It was billed as New York City’s “first major concert of Persian classical music in more than a decade.” Kayhan Kalhor, virtuoso of the kamancheh (the Persian spike fiddle), played an exhilarating set of instrumental music at NYC’s The Town Hall on November 30 joined by setarist Kiya Tabassian and tombak drummer Behrouz Jamali.
In the hands of Kalhor, who is probably best known in the West as a founding member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, the kamancheh is a remarkable instrument. Key to Persian/Iranian classical and folk music, as well as music from Azerbaijan and other parts of central Asia, it shares ancestry with the bowed lyra (or lira), which was featured on a recent New Focus Recordings release by Sokratis Sinopoulos.
It might be difficult for a recording to fully express Kalhor’s range of timbres and techniques on the kamancheh.
Drawing the bow across the four strings, Kalhor varied the timbre from hollow and airy to rich and vibrant. At times he played slanting melodies while maintaining a drone on a lower string. He achieved other sounds by striking the strings with the bow, and by laying it aside to pluck and tap the strings with his fingers. The music stayed more or less within one scale or mode, the changes arising from sound quality, intensity of bowing, and other expressive elements.
He used finger techniques when pulling back to accompany moments on the setar played by Kiya Tabassian. Distinct from the Indian sitar, the Persian setar is a kind of lute whose sound somewhat resembles that of a mandolin. It’s just as important in Iranian classical music as the kamancheh, and Tabassian is one of the acknowledged masters of the instrument. He achieves a most beautiful tone. At times the setar interlocked with the kamancheh such that I wasn’t absolutely sure which instrument was producing a particular sound at a particular moment.
The music ran without pause for the entire set. Periods of improvisatory wandering alternated with classical rhythmic pieces in a variety of time signatures: common time, fast triplets that almost swung, 5/4 time. These sequences sometimes put me in a pleasing trance-like state.
During these musical arcs Kalhor and Tabassian were joined by Behrouz Jamali playing intricate rhythms on the tombak, the Persian goblet drum. His finger-strikes made complex code-like statements; the occasional palm-strike produced a more booming but still subtle sound. The sounds of the drum functioned as distinct musical elements while also providing a bed on which Kalhor and Tabassian could articulate themes independently, in echo, and in unison. The music felt organized and freeform at the same time, a magical effect that was hard to pin down but easy to absorb.
By the end of their hour-plus set, the three calmly seated musicians had, wizard-like, cast their Persian musical spell over the hall.