Climbing Mount Mugham

Chances are you’ve heard Azerbaijani mugham without being aware of it. The soundtrack of Stalker (1979) is based in part on the mugham Bayati-Shiraz performed on tar, a plucked string instrument with a characteristic metallic sound.

In the making of the opening theme, Meditation, the film composer Eduard Artemyev used a background drone sound to convey a feeling of “frozen space.” A tar improvisation over that drone is slowed down and distorted by passing it through a synth, resulting in an eerie, spaced out sound — to put you in the Zone. In the foreground, a flute is singing with abandon a quote from Pulcherrima Rosa, a 15th century motet by an anonymous composer (the most prolific composer in the history of humanity). I recommend first listening to the original motet followed by Meditation — the juxtaposition is sublime.

Tarkovsky envisioned the music score of Stalker as reflecting the idea that while East and West can coexist, they won’t be able to understand each other[1]. Perhaps the gulf is indeed unbridgeable, and closest we can ever come to bridging it is through music, a prime vehicle for expressing unattainable yearnings.

Mugham is music I grew up with but it wasn’t until later in my life, far away from home, that I came to love it and study it deeply. I think it was rather overwhelming for me as a child. It is often performed at a high register, and the sheer emotional power of it was too much to handle for a classically trained mind such as mine[2].

Mugham comes from the Arabic maqam, ‘a place.’ A place as in: one of the seven main scales, or modes, on which a given mugham improvisation is based (more on them below), in contrast to the minor/major scales of Western classical music. And a place one is drawn into and compelled to occupy for the duration of a mugham performance. It requires a set and setting and a receptive state of mind to be experienced fully.

Mugham is not a completely free but rather structured improvisation. Each mugham performance consists of sections marked with particular turns of phrase, certain arrival points. But what paths a musician takes to arrive at these points is up to him.

Mugham is monophonic and microtonal, tiling the horizontal frequency space (as opposed to the harmonic vertical space) with densely ornamented complex melodic lines, all the while staying within the home scale. Modulations to other scales are rare and all the more significant — marking a major transition, elevation to a new plane.

Solo mugham performances are usually unmetered — there’s no consistent rhythm in them. A typical mugham trio (voice + gaval, tar and kamancha) alternates unmetered and rhythmic sections. In the deeply contemplative unmetered section, we are lifted up to the cosmic vastness like the protagonist of Star Maker, and we may lose ourselves in it for a while. The rhythmic section brings us back to earth: wake up, feel the ground under your feet again, let’s dance and make merry!

Azerbaijani tar (source), kamancha (source), oud (source), gaval/daf (source)

Mugham has the prosody of human speech, including intonational dynamics and cadence. If you listen closely, it speaks to you — questioningly, lamentingly, reticently or passionately, narrating an olden tale, reaching for the depths of humanity’s memory. Combined with its microtonality and lack of a consistent meter, this makes mugham one of the rawest and least abstract forms of musical expression.

When I listen to mugham for extended periods of time, I find myself thinking that Western classical music, in comparison, is just too tame, orderly and well-behaved. Mugham is a carrier of primal energies, untamed, bursting forth from people’s hearts now as it did hundreds of years ago.

I have this very sketchy thought, which is likely wrong, but I keep returning to it. In tightly-knit, communal societies, music is often an expression of an individual soul, crying out in the wilderness, trying to break free from constraints that bind it. In more individualistic societies, polyphony (a largely European phenomenon) is an expression of communal harmony, of the desire for unity and accord. Music expresses that which we are missing. Of course, there are too many exceptions to what I just described, so I don’t see it as a coherent theory, and yet, there might be something to it.

When I introduce my friends to mugham, I usually share this youtube playlist or this Apple Music playlist. In the following, I want to go over the seven main modes of mugham, together with some of the best recordings for each mode as well as my own compositions inspired by these mughams. I should note that ‘mugham’ can refer both to the mode and a particular performance within that mode.

Shushtar (Şüştər) is a lyrical mugham, it makes me think of a songbird soaring up to the skies in the middle of the night. This tar recording by Elchin Hashimov is excellent as is this one by Shahriyar Imanov. Kamancha, a bowed string instrument with the range of a violin, offers an even more bird-like, fluttering and quivering, rendition of this mugham.

Fikret Amirov (1922-1984) wrote a number of symphonic mughams drawing from traditional mughams. His ballet suite 1001 Nights (Arabian Nights) is based in part on the Shushtar mugham. The Joy of Scheherezade, a movement from this suite, opens with an exuberant and life-affirming theme that inspired me to write a piano fugue using this theme as the fugue subject. Later I arranged this fugue as a second movement of a string trio and added two more movements where the original subject is modified and reimagined. In the first movement, a prelude, it is slowed down and harmonically altered to convey a dark, haunting quality. The third movement, a lullaby, is in contrast suffused with gentle sadness, as lullabies are wont to be.

Shur (Şur) is perhaps the most otherworldly and mystical of the seven mughams. This oud recording is magnificent, augmented by the warmth of oud’s low register. I also love this tar recording by Elchin Hashimov.

Fikret Amirov wrote a marvelous symphonic mugham Shur whose opening theme is based on an improvisation by Mirzamammad Hasan (1831-1907). Hasan was a renowned khanende (singer) of his time who famously refused to have his voice recorded, for he considered that that would desacralize mugham, that mugham can only be experienced together with the musician at a particular time and place (staying true to the literal meaning of the word).

Amirov’s symphony inspired me to write a fugue on its opening theme, which I am hoping to record within the next year.

Amirov also wrote a mesmerizing song for the female protagonist of the film Böyük Dayaq (1962) (Great Stronghold) based on the Shur mugham.

Humayun is a mourning mugham, it is played from a wounded heart. I love these tar recordings by Ramiz Guliyev and Elchin Hashimov. This kamancha recording of Humayun is even more heartrending.

Segah is the mugham of the lovesick. It is also considered the most difficult one to master. I love this inventive kamancha recording by Bayram Aliyev and this tar recording by Elchin Hashimov.

Bayati-Shiraz (Bayatı-Şıraz) is a melancholic, contemplative mugham. Together with Shur, it remains my most beloved mugham.

Before I even list native instrumental recordings of this mugham, I want to wholeheartedly recommend this exceptional cello recording by Israeli cellist Mayu Shviro. Born in Jerusalem to Iraqi and Japanese parents, she has worked in the Arabic, Turkish and Azerbaijani musical traditions with extraordinary perceptiveness and mastery. She studied with the Azerbaijani kamancha master Elshan Mansurov who I also had the great honor of taking a few mugham theory lessons from.   

Of the traditional recordings, this one by tarist Shahriyar Imanov stands out. This wonderful kamancha recording by Imamyar Hasanov is a full dastgah, that is, an improvisation alternating unmetered and rhythmic sections.

Fikret Amirov wrote a symphonic mugham called Gulistan Bayati-Shiraz, which is excellent.

There’s a phenomenal recording of a composition called Trace of Grace that was performed at the Morgenland Festival of 2019 in Osnabrück, Germany. It is based on the mugham Bayati-Shiraz, intertwined with a jazz improvisation. The West is represented here by electric guitar and serpent (a wind instrument), and the East, by kamancha, clarinet and voice. The voice is that of Alim Qasimov, quite simply one of the greatest singers alive. I cannot recommend this recording highly enough, something really magical happened on stage there.

Chahargah (Çahargah) is a passionate, dramatic mugham, full of belligerent energy and internal conflict. The very first composition I wrote is a piano fugue whose subject is based on the Chahargah mugham (though the piece traverses other mughams as well). Mayu Shviro has recorded this mugham on her cello. I also love this fiery kamancha recording by Imamyar Hasanov. There’s also a dastgah version of it. For a tar recording, I once again recommend Elchin Hashimov.

Rast is a festive mugham, considered ‘the mother of all mughams.’ Tar recordings to listen to are by Shahriyar Imanov and Elchin Hashimov. Niyazi Hajibeyov (1912-1984) wrote a symphonic mugham Rast, an epic work.

The above sequence of mughams is one I follow in my suite for cello and piano Bayati, named after short folk poems. It consists of seven miniature movements where I attempt to adapt each mugham to the two classical instruments. The fifth movement, Bayati-Shiraz, is written for solo cello, and it is the heart of the whole work.

Jazz-mugham is a fusion genre pioneered by pianist Vagif Mustafa-zadeh in the 1960s & 70s. He had a tremendous influence on me growing up. I owe him my first conscious exposure both to jazz and mugham, oddly enough.

Some favorite albums:

Vaqif Mustafa-zadə | Caz-Muğam Üslubunda İmprovizasiyalar | Caz kompozisiyaları | Əl üstə Əl | Tofiq Guliyevin Bəstələrinə Caz Kompozisiyaları |Sevgi ilə

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The title of this post is taken from a memoir by Jeffrey Werbock, a retired optical engineer who nurtured a life-long love for mugham and who has mastered all three major Azerbaijani string instruments — tar, kamancha and oud. He also plays mugham on electric guitar. I had a phone call with him a few years back, inviting him to perform at a concert I was organizing (which sadly didn’t come to pass). What I thought would be a short phone call turned into an hour-long conversation, with mostly Jeffrey gushing about mugham and telling me stories of how he met various mugham musicians and what he learned from them and what he taught to his own students. It is admirable to see this childlike enthusiasm for mugham in someone who did not grow up with it.

Recommended albums:

Romaria (The Dowland Project & John Potter) | Solaris. The Mirror. Stalker (Eduard Artemyev) | Azərbaycan Klassik Muğamları (Solo Tar) (Şəhriyar İmanov) | Undiscovered treasure Kamancha of Azerbaijan (Imamyar Hasanov) | Dialogues with the tar (Ramiz Guliyev) | Eastern Approaches - Music from the Former Soviet Republics (Xenia Ensemble) | Fikret Amirov: Shur, Kurd Ovshari, Gulistan Bayati Shiraz, Azerbaijan Capriccio (Russian Philharmonic Orchestra & Dmitri Yablonsky) | Fikret Amirov: One Thousand and One Nights Suite & To the Memory of Nizami | Alim Qasimov and Fargana Qasimova: Intimate Dialogue | Azerbaijan: The Art of Mugham (Alim Qasimov and Malik Mansurov) | Awakening (Alim Qasimov and Michel Godard) | Music of Central Asia, Vol.6 Spiritual Music of Azerbaijan (Alim Qasimov and Fargana Qasimova)

[1] This notion of Tarkovsky’s seems to be based on Ridyard Kipling’s The Ballad of East and West, whose first line expresses the sentiment of their mutual unintelligibility. However, the following lines 3 & 4, as well as the rest of the poem, are a counterpoint to that:

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!

One observes that this is true not only of strong men.

[2] To be fair, as a child I was also afraid of classical solo violin. High strings pierce the soul, leaving it completely defenseless.

Banner image: Nicholas Roerich, Fire blossom (Жар-цвет), 1924