TEHRAN -- “The Treasury of the Art of Iranian Music”, a collection containing solo and duet performances of Persian music recorded in the early years of the 1970s, was introduced during a ceremony held at Tehran’s Aryana Gallery.

Published by Tehran’s Beethoven Music Center (Ava Khorshid), the collection is comprised of 12 CDs featuring performances by tar virtuoso Jalil Shahnaz (1921-2013), violin virtuoso Homayun Khorram (1930-2013) and tombak player Amir-Naser Eftetah (1935-1987).

The performances feature the radifs of Iranian music, which are the total collection of more than 200 gushehs (traditional melodic motifs) in all 12 dastgahs.

The ceremony was attended by musicians, critics, actors and officials including Reza Kianian, Pari Maleki, Hamidreza Nurbakhsh and Deputy Culture Minister for Artistic Affairs Ali Moradkhani, the Persian service of Honaronline reported on Sunday.

Critic Alireza Miralinaqi called the collection worthwhile and significant, produced after many years and said, “This collection takes us to the time when creative musicians were good at improvising. The musicians enjoyed innovation and creativity in their works and this collection is one of the best of its kind.”

Musician Fereydun Shahbazian expressed his opinion on the recent album and said, “In these albums, the best musicians have performed. The package enjoys a very good and attractive design and contains brochures both in English and French.

He added, “Today a mixture of different types of music is offered to people but no organization or foundation takes the responsibility to offer good, original music and it is only the duty of the musicians to take actions.

“It is the duty of musicians to preserve the art and culture of their country and love people and life and help their country improve,” he stated, adding that a new center like the music organization of the country is needed to be established to cover all the musicians and their activities in the country.

In his brief remarks, Director of the Beethoven Music Center Babak Chamanara also said that the collection has been produced to make music more popular among the people.

“Most albums on radifs available in the market are not complete, and they somehow focus on the teaching side of a radif, but this may be the only collection that will allow listeners to enjoy Iranian music while listening to Iranian radifs,” he had previously said.

Photo: A poster for “The Treasury of the Art of Iranian Music”

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