Persia & Baroque: Classical Persian Music and European Baroque

In the Baroque era, European society turned its gaze to foreign countries in the Orient, with Persia exerting a particular fascination that was not necessarily anthropological in nature.

Foreign countries and figures made it possible, for example in Montesquieu's famous Lettres Persanes (1721), to express and disseminate the new Enlightenment ideas, such as criticism of absolutism, under the guise of the exotic. However, music was less philosophical or anthropological; Persian themes tended to provide a special "kick" in opera or instrumental music.

Gambist Simone Eckert presents such works with Persian subjects with her Hamburger Ratsmusik on the new album Persian & Baroque and has teamed up with the Neoclassical Ensemble of Tehran for this. This formation, under the direction of musicologist Arash Mohafez, specializes in Persian music that has been passed down in ancient manuscripts, while traditional Persian musicians and ensembles usually play music that has been passed down orally and whose origins only go back to the 19th century.

The Neoclassical Ensemble complements the baroque program with classical Persian pieces from surviving manuscripts from the 17th and 18th centuries. The special feature of the cooperation between these two formations is that both the European baroque repertoire and the Persian classical repertoire are shared by the ensembles.

1: I. Ouverture
2: II. Allegro
3: III. Jigg
4: Pishrow in Maqam Neyshabur & Osul Chanbar
5: L'arabesque
6: Pishrow Golestan in Maqam Panjgah & Osul Doyek
7: Tombak Improvisation
8: Marche En Persian
9: Pishrow in Maqam Bozorg & Osul Zarbeyn
10: Zaide, Reine De Grenade
11: Maqam Hejaz-Ozzal
12: Pishrow in Maqam 'Ozzal & Osul Fakhte
13: Marche Persane Dite La Savigny
14: Le Tourbillon
15: Taqsim in Maqam Nahavand-e Kabir
16: Naqsh in Maqam Nahavand-e Kabir & Osul Dowr-e Ravan
17: I. Ouverture
18: II. Air
19: III. Slow Air
20: IV. Air
21: V. Hornpipe
22: VI. Rondeau
23: VII. Air
24: VIII. Minuet

Conductor: Arash Mohafez, Simone Eckert

Number of Discs: 1

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