mi 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.