Classical Persian Music Archives

In the latter part of 18th century, the brothers Mirza Abdollah and Aqa Hosseinqoli became the first masters of Persian music who succeeded in systematically arranging the ancient melodies and lyrics into radifs and trained a generation of composers and performers steeped in Iran’s classical music. Mirza Abollah’s radifs were arranged in seven major modal systems or dastgahs (Sure, ahure, Homayoun, Segah, Chahargah, Rastpanjgah and Nava) and five simpler vocal melodies (Bayat-e Tork, Afahari, Abu-ata, Dashti and Esfahan). Each radif consists in several gushehs, or minor vocal or melodic variations.

The creation of radifs, and particularly its incorporation in musical notes, was a revolutionary turn in the world of Persian music and paved the way for the systematic training of musicians and introduction of modern modes of composition, performance and preservation of musical works. Gholamreza Minbashian, (a disciple of Alfred Lemaire, the French music instructor of Tehran’s Dar al-Fonun), Mehdiqoli Hedayat, Alinaqi Vaziri, and Mousa Ma’roufi were pioneers in the systematic arrangement of radifs in musical notes.