Academy of Shashmaqam, Dushambe. From left to right you see here the three instruments:
Dutar, Sato, Tanbur and behind the Doira.
Dutar, Sato, Tanbur and behind the Doira.
Here a private CD of Shashmaqam from Tajikistan. My dear friend Danny obtained this CD years ago during his trip to Tajikistan. He had met there - I think during his stay in Dushambe, the capital of Tajikistan - a young man who spoke English well and Danny mentioned to him that he was searching for recordings of Shashmaqam. This young man told him that he could obtain some recordings for him. A couple of days later he gave him this CD without any further information.
It turned out that this was a MP3-CD containing around 5 hours of well recorded Shashmaqam. There are three groups of recordings, each containing three pieces:
Mugulchai:
1. Mugulchai Buzruk
2. Mugulchai Dugoh
3. Mugulchai Irok
Savti (Sauti):
4. Savti Sarvinoz
5. Savti Hijoz
6. Savti Husayni
Silsilai Nav'i:
7. Silsilai Nav'i Makomi Segoh
8. Silsilai Nav'i Makomi Irok
9. Silsilai Nav'i Makomi Rost
Mugulchai and Savti are sections of Shashmaqam. The names after Mugulchai and Savti are the names of the Maqams to which they belong. Savti Sarvinoz is a section of Maqam Buzruk. I don't know to which Maqam the other two Savtis belong. All these are vocal pieces performed by either a female or male singer, accompanied by a small ensemble.
Silsilai Nav'i probably means "chain of melodies", which would mean then that these are a series of melodies belonging to the three Maqams mentioned. These are purely instrumental pieces.
The instruments are Sato, Tanbur, Dutar and Doira.
My guess is that all these pieces are performed by musicians of the Acadamy of Shashmaqam in Dushambe.
See on them:
https://www.news.tj/en/news/tajikistan/society/20171024/musicians-from-tajikistans-academy-of-maqam-participate-in-international-musical-festival-in-moscow
There are two CDs by the Acadamy of Shashmaqam: a wonderful 70 minutes Maqam-i Rast. Here you can download the booklet to this CD:
https://folkways-media.si.edu/liner_notes/smithsonian_folkways/SFW40521.pdf
The other one was released in 2013 by Ocora - Radio France under the title: "Tadjikistan - Chants et musiques classiques".
There are two CDs by the Acadamy of Shashmaqam: a wonderful 70 minutes Maqam-i Rast. Here you can download the booklet to this CD:
https://folkways-media.si.edu/liner_notes/smithsonian_folkways/SFW40521.pdf
The other one was released in 2013 by Ocora - Radio France under the title: "Tadjikistan - Chants et musiques classiques".
In 2012 we had posted a complete Shashmaqam, recorded on 16 LPs in the early 1960s. See:
Over the years we had posted also a number of other Shashmaqam recordings. See:
As the original is in mp3 format we post here also only the original mp3 files.
Many thanks to Danny for his generosity.
Abduvali Abdurashidov, founder and director of the Acamedy of Shashmaqam