Tweet
DJIVAN GASPARYAN, HOSSEIN ALIZADEH PERFORM IN LONDON
armradio.am
16:43 01.10.2012
The duduk, the double-reeded Armenian oboe, has become synonymous with
Djivan Gasparyan, who has played it for Stalin and Kennedy; with Sting
and Lionel Richie; and now, in his mid-eighties, at the Barbican. Ten
years ago, Gasparyan made a celebrated appearance in Tehran with the
Persian classical musician Hossein Alizādeh, and it was a coup for
the Barbican Centre, the largest performing arts centre in Europe,
to secure a repeat performance, the Financial Times writes.
"Alizādeh won a standing ovation from the Iranian half of the audience
simply for walking on. Cross-legged on a carpet with his setar, he
played phrases and their own echoes, ornamenting his ornamentations
until the instrument sang stories within stories, all while Pejman
Hadidi tapped his fingertips on his tombak and flicked his nails as
if striking a match," the paper reads.
"It was the kind of slow trance that could have lasted for 20 minutes
or three hours; it was nearly an hour before he yielded to Gasparyan,
who entered to his own ovation from his own countrymen. He led a
quartet of duduks, including one bass version that he had invented
himself; and also including his grandson, also named Djivan. At first,
Gasparyan senior played melancholy melodies over a slow drone from
the others: when the bass shifted down a third, the difference felt
seismic. The ratio of air to jig was about five to one, but at the end
of a tune the quartet would sometimes break into a polyphonic dance.
Gasparyan junior took some lead parts, with impossibly fast trills
that sounded like a button accordion. At times, the quartet's music
sighed like 1930s crooners; then the melodies sheered into dissonances
that sounded continents away from European music," the article reads.
"Following Alizādeh's lead, the quartet played a couple of songs
too many, so it was two hours into the concert before Armenians and
Iranians shared a stage. Alizādeh bulked out his band with a fiddle
player and two women, one with a qanun, the other singing. The three
younger duduk players joined him, first interposing solos and then
(when audible) weaving around the voice's call-and-response with
Alizādeh's shurangiz and the qanun. "Torkaman" had yelping vocals and
a deep drumbeat, while the duduks breathed clouds of unease. Gasparyan
senior returned, not to play but to sing with the timbre of the duduk.
A five-beat Armenian folk song gathered both halves of the audience
in applause from the first note," the article concludes.
armradio.am
16:43 01.10.2012
The duduk, the double-reeded Armenian oboe, has become synonymous with
Djivan Gasparyan, who has played it for Stalin and Kennedy; with Sting
and Lionel Richie; and now, in his mid-eighties, at the Barbican. Ten
years ago, Gasparyan made a celebrated appearance in Tehran with the
Persian classical musician Hossein Alizādeh, and it was a coup for
the Barbican Centre, the largest performing arts centre in Europe,
to secure a repeat performance, the Financial Times writes.
"Alizādeh won a standing ovation from the Iranian half of the audience
simply for walking on. Cross-legged on a carpet with his setar, he
played phrases and their own echoes, ornamenting his ornamentations
until the instrument sang stories within stories, all while Pejman
Hadidi tapped his fingertips on his tombak and flicked his nails as
if striking a match," the paper reads.
"It was the kind of slow trance that could have lasted for 20 minutes
or three hours; it was nearly an hour before he yielded to Gasparyan,
who entered to his own ovation from his own countrymen. He led a
quartet of duduks, including one bass version that he had invented
himself; and also including his grandson, also named Djivan. At first,
Gasparyan senior played melancholy melodies over a slow drone from
the others: when the bass shifted down a third, the difference felt
seismic. The ratio of air to jig was about five to one, but at the end
of a tune the quartet would sometimes break into a polyphonic dance.
Gasparyan junior took some lead parts, with impossibly fast trills
that sounded like a button accordion. At times, the quartet's music
sighed like 1930s crooners; then the melodies sheered into dissonances
that sounded continents away from European music," the article reads.
"Following Alizādeh's lead, the quartet played a couple of songs
too many, so it was two hours into the concert before Armenians and
Iranians shared a stage. Alizādeh bulked out his band with a fiddle
player and two women, one with a qanun, the other singing. The three
younger duduk players joined him, first interposing solos and then
(when audible) weaving around the voice's call-and-response with
Alizādeh's shurangiz and the qanun. "Torkaman" had yelping vocals and
a deep drumbeat, while the duduks breathed clouds of unease. Gasparyan
senior returned, not to play but to sing with the timbre of the duduk.
A five-beat Armenian folk song gathered both halves of the audience
in applause from the first note," the article concludes.