A Thumb on the Fret
Podcast
By Dr. Daryoush Mohammad Poor | The Twin Wisdoms
Podcast
On 21 September my colleague Rehana Virani filmed me at the Institute playing two short pieces on the setār, the Persian lute whose name means ‘three strings’. The first is Murgh-i Saḥar, the ‘Bird of Dawn’. The tune is by Murtaḍā Nay-Dāvūd, and the words, by the poet Muḥammad-Taqī Bahār, blame a tyrant and a hunter for a nest scattered to the wind. When Qamar al-Mulūk Vazīrī sang it at the Grand Hotel in Tehran in 1924, it was the first time a Persian woman singer had appeared in public without the veil. The song has been sung…
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