Playing time: 40'
Recording date: unknown; released: 2024
Dariush Safvat (1928-2013) founded the Center for the Preservation and Research of Music, in Tehran in 1968, and thus has had a broad role in shaping the music I've heard from Iran. (He also completed a doctorate in International Law in Paris in 1965.) And I'd heard some comments from him, heard various of his students, but for whatever reason, Safvat's own music was invisible when I did my study in the 1990s. Maybe it was humility, or maybe it was the idea that his mastery wasn't straightforward enough to present to the Western public. Certainly his music does give me pause, does present much to consider, but given the circumstances — i.e. listening to the same improvisations over & over — it soon becomes quite compelling. Indeed, Safvat probably became my favorite Persian instrumentalist during the course of this renewed investigation.
Unfortunately, his handful of releases are mostly not very available, or at least not in very good sound. There's e.g. a 5-volume "improvisations" series that seems to present various highlights, but some of the most dynamic tracks are in the muddiest sound (& it's not readily available anyway). There're also releases with Safvat on santur, which are appealing too, but I'm more partial to the tar/setar myself, making the present selection easily the most appealing on Qobuz.
In fact, this is the only release on this label on Qobuz, so maybe we can spur more...? And then other versions of the same recordings do exist e.g. with five additional, truncated tracks framing the sequence in Segah.... Finally, there are a couple of larger productions from the Mahoor Institute that haven't appeared on streaming or in the West, and that I haven't been able to hear: Lessons for setar (MCD-649) & 124 Pieces of Iranian Classical Music (MCD-374). I've tried to inquire, but haven't had any luck....
Safvat's style on setar (& his articulations on santur end up similar...) is also more akin to older styles of tar/setar playing, which I was also able to hear for this project (especially with help from Ellie Kerry), i.e. to players such as Shahnazi, Hormozi & Forutan. This is a "noisier" style, one might say, with more sympathetic string vibration, basically more chordal verticality heard in the music. The more carefully plucked (& so more monophonic) articulations are apparently more of a mid-20th century innovation, including so as to sound more clearly over radio & other media. They can seem sanitized. (To complete this historical chain, musicians I knew back in the 90s would then complain about artificial reverb being added later in the recording process....) Whereas some of those other, older musicians have a more straightforward style though, often blunt & direct, Safvat involves more subtleties & allusions. He should be celebrated much more.
To purchasing information for this disc.
T. M. McComb