On An Overgrown Path

Celestial Harmonies' 17 CD boxed set Music of Islam ranks alongside Paul Bowles' Music of Morocco as one of the great achievements of cultural documentation. David Parsons was responsible for the project's field recordings, which took ten years to complete. In 1997 he travelled with his family to Karaj in Iran to record volume 12 of the Music of Islam . Here is an extract from the sleeve notes for the 1998 CD release:  Producer David Parsons and his family periodically suffered from stress in accomplishing the recordings for The Music of Series. This was mainly due to the preconceptions (in reality, misconceptions) they held about Islam and the Islamic countries they needed to work in. These fears, they feel, were largely brought about by the negative bias with which the Western news media have portrayed the Islamic countries over recent years....   It was with some trepidation, therefore, that they undertook this Iranian project, particularly because of the very ...

There is little doubt that the opening of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is grossly over-exposed , and it takes an artist of quite exceptional ability to make us listen to the old warhorse with fresh ears. But Iranian film director and writer Mohsen Makhmalbaf does just that with his 1998 film 'The Silence' [Sokout] , which provides the accompanying screen grabs. The acclaimed film's non-linear narrative depicts the blind village boy Khorshid who is forced to work in a luthier's workshop in a city in in Tajikistan. Khorshid can 'see' with his ears and this leads him to a hypnagogic encounter with Beethoven's symphony as his mother faces eviction from their home for rent arrears. Mohsen Makhmalbaf is a creative maverick. His 2001 film Kandahar is highly critical of the Taliban, and speaking of the infamous destruction of the Buddhas of Bamyan he said: "I reached the conclusion that the statues of Buddha were not demolished by anybody; it crumbl...

Let the tired, roving caravan That's going nowhere, stop. It's time to become absent, become bereft It's time to receive the one who never left. Clouds upon clouds of thoughts and sensations Arise from the minds of numberless men Filling the air like puffs of dust Stricken, frightened humanity Choking on its own polluted breath The world is a temple teeming with idols So many gods, so many selves So many idols for us to break But, break as many idols as you may break As long as you exist as a self There is one more idol to break That poem comes from Ali Ansari's ' Sufism and Beyond '. Ali Ansari, who was born in India and now lives in the States, is a writer, poet and engineer. His though-provoking book , which is subtitled 'Sufi Thought in the Light of Late 20th Century Science', explores the neglected borderlands between spirituality and science by fusing Ibn 'Arabi 's concept of waḥdat al-wujūd - oneness of being - with the Buddhist teac...

Whilst working on Sufi Spirit, the theme of love emerged as something concrete and essential at a time of tectonic political shifts in the global landscape. As European and American voters seemingly ratchet to the right, Stephan Grabowski speaks with passion about the need to offer an alternative narrative. One of cross-cultural understanding and love shared between normal citizens rather than the divisions encouraged by 'political leaders who whip up discontent'. That comes from a sleeve essay that challenges comfort zones for a new album that also challenges comfort zones. Sufi rock has had some distinguished advocates, starting with the band that pioneered the genre, Junoon from Pakistan. Rocqawali's Sufi Spirit gives the genre a new twist with its line-up of Danish drummer Stephan Grabowski , Danish/ Pakistani guitarist and sitarist Jonas Stampe, Iranian-born guitarist Tin Soheili , and luminary of one of Pakistan's legendary Qawali dynasties Ejaz Sher Ali . Alt...

That photo was taken by me during a qawwali devotion at the Nizamuddin Dargah, Delhi during Ramadan and first appeared On An Overgrown Path in 2014 . Despite being a kafir I have tried during my thirteen years of blogging to present a fair and balanced view of Islam . In fact my attempts to be fair have, I know, caused some readers to think I am too sympathetic to the Islamic cause. But now those attempts have turned round and bitten me, and the story needs telling . My travel plans for 2018 included Iran, a country whose present regime I have little time for , but one with a rich cultural history that just begs to be explored. But as my travel planning progressed I came across the recently introduced requirement in the Iranian visa application process to provide details of social media accounts. Now sympathetic to the Islamic cause I may be. But entering Iran into the Overgrown Path search box returns some posts likely to give the mullahs heart attacks. Such as one containin...

In my twenties, I used to fret that I could never seem to feel at home in any spiritual tradition. It stirred me deeply to take part in Sufi movements in London, but it didn't mean I was a Muslim. I appreciated sitting in silence with the Zen people, but was equally reluctant to call myself a Buddhist. Yet I always felt I must be missing something, that I was a spiritual window-shopper who was reluctant to get more than his toes wet. As I have grown older and come to trust more the promptings of my own inner world, those concerns have fallen away. What is free of concept and image , as Hafez would say, is sheer alive presence - the love that ultimately burns us away. My faith is in that and in the aspirations of secular humanism; together they make for a secular spirituality. The equality of men and women, human rights, education and the democratic progress, environmental research - achievements like these surely embody some of the best of what it means to be human. They are exerc...

Researching yesterday's post about activist musicians putting their money where their mouth is - or rather not putting it where their mouth is in the case of some celebrities - led me to an article in Dissent magazine by Evgeny Morozov , a former Google fellow at Georgetown University. Here is a short extract from his thoughtful analysis of the social media revolution: ... Harmless activism wasn’t very productive either: what do 100 million people invited to join the Facebook group “100 Million Facebook members for Democracy in Iran ” expect to get out of their membership? Is it just a gigantic exercise in collective  transcontinental wishful thinking? Do they really expect that their “slacktivism” — a catchy new word that describes such feel-good but useless Internet activism — would have some impact? ? Slacktivists may successfully grapple with corporate PR outfits that have increasingly grown fond of polluting and astroturfing cyberspace; whether they will be able to to...

Noteworthy is the upcoming world première of a new work by Hossein Hadisi for voices, percussion and dance. Zahhák: the Dragon King of Persia celebrates the Persian minstrels' art of Naqqáli by re-enacting the ancient myth of Zahhák from the Persian 'Book of Kings'. Hossein Hadisi studied composition with Michael Finnissy and his works include Places I'd Take Michael Finnissy To Visit If He Was Ever Going To Come To Iran for piano. Currently a research associate at Cambridge University studying the traditional Persian improvisation school of Avaz , Hadisi's work spans rock and contemporary music and Bang the Bore XI: Psychobabble based on the Muslim rite of prayer can be sampled here . Zahhák: the Dragon King of Persia is performed by leading contemporary music ensemble Exaudi with dancers from London Contemporary Dance School and the production features paintings by Iranian surrealist master Ali Akbar Sadeghi . Performances are at the RADA Studio Theatre,...

One day Lal Shahbaz was wandering in the desert with his friend Sheikh Bahi ud-Din Zakariya . It was winter, and evening time, so they began to build a fire to keep warm. They found some wood, but then they realised they had no fire. So Baha ud-Din suggested that Lal Shahbaz turn himself into a falcon and get fire from hell. Off he flew, but an hour later he came back empty-handed. "There is no fire in hell," he reported. "Everyone who goes there brings their own fire, and their own pain from this world." That Sartresque story is from William Dalrymple's new book Nine Lives, In Search of Sacred India . Lal Shabaz was a 13th century Afghan Sufi saint and contemporary of Mevlana Rumi . Innovative and independent French label Accords Croisés has just released Les Chantes Brulés, Hommage à Rūmī (Songs of Rebirth, Homage to Rumi) on which classical Persian singer Ali Reza Ghorbani performs his own settings of Rumi and other Sufi poets. In an excellent accompany...

Philip Glass' 2005 prediction that 'world music is the new classical' is confirmed by my recent listening . World music is exposing the tired formulas and vested interests of 'big music'. Musique sans frontières, world music, or ' knowing music ', call it what you want , but that is where it is happening right now. And it is not only musique that is sans frontières , equally exciting things are happening in cinéma sans frontières . Last night we watched Persian director Bahman Ghobadi's 2009 film No One Knows About Persian Cats . This is a portrait of contemporary Tehran framed by the city's underground rock scene and the movie won the Cannes Film Festival's 'Un Certain Regard' special jury prize in 2009 for “original and different” films, a prize worth a million of those annual awards dedicated to perpetuating tired formulas and vested interests, the Oscars. No One Knows About Persian Cats is certainly original and different as wel...

Is identity theft a problem in post-communist classical music? Well, Collegium Musicum , which claims to represent many notable Bulgarian and East European musicians, certainly thinks so. Here is what their website says , complete with typos: Stop the abuse of the Bulgarian musical institutions - The reputation and prestige of Bulgarian musicians abroad is ruined by scrupless people. It happens often abroad where groups of musicians with suspicious quality are presented in the name of Bulgarian musical institutions deceiving both the audience and the host organization. A commission has been found in accordance with the Bulgarian musical institutions and communicating directly to Ministry of culture to lodge complaints against such charlatans. Many of these deceivers has been blocked by now. Victims of such a deceive are „ Sofia Festival Orchestra ”, “ National opera and ballet Sofia ”, “ Sofia Philharmonie ”, Opera and philharmonic society-Plovdiv ” and “ Symphony orchestra of Sliven ...

Sometimes I would hear my daughters playing albums of old Iranian singers, the ones who had transplanted themselves to Los Angeles over two decades ago. "That's Mahasti , isn't it?" I would ask. "Or maybe Haideh ?" They would look at me with disbelief. "Maman, how could you know that?" As though these disembodied voices coming out of the stereo had not once been live performers who sang in the restaurants and hotels of Tehran. It was difficult for my daughters, and for most young people, to fathom such a time, because this Iran - the one where a woman's voice was forbidden in public - was the only reality they had ever known. From Iran Awakening by lawyer, human rights activist, Muslim and founder of Centre for the Defence of Human Rights in Iran, Shirin Ebadi . She is particularly noted for her advocacy of the rights of women and children in Iran under the mullahs, and my header photo shows her speaking at the Society for the Defence of Ch...

Marjane Satrapi's exquisite animated film Persepolis was made in France, where Satrapi has lived for twenty years, and where the autobiographical graphic novel on which the film was based, was first published. Satrapi was born in Iran and the film hauntingly portrays Satrapi's life during and after the 1979 Iranian revolution , the 30th anniversary of which is currently being celebrated , and her time in exile in Europe after the revolution. The film has generated protests from the present Iranian government. But it also highly critical of the previous regime and alledges that the torturers employed by the Shah were trained by the CIA, and claims that both Iran and Iraq were financed by the West in the war between the two countries. Approaches from Hollywood studios to participate in the production were rebutted, but distribution is handled by Sony Pictures . The classical music world has also been involved in the shadowy world of Iranian politics. In a recent article I told ...

Back in 2006 I received an email from Norman Lebrecht inviting me to share with him some inside stories from my time at EMI, and Norman also asked me to pass the message on to a very good friend who held a key position during EMI's 'Indian summer' of classical recording. At the time Norman was researching his controversial book, ' Maestros, Masterpieces & Madness: The Secret Life and Shameful Death of the Classical Record Industry ', and knowing this we decided not to take up his invitation. But some colleagues who had a part in the madness decided to tell all, while others, including my boss at EMI, Peter Andry, chose to publish their own versions of events. Peter Andry was educated in Australia before joining Decca in England in 1954. He moved to EMI as a producer in 1957 working for David Bicknell who ran HMV while Walter Legge was still managing the Columbia label. Following Legge's departure in 1964 Andry took over the management of all EMI's a...

'It seems to me that Honegger is one of the contemporary composers of greatest musical value. In spite of his "modernism" he refrains from going beyond certain limits. He has been influenced by modern tendencies, but he knows how to select some innovations and not others, while remaining faithful to what he may define as the idea of music - something so many contemporary composers have just abandoned' - Pablo Casals Herbert von Karajan's recordings of Arthur Honegger's Symphonies Nos. 2 & 3 are the definite accounts and rank among the classics of the gramophone. The inlay above is from Alexander Rahbari's performance of the Symphony No. 3 which is committed but, hardly surpisingly, falls short of Karajan's searing account. But I am featuring the CD Rahbari made with the BRTN Philharmonic Orchestra in Brussels for its persuasive advocacy of the little heard Symphony No. 5 " Di Tre Re ". There are links between Rahbari and Karajan as the...