TEHRAN: Kemancheh By Peyman Nasehpour – Armenian Directory & News

KAMANCHEH BY PEYMAN NASEHPOUR

Persian Mirror
The Persian Bowed Musical Instrument

Kamancheh is the chief Persian bowed instrument and is played both
in Persian art and folk music. The aim of this article is to offer
a historical introduction to this important Persian spike fiddle.

Kamancheh before Ghajar Period

Kamancheh is an ancient instrument. According to different books that
the author has considered, Ebn-e-Faghih is the first who mentions
to this instrument in 10th century. Also some Persian poets such as
Masoud-e-Sa’d, mentions to the name kamancheh in his poems.

Allameh-Ghotb-al-Din Mohammad Shirazi, in his famous encyclopedia,
Dorrat-al-Taj, mentions to this instrument by the name komajeh
that should be a dialect of kamancheh. The very famous Azerbaijani
musician/theorist/poet, Abd-al-Ghader Maraghi, describes this
instrument in his famous book, Jame’-al-Alhan and says that the
sound of kamancheh is more beautiful than ghezhak that is another
Persian bowed instrument and today ghezhak (with the name gheychak)
is played in Sistan-Baluchistan of Iran and is related to Indian
bowed instrument called sarangi.

In the book Kanz-al-Tohaf by Hassan Kashani that is maybe the only
historical book on making Iranian instruments, it has been written
about kamancheh of that time and describes how to make a kamancheh and
its accessories. It is very interesting to notice that the author of
the book mentions to this instrument with the name gheshak (another
dialect of ghezhak).

Maybe some object us what he describes is not the kamancheh but
fortunately he has painted the shape of kamancheh in his book and it is
wonderful that he mentions that bow (he calls it mezrab. It should be
mentioned that mezrab today is used for plectrum of Persian plucked
instruments) of gheshak is called kamancheh. The author believes
that etymologically Hasan Kashani was right and it is better to say
that kamancheh is more suitable to mention to the bow of this bowed
instrument than the instrument itself. The reason is that the word
kamancheh is the combination of the two words, ‘kaman’ that means
bow and ‘cheh’ that is diminutive suffix in Persian language. Anyway,
to apply kamancheh for this Persian bowed instrument is error allowed
by usage and it seems there is no better choice to offer.

Another book the Behjat-al-Ruh, mentions to kamancheh as a perfect
instrument.

Fortunately there are some historical Persian paintings (called in
the West as Persian miniatures) that show the kamancheh.

Some famous kamancheh masters of Iran before the Ghajar Period are:
Mirza Mohammad Kamancheh’i, Ostad Ma’sum Kamancheh’i, Molana Ahmad
Kamancheh’i entitled to Amir Ghazi, Ostad Zeytun, Malek Mahmud,
the brother of the author of the famous book, Tarikh-e-Sistan.

Kamancheh in and after Ghajar Period

According to different books in Persian language, it seems kamancheh
had only two strings. Though we don’t know when the third string had
been added to this instrument, but we know that in Ghajar period,
kamancheh had three strings.

Different books mention to the completion of this instrument. For
example, one of the famous kamancheh players of Ghajar Period, Agha
Jan, the father of Mirza Habib Sama’ Hozur (very famous santoor and
tonbak player) had invented a kind of kamancheh that had strange
strings and keys and it had a long neck and he was used to play that
while was standing up and he had named that kamancheh, Majles-Ara!

Some famous kamancheh players in and after Ghajar Period are:
Khoshnavaz Khan, Agha Motalleb, Esmail Khan, Hossein Khan Esmail-zadeh,
Gholi Khan, Musa Kashi, Mirza Rahim, Javad Khan Ghazvini, Bagher
Khan Rameshgar, Alireza Changi, Mirza Gholamhossein, Safdar Khan,
Hossein entitled to Karim-Kur and his daughter, Vajiheh, Farmanfarma
the Uncle of Naser-al-Din Shah, Jamileh (the female student of Esmail
Khan), Ali Khan, Reza Khan Nikfar, Hossein Yahaghghi and his sister
Keshvar Khnum entitled to Farah-Lagha, Haig (Armenian kamancheh player)
and at last, Asghar Bahari.

According to some books that we brought some parts of them here,
we see that kamancheh was very popular and important in Persian
art and folk music. After the introduction of Western violin to
Iran, unfortunately everything changed! Though the forth string
was added to kamancheh after the introduction of violin to Iran,
but many instrumentalists put the kamancheh down and started playing
violin. It is interesting to mention that even most of the students of
Hossein Khan Esmail-zadeh such as Reza Mahjubi, Rokn-al-Din Mokhtari,
Abu-al-Hasan Saba, Ebrahim Mansuri and so on were violin player.

The reader may consider what Ruh-al-Allah Khaleghi, the famous
historian/composer/theorist says about kamancheh in his famous
historical book, Sargozasht-e-Musighi-ye-Iran:

‘The sound of kamancheh is nasal, while the sound of violin is closer
to nature! When the violin was brought to Iran, since it had four
strings, another string was added to kamancheh for imitating the violin
and since it was very similar to kamancheh, many kamancheh players
became violin instructors. Since violin was similar to kamancheh,
portable and its shape was more beautiful, therefore gradually replaced
by kamancheh and today nobody plays kamancheh. It is always natural
that the more complete instruments will be replaced by non-complete
ones. Similarly flute was replaced by ney and oboe by sorna.’

Anyway, there were some compassionate artists such as Aref Ghazvini
that was not happy for what was happening to Persian art music and
warned about the danger of abolishing the Persian art music and its
important instruments like kamancheh, santoor and tar.

One day Hasan Mashhun, Persian art music researcher, asked from one of
the most famous kamancheh players of his time: ‘Why did you put down
the kamancheh? We have lots of violin players, but kamancheh players,
one after another, are becoming old and disabled.’ That the master
replied: ‘There is no student of kamancheh.

People have become modern and play violin!’

It is obvious that using western instruments instead of Iranian
instruments is not necessarily a smart idea. As some ethno-musicologist
believe that there should be a difference between modernization and
westernization. Violin is violin and kamancheh is kamancheh. It is
clear that every instrument has its own value and there is no need
to discuss about that more.

As historians mention, the late Asghar Bahari, gave a new life to
kamancheh by playing this instrument in many concerts, gatherings,
radio and TV.

It is fortunate that today we have many kamancheh players in such a
way that today there is no need to be anxious about the abolishment
of the art of kamancheh playing.

The picture of Asghar Bahari, appeared in Jean During’s The Art of
Persian Music, pg. 114.

Woman playing the kamancheh in a painting from the Hasht-Behesht
Palace in Isfahan, Iran, 1669 (from Wikipedia).

Write a Letter to the Editor or Send an email to this author