فرامرز پایور Farâmarz Pâyvar & حسین تهرانی Hossein Tehrâni ~ Zard-e Malije [Mahoor]

âvâz-e dashti
01. Zard-e Malije
02. Daramad Dashti
03. Daramad Dovom
04. Chaharmezrab Dashti
05. Oshagh
06. Chaharmezrab Oshagh
07. Naghme Oshagh
08. Dashtestani
09. Gham Angiz
10. Sarenj
11. Reng dashti
12. Zarbi Moghadameh



âvâz-e afshâri
13. Daramad Aval
14. Chaharmezran Daramad
15. Daramad Dovom
16. Gooshe Jamedaran
17. Hazin
18. Gharaei
19. Chaharmezrab Gharaei
20. Araq
21. Rahavi
22. Shah Khataei
23. Masnavi Va Foroud Be Shur



فرامرز پایور Farâmarz Pâyvar [1933 - 2009, Tehran] was an Iranian virtuoso of the santur, a 72-stringed hammered dulcimer. He was born into an aristocratic family of artists. His father, Ali Pâyvar, was a painter & professor of French at the University of Tehran. Both his father and grandfather played santur & violin, & were associated with the great musicians of their eras. Pâyvar’s mother was also interested in the arts in general & musique in particular. She was aware of her son’s talent and encouraged him to play the instrument.

At the tender age of 17, Pâyvar began his musical career by studying with renowned Iranian musician Abolhassan Saba [1902-1957]. He studied the Radif repertory & played the santur with Saba for eight years before he graduated from his mastership class & was able to play alongside his teacher Abolhassan Saba on Iranian National Radio.

Pâyvar was highly skilled on the santur and soon became very famous. After Saba’s death he began to study with four other masters: Nur-Ali Borumand, Rokneddin Mokhtari, Abdollah Davami, and Haji Aqa Mohammad Irani.

In 1958, Payvar began teaching the santur at the National Music Conservatory. Although once perceived as marginal, the santur is now considered an important solo instrument in Persian classical musique, largely as a result of his work. Over the course of his career, Pâyvar revolutionised its playing, led two major ensembles and made numerous recordings.

He also published several books on practical and theoretical aspects of Iranian classical musique. These included a series of influential guides on how to play the santur, & a popular manual for the tar, a long-necked lute said to embody the spirit of Iranian musique.

Pâyvar was renowned for his strict personal discipline and demanded the same of his students as well as members of his ensembles. This meant that their line-ups hardly altered at all, in contrast with the volatile changes that affected other contemporary Persian groups.

He founded his own school of performance for the santur, with a novel emphasis on arpeggiated figures reflecting an openness to 'Western' influence. Another innovation that caused controversy among some traditionalists was his use of felt on the hammers used to strike the instrument's strings. This resulted in a softer, less metallic tone that was suggestive of the piano – itself thought to have been derived from the santur.

Before the 1979 Iranian Revolution, & after the end of the Iran-Iraq war, Pâyvar travelled internationally as a cultural ambassador for Persian musique, performing in North America, Britain, Europe, various Soviet Republics and Japan. During the 1960s and 1970s he recorded a number of albums for French labels. We may remember his legacy through his many peerless recordings. r.i.p. Farâmarz Pâyvar 1933 - 2009

حسین تهرانی Hossein Tehrâni [1912 – February 25, 1974] was the most influential tombak player of the 20th century. Born in 1912 in Tehran [where else?] he began his studies at a time when tombak playing was regarded not as a respected music career for the player. "When I began to play tombak, the instrument was a humiliated one & according to general consensus it was only suited for low-class musicians," he once said. From 1928 he went to study tombak with Hossein Esmailzadeh, himself a master kamanche player. Since modern musical notation was not common during those days, he used mnemonic devices to memorize rhythmic patterns.

He single-handedly is responsible for the high stature attained nowadays by tombak, through his originality of musicianship and due to his generous personality. He also formed a tombak ensemble to encourage young players to play in group and with large orchestras. To provide them with a performing repertory he also composed fantastic pieces for the ensemble. He died in 1973 after a long period of illness. May his memory will be cherished forever. r.i.p. Hossein Tehrâni 1912 – 1974



someone fond of the Mortezā Mahjubi recordings inquired about a good santur joint & this is one i spin frequently. one can readily hear the masters' felt on the hammers technique resulting in resonances not unlike some alien iranian piano, complimented by some encroyable tombak accompaniment. my guess is that these recordings were made in the 60's. 320 thanks to Ambrose Bierce for illumination & stellar sounds. حفاری عمیق تر

پیانو نوازی نوازی ~ مرتضی محجوبی Mortezā Mahjubi ~ Art of Piano

1 dastgahe se gah دستگاه سه گاه
2 dastgahe homayoon دستگاه همایون
3 bayate tork بیات ترک
4 avaze dashti آواز دشتی
5 avaze aboo ata آواز ابو عطا
6 avaze afshari آواز افشاری



Mortezā Mahjoubi مرتضی محجوبی [Tehran, 1900 - 1965] was an innovative, largely self-educated composer & performer who was renowned for his masterful utilization of the piano in performing traditional Iranian musique. Mortezā came from a musical family; his father, Abbas Ali Mahjoubi, played the ney, the Persian wooden flute; his mother, Fakhressadat, could play a little piano & his brother, Reza Mahjoubi, became a great violinist. Morteza's family happened to own a piano, a rare possession among people of Tehran during that time.

This very suitable family atmosphere & his own natural genius helped Morteżā to get initiated into the world of musique in his early childhood. As a child, he often sat behind the piano & played this instrument in his own childish fashion, creating certain tunes. His parents, noticing his aptitude for musique, took him to Ḥosayn Hangāfarin, a famous musician & performer of violin & piano to teach him the basics of musique & performance of the piano. They later sent him to Maḥmud Mofaḵḵam, a pianist & outstanding student of master musician Āqā Ḥosaynqoli, to further familiarize him with the repertoire [radif] and melody sections [guša] of traditional Persian musique & to aid him in mastering the art of piano playing.

Maḥjubi’s genius in absorbing musique manifested itself from early childhood. By the time he was ten years old, he had become an expert pianist who played in the gatherings of the aristocracy. His fame as a child prodigy reached such proportions that he, at the age of ten, participated in a concert featuring ʿĀref Qazvini & accompanied ʿĀref’s singing on the piano. Since ʿĀref was extremely fastidious in regard to the performance of his band’s members, his acceptance of a young boy as his own back-up performer illustrates Maḥjubi’s masterful excellence as a youthful pianist. He had become a well-known musician by the age of twelve and was regarded, by many, as the leading piano performer of his thyme.

Maḥjubi was not familiar with the international system of musical notation, so he invented his own system of writing music by using symbols that were somewhat similar to the siāq script (a system of signs once used in accounting. Parviz Yāḥaqqi, the Persian composer and violinist, has related that he had once composed a song that was to be broadcast on the radio. When the musical note sheets were distributed to the members of the orchestra, Maḥjubi asked Yāḥaqqi to play the song on the violin. He then jotted the tune down in his own style of writing music on the back of his cigarette pack. When the rehearsal started, Maḥjubi’s performance was unexpectedly more accurate than the rest of the orchestra.

After the establishment of the Radio Tehran, Maḥjubi was one of the first musicians to join & take part in its musical programs. Later, in 1956, when radio program entitled Golhā was launched, Maḥjubi became one of the most outstanding figures of this musical program, which aimed at demonstrating the aesthetic relationship between poetry and music in Persian culture. According to those present, Maḥjubi would sometimes go to the Golhā studio at Radio Tehran without an appointment or an advanced notice and play the piano in solitude. On such occasions, the technical personnel of the Golhā program would, without Maḥjubi’s knowledge, record his performance on tape. These recordings are now considered among the treasures of traditional Persian musique.

The significance of Maḥjoubi’s work is partly in the fact that he performed Persian melodies on a completely Western instrument with such masterful excellence that one would think the piano was truly a Persian instrument. Maḥjubi’s melodies & style contain embellishments and accents that brilliantly manifest genuine characteristics of Persian musique.

Maḥjubi was one of the most prominent improvising music performers. He always began playing without advanced planning and his works always took form under the influence of his feelings and his sentimental impressions at the time of playing the piano. For this reason, if he played in the Dašti mode ten different times, ten very different works would be created. Due to this style of work, none of his compositions resemble any other.

On a related 'note', further precious pianoriental recordings from Mortezā were subsequently dropped here & an lp by one of his contemporaries, iranian pianist Javad Ma'roufi, were recently unfurled by the resplendant ghostcapital