Iran: Le dotār du Khorassan, featuring Hamid Khezri (review)
- Iran: Le dotār du Khorassan, featuring Hamid Khezri
The CD titled Iran: Le dotār du Khorassan (Iran: The dotār of Khorasan) features the dotār of Northern Khorasan as played by Hamid Khezri. The dotār, a longneck lute with two strings, is the most characteristic instrument of Khorasan, the Northeastern province of Iran. Throughout this region are played various types of dotār, each distinguished by its ethnic tradition and defined according to the nuance of its timbre, the size of the instrument, and the playing technique. The dotār of northern Khorasan provides a chromatic scale of 14 notes per string. Its timbre is bright and its technique rests upon a style of ornamentation that is based on the rapid repetition of notes (tremolo). The two strings (called bam [End Page 156] and zir) are struck more often than not simultaneously with the fingers of the right hand.1
As it is presented in the notes written by Cloé Drieu, Hamid Khezri’s choice of pieces “features the music of Northern Khorasan,” especially the bakhshi tradition, with the notable exception that “all [are] purely instrumental.” Indeed, contrary to the Eastern Khorasan where there is also an independent dotār repertoire, the dotār in the North mostly accompanies sung poetry and is, above all, the distinctive instrument of the bard called bakhshi. The bakhshi sings while accompanying himself on his dotār a number of poetic genres in the languages spoken by the three major ethnic groups—Persians, Khorasani Turks, and Kurmanji Kurds—which have been cohabiting in the region for many centuries (Youssefzadeh 2002). Hamid Khezri “has acquired the entire repertoire of these tunes, whether Turkish, Persian, or Kurmanji, to create his own style.”
Many tunes on this CD derive from melodies commonly performed by the bakhshi. In performance, the bakhshi usually plays the full instrumental melody type in alternation with sung poems. Some of these accommodate verses in all three local languages.
Seven of these 13 instrumental pieces are designated by the term maqām (tracks 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 13); six are called tarāne (tracks 2, 4, 9, 10, 11, 12). The first word seems to apply to the Turkish repertoire (maqām designates a tune or a melody type); the second to Kurmanji Kurdish tunes (tarāne—a Persian word—can be translated as folk song). Each melody also carries a proper name (such as “Ayla Asheh,” track 3), some of which are related to stories (Tracks 3, 5, 6, 13), others to an ethnic group (track 8), to a poet (track 7), or are women’s names (tracks 4, 9, 11). Names of tunes are not deemed important in Khorasan: the same melody type can indeed be called differently from one musician to another.
The two strings of the dotār are tuned a fourth (as in tracks 1–5, 7–8, and 12–13) or a fifth (as in tracks 6 and 9–11) apart. The higher-pitched string carries on the melody while the second string enriches it at certain points.
On some of the maqām featured in this recording the bakhshi sings the versified parts of dāstān. Indeed, the Turkish dāstān is at the heart of the repertoire of the Khorasani bard. A Persian word meaning story or tale, the dāstān is a long narrative form in which sections of spoken prose alternate with sung poetry, accompanied by the dotār. Its themes range from the love story of a hero and his lady, to heroic deeds as well as religious and mystical tales. Similar versions of these narratives are found in Eastern Anatolia, Azerbaijan, and throughout Central Asia. The Maqām “Navā’i” (track 7) is the most famous piece of the dotār repertoire in Northern and Eastern Khorasan, and among the Turkmens of...
