Ascension: Persian Symphonic Recitation from Khayyam to Rumi

Listen to the Ney talking of
separation of man and
woman from the reedbed

Listen a reading from the CD
Rumi writes in the beginning of his opus magnum Mathnawi, in this CD you can listen to the reed as well as selection of poems from poetry from Hafez, Sadi, Omar Khayyam and Rumi, all passion of Persian poetry and music blended together in a western context, poems read in English, sung in Persian. Listening to this CD is wonderfully refreshing, a good balance of music (western with Persian overtones, daf is wonderful) poetry and singing.

The CD contains the following:

You need Real Player to play the samples below

1. Dialog Of Civilizations
2. Teacher’s Destiny – Khayyam (Pascal Langdale)
3. Potter’s Shop – Khayyam (Sabina Haulkhory)
4. Adam’s Children – Sa’di (Pascal Langdale)
5. Signals – Hafez
6. Bird Of The Heavens – Rumi: Shams (Sabina Haulkhory)
7. Handkerchief Dance
8. Return To The Heavens – Rumi: Shams Sabina Haulkhory
9. Bird Of The Heavens –
10. Bird Of The Heavens – Rumi: Shams (Bijan Bijani) – Persian
11. With Love – Rumi: Masnavi (Pascal + Sabina)

With love bitter things seem sweet
With love bits of copper are made gold
With love pains are as healing herbs
With love thorns become roses
With love vinegar becomes sweet wine
With love the scaffold becomes a bed
With love mishap seems good fortune
With love a prison seems a rose garden
Without love a garden is a desolate place
With love burning fire is pleasing light
With love the devil becomes an angel
With love hard stones melt like butter
Without love soft wax hardens like iron
With love poison turns into honey
With love lions are harmless as mice
With love wrath turns into mercy
With love the dead rises to life
With love the king becomes a slave

12. Epic
13. Evolution – Rumi: Masnavi (Pascal Langdale)
14. Navai
15. Navai – Tabib Esfahani (Bijan Bijani) – Persian
16. Listen To The Reed – Rumi: Masnavi (Shadi Nasafat)
17. Final

In the name of that mysterious force that has created you and me – East and West- created different nations – languages – religions so that we know each other and benefit from our experiences.

The Symphonic Recitation is the culmination of a year’s dreaming – thinking and toiling for all those involved. It gives me great pleasure that one of the foremost musical composers in Iran (Dr Kambiz Rosha-Ravan) played a crucial role in the realisation of this dream. Acknowledgements also go to musician s from the Iranian Symphony Orchestra – the acclaimed Iranian singers (Bijan Bijani) – five Iranian traditional musicians (8 instruments)- and three British and Iranian narrators. The dream is a dialogue between ancient and modern civilizations through the mediums of music and a selection of the greats of devotional Persian poetry – a taste of Persian literature and culture for a western audience.

The Persian language was once the lingua franca of the Muslim world where Arabic was the conventional form of expression for religious and scientific discourses. Persian was not only the country and legal form of address in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan but also spoken thought the Ottoman and the Indian empires. Such was the reputation of the Persian language that it was duly adopted by the Mughal and Ottoman courts.

The thematic scheme of Persian literature is multidimensional. Typical Persian metaphors include the butterfly and the candle or the nightingale and the flower; these are symbols for the lover and the beloved. The beloved assumes a protean quality demonstrating the progression from the physical to the spiritual realm. For example-the description of the beloved is borne of a romantic posture similar to the Petrarchan literary tradition in English verse – but the relations with the beloved develops into the finest platonic union where this friend earns the teacher/master status; thereafter the regard for the beloved is subsumed and then transcended by the love for God. It is almost as if the poet explores the ambivalence of the beloved’s identity and is thus able to create images which synthesise early love and pleasure with spiritual rapprochement.

This composition comprises recitation of poems in English from four of the most renoweved Persian poets: Khayyam- Sa’di – Hafez – and Rumi. The selection of verses was a difficult task in a canon where I feel much of the literature is not only inspirational but inimitable. One of the great Persian poets who is omitted is Fersowsi who lived in the 10th century is famous for his epic poetry and old Persian stories in Shan-Name (The Book of Kings) – a text which revived the Persian language. The Iranian Armenian composer Tjeknavorian based his opera “Rustam and Sohrab” on Ferdowsi’s original epic poem of the same title.

Dr. Farokh Marvasti

Musicians

Santur – A. Hashem
Tar and Do S. Far Yousefi
Kamancheh M. A. Merati
Ney (Reed flute) B. Modarresi
Daf-Tombak and Hoho K. Bozorgpour.

This CD was launched at a performance on Wednesday 12 February 2003 at Royal Festival Hall

{ EAST MEETS WEST: Royal Philarmonic Orchestra: Sufi Music from Khayyam, Hafez to Rumi
A fascinating fusion music performed by Royal Philarmonic Orchestra with 8 Middle Eastern instruments played by musicians from Iran. Composed by a leading Iranian composer Kambiz Roshanravan. The music is interspersed by declamations of Persian poetry in English from Khayyam, Hafez to Rumi performed by Duncan Machintosh, Pascal Langdale and others and sung in Persian by Iranian vocalist Bijan Bijani.

Including 35 page booklet with biography of the four poets Khayyam, Rumi, Sadi, Hafez, with the full text of the recited poetry, etc.

This is a new sealed CD

Further listening:

Devotional Songs by Nusrat Fateh Khan
A Gift Of Love: Deepak & Friends Present Music Inspired By The Love Poems Of Rumi
Sufi Music of Turkey, Kudsi & Suleyman Erguner
Rough Guide to Sufi Music, Sabri Brothers
Ascension: Symphonic Recitation: from Khayyam to Rumi
When Days Have No Nights (The Songs of Rumi Music by Mischa), Mischa Rutenberg
On Through Eternity: Homage to Molavi, Shahram Nazeri, Audio CD (October 26, 1999)
When Days Have No Nights (The Songs of Rumi Music by Mischa) Mischa Rutenberg
Breeze at Dawn: Poems of Rumi in Song Dale Zola
Song of the Sun : The Life, Poetry, and Teachings of Rumi by Andrew Harvey (Audio Cassette -1999)
Light upon Light : Inspirations from Rumi by Andrew Harvey (Reader),(Audio Cassette)
The Way of Passion : A Celebration of Rumi by Andrew Harvey (Reader) (Audio Cassette -1998)
Tribute to Rumi performed live at the Rumi Festival in Toronto, Canada in 1999, Coleman Barks
I Want Burning : The Ecstatic World of Rumi, Hafiz, and Lalla – Coleman Barks (Editor); Audio CD
Rumi – Voice of Longing — Coleman Barks; Audio Cassette
Sacred Poetry : Poems of Rumi, the Enlightened Heart, Poems of Kabir – S. Mitchell (Reader), et al; Audio Cassette
Koorosh Angali Recites Rumi, October 29, 1997
Journeys of a Dervish: Mercan Dede, Audio CD (June 15, 1999)
Sufi Dreams, Mercan Dede, Audio CD (August 24, 1999)
Mystical Garden, Omar Faruk Tekbilek
Whirling,Omar Faruk Tekbilek, Audio CD (September 13, 1994)
Whirling Dervishes of Damascus, Sheikh Hamza Shakkur, The Al-Kindi Ensemble, Audio CD, 2000
Sufi Chants From Cairo, La Confrerie Chadhiliyya