Music by: Arshad Tahmasbi
Vocals: Mohsen Keramati
Among twelve maqams of ancient music, those which previously formed the foundations of Iranian classical music in a period of more than eight centuries, only two ("Rast" and "Nava") have survived in Persian classical (Dastgahi) music and nowadays each one represents a major dastgah of its own. Ten other maqams have lost their principal function and importance, and have transformed into several gushehs - one of them into a minor dastgah - of contemporary Persian music.
Old "Rast" combined with "Panjgah" (one of 24 old branches) has formed "Rastpanjgah"; i.e. one of the most obscure and enigmatic musical systems which is usually taught as the last dastgah at the end of a radif course. This is one of the distinctive characteristics of Rastpanjgah, hence the term which is generally used for it: "The Last Dastgah".
In their recent versions, several masters have considered it as "the last technique" and never taught it to their epigones and students. Rastpanjgah is always referred to as a difficult dastgah. And this is probably the reason why it has always been taught after the other dastgahs.
Rastpanjgah has two inherent characteristics. First, the "Rast" section of it (i.e. "daramads") is equivalent to dastgah of Mahur in term of its musical intervals. Second, Rastpanjgah contains elements borrowed from other dastgahs, namely Nava, Segah, Shur and Homayun. These combinations and modulations in Rastpanjgah are hardly seen in other dastgahs. Due to this reason, some of the scholars have attributed its name to simultaneous presence of five maqams in it, all used in the structure of Rastpanjgah (Persian word panj means "five").
The first major examples of Rastpanjgah have been presented since 1977 by the efforts of prominent graduates of "The Center for Preservation and Distribution of Persian Music." Mohammad-Reza Lotfi and Mohammad-Reza Shajarian performed a complete set of "Saz-o-Avaz", and Hossein Alizadeh composed pieces in this dastgah. Nearly all other examples have been presented by these two masters of tar (Lotfi) and setar (Alizadeh). ...
Published [30/12/2000]