The Position of Music Performance in Iranian Culture

The ambivalence of Iranian culture towards music may be seen in the context of what Darius Shayan has termed cultural schizophrenia: the contradictory nature of the two sources of Iranian culture, ancient Persia and Islam.

In ancient Persia musicians held socially respectable positions. We know that the Elamites and the Achemenians certainly made use of musicians but we can not guess what that music might have been like. During the Parthian era, troubadours or Gosans were highly sought after as entertainers. There are theories in Academia that perhaps the early Dari Poets of Eastern Iran like Roudaki were in fact Gosans.

By the time the Sassanids came to power, the position of the Musicians was so exalted that it is only them, amongst all practitioners of fine arts, whose names have come down to the present in numbers. We may know that Mani was a painter or Burzoe was a literary as well as a medical figure but these names have survived for reasons other than their arts. We may know Farhad was a famous sculptor but only because he had pursued a love affair with the Queen. The names of famous musicians, as well as the nature of their fame have come down to us. Amongst the master musicians Barbad, Sarkad, Ramtin and Nakissa there was fierce rivalry during the reign of Khosroe Parveez. Barbad invented the lute and the musical traditions that was to transform into the Maqam tradition and eventually the Dastgah music.

Even after Islam Persian Musicians did not disappear: Zaryab is often credited with being the greatest influence over Andalusian and Spanish music. [1] Farabi and Avicenna were not only musical theorist but adept at the lute and the Ney respectively. However, late Medieval and modern Islam viewed music with suspicion.

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