
The earliest electronic music in history, composed in the late 1940s and early 1950s largely in Paris, Cologne, New York and Tokyo, tended towards the abstract and non-melodic. Pierre Schaeffer, the Parisian radio engineer who coined the phrase musique concrete, sought to obscure the origins of his sounds. They were to be heard as objects, (object sonore) items that were organized like a collage. The listener was to focus on the sonic qualities of the sounds, as they were heard in sequence. Herbert Eimert, Karlheinz Stockhausen and others in Cologne followed a similar aesthetic, but preferred their sounds to be electronically generated. Edgard Varese, in Paris and New York, bridged these two perspectives, creating musical phrases from sounds that were sometimes pitched, but often noise in content. Alireza Mashayekhi's 'Panoptikum 70' (opus 27, 1970) and several other early electronic works have a kinship with Varese, especially Poeme Electronique (1958). Mr. Mashayekhi's early work is distinct, in part, because the concept of "sound object" does not seem to play a part. There is dynamism in his assemblages of electronic sounds as if they are living elements in a living system, even those that sound the most electronic. These works share commonalities with music previously discussed, like the 'Concerto for Violin and Orchestra'.
The most unique electronic works of Mr. Mashayekhi are those most identifiably Iranian. 'Mithra' (opus 90, no. 1, 1982) is strikingly melodic, modal and often microtonal, organized within shifting patterns, not unlike traditional Iranian music. These sounds, although melodic, seem veiled due to their electronic treatment and they become conversational elements in a mix with fragments of Iranian instrumental sounds. The conversation takes on a surreal quality owing to the unusual juxtaposition of sound elements and the asymmetrical relationship between melodic patterns. As a result, one experiences the sounds as garbed or heavily mediated, as is true of Mr. Mashayekhi's work 'Shur'. Another related work, 'Yaad' (opus 66, 1979) is also melodic, but its musical contents are overlapping sustained pitched electronic sounds that together suggest a melodic tapestry. One can rarely identify a particular melody, but there is the suggestion of an overall melodic quality to the music.
Sound example 5: Mithra, 4:47-5:12
These works are all the more unique for two reasons. First, Alireza Mashayekhi was the only Iranian composer working with electronic music at the time. It was not until 1971 that electronic music, by European and American composers Iannis Xenakis, Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Cage, Gordon Mumma, and David Tudor, were performed in Iran, as part of the decade-long Western-oriented Shiraz Art Festival. There were no electronic music studios in the country, despite a failed attempt in the mid-1970s to found a government-supported studio. Second, Mr. Mashayekhi composed in a European musical environment dominated by the abstraction of European aesthetics.
The closest parallels to Mr. Mashayekhi¹s modal electronic works may be works from the late 1960s by the American composers Morton Subotnick and Terry Riley. Subotnick¹s electronic compositions from that period, composed on a modular analog synthesizer system that encouraged improvisation, often begin with one or more layers of electronic sounds or filtered white noise, and develop in an intuitive, often linear manner. Terry Riley's music, for example, 'A Rainbow of Curved Air' (1967), treats minimal melodic materials in unfolding interlocking rhythmic patterns. One might think of Riley¹s work as akin to light refracted through a gradually tilted prism, causing constant changes in the visible spectrum.
Alireza Mashayekhi¹s modal electronic music is quite different from that of either Subotnick or Riley, more chaotic and unpredictable. One finds in his work a higher order that unifies the seeming disorder in the lower levels of musical organization. The modal musical patterns are like leaves floating on a lake. Some of the leaves are intact and others in pieces, but they all move slowly upon the water in ways that are not completely predictable. As a consequence, the patterns of their juxtapositions appear to be random, but, when viewed from above, they form a unified, more broadly predictable, larger pattern. This use of unpredictability on a micro-scale within a larger, clearly crafted structure finds parallels in the work of Iannis Xenakis, who like Alireza Mashayekhi, utilized algorithmic approaches to compose details within elaborate outer structures.
This use of computing to generate the exact details of dynamic systems may be found in Mr. Mashayekhi's electronic works of the late 1970s, such as 'Chahargah I' (opus 75, no. 1, 1979). In this work, which features a distinct Iranian aesthetic, Mr. Mashayekhi is interested in specifying the larger, overarching structures and the nature, but not the details of their inner dynamics. This aesthetic is heightened by the addition of traditional Iranian instrumental improvisation to the electronic sounds in the expansion of this work in 'Chahargah I', for violin and tape (opus 75, no. 2, 1979) and 'Chahargah II', for Tar, Tape & Persian Instruments (opus 140, 1999). Familiar instrumental sounds highlight the degree to which Mr. Mashayekhi uses traditional models including dastgah and Iranian forms of modal improvisation even in the original electronic sounds. It is at times difficult to distinguish between the electronic sounds from the original version, the recorded sounds of Iranian acoustical instruments, and the live performances layered upon them. While the violin or tar soloists improvise against a fixed element on tape, the function of the tape is not accompaniment. Terms like foreground and background are not useful here, since each of the elements is perceived by the listener to be dynamic. Rich and full, they all coexist alternately in dynamic tension and stasis.
Sound example 6: Chahargah I, 1:14-2:12)
This coexistence of differing or even conflicting types of sound elements is a moderate example of what Alireza Mashayekhi¹s calls Meta-X. In this approach, unrelated and even conflictual elements rest side-by-side or in juxtaposition, together creating a larger, dynamic whole. A more dramatic example of this theory is the earlier electronic composition, 'East-West' (opus 45, 1973). Here, electronic sounds with strong noise components are juxtaposed with pitched modal elements. On a micro-level, the elements are quite different, but when viewed on a higher order, they are part of a greater whole.
Musical influences and the future of culture
I conducted a series of interviews with Mr. Mashayekhi by email in July 28 and December 13, 2006, and concluding on January 7, 2007 and I asked how he viewed himself as an Iranian composer. He noted that " ... knowing Iranian music opens the gate to a very special way of artistic thinking, but it would not be worth it if it closed my eyes to other possibilities. These are the origins of my definition of Nationality as a Perspective. One can watch the world through a national perspective, but one might lose oneself in a multicultural world while sticking to a so-called nationalistic identity.² His candid assessment of personal influences was revealing, implicitly placing himself within a context of a global transformation, as he added: "there is already a multicultural way of thinking in this world that, like any other kind of thinking, automatically seeks its own cultural, artistic and musical experiments."
Mr. Mashayekhi's multiculturalism may be viewed in several different ways: as Western and post-Modern, where context defines meaning; or within an Islamic perspective of finding unity in multiplicity and multiplicity within unity. In his article about Mr. Mashayekhi's work, "Influences of Persian Music on the Stylistics of Alireza Mashayekhi: A Musical Journey towards the Meta-X" (http://www.mashayekhi-music.com), Hooman Asadi locates Mr. Mashayekhi¹s aesthetic in Islamic art and traditional Persian music: "Persian and Islamic art [reflects] unity in multiplicity or coherent collection of seemingly contradictory items. This sacred art contains the means to enable man to see the forms of nature and multiplicity as so many reflections of the Unity which is both the origin and end of the order of multiplicity." I believe that can understand his work from either of these perspectives. Both traditions are sources of information for Alireza Mashayekhi and it exemplifies how he sees himself as a bridge between East and West.
Mr. Mashayekhi believes that musical composers can play a special role in addressing the insular way that Western and Eastern ideas of aesthetics have developed, lacking "information, communication, understanding and knowledge of each other, between and within our cultures." He concludes: "Thus, the composer of our time is in the position to look through a different window." Alireza Mashayekhi¹s mission is to engage in such an informed dialog, to view composing as an act of discovery. "In my opinion, every technique that can be helpful on the road to discovery may and should be tried." Thus, the composer¹s imagination can serve as a laboratory for the creation of a new synthesis and formulation of ideas between cultures. The creation of the musical work is in itself a reflection of a new era that is unfolding. Mr. Mashayekhi is a composer willing to experiment, but one who seeks to bring his audience with him, without compromising his musical integrity. Thus he concludes: "I am sure that I can communicate with almost everyone." After exploring the ideas and aesthetics of the music of Alireza Mashayekhi, this author sees much evidence in the truth of this forward-looking assertion.
Notes
This essay will soon be published in Bukhara an Iranian journal on the Arts published in Tehran (in Farsi). Mr. Gluck's interview with Alireza Mashayekhi can be viewed on the web (in English).
http://www.emfinstitute.emf.org/articles/gluck.mashayekhi_07.html.
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