BASTANEGĀR

 

BASTANEGĀR, a gūša in the instrumental repertory (radīf) of classical Persian music. The term appears for the first time in the treatise of Ṣafī-al-Dīn Ormavī where it is defined as one of the maqāms more common­ly known as Eṣfahānak or Gavāšt/Gavešt (Wright, p. 62-63). Its scale was: G Ap Sip Cǰ Dp Eb Ep (182, 204, 112, 139, 128, 49 cents; p = koron on half flat), C being the finalis.

In ʿAbd-al-Qāder Marāḡī b. Ḡaybī’s Maqāsed al-­alḥān (p. 75), as well as in later writings, Bastanegār is one of the eighteen jomūʿ and twenty-four šoʿbas, and a variant of Rū-ye-ʿErāq. In the Bahjat al-rūḥ (p. 55) it is described this way: “start with the first note of Māya (probably Ep), then go to Segāh and Nahoft and return to Māya.” Borhān-e qāṭeʿ calls it a combination of Ḥeṣār, Ḥejāz, and Segāh (ed. Moʿīn, I, p. 279). Later, in the Turkish-Arabic tradition, its name is attached to a typical scale: (Bp C) D E F Gb A Bb C. It is still found in the Azerbaijani maqām as an important modulation of Čahārgāh on a different scale C Db E F Gb A centered on E and ending on C. These forms have very little in common.

In its actual Persian form, Bastanegār has been reduced to a secondary and small gūša with the character of a melodic pattern moving up and down, rather than of a mode. It is played in two forms: a slow one in a non-measured rhythm (also called naḡma), and a faster in 3/16. According to the principal versions of the radīf, the first form is found in the context of Afšārī and Bayāt-e Tork, the second, more common, in Zābol and Moḵālef (both belonging to Čahārgāh and Segāh), Kord, Ḥejāz, Afšārī, ʿErāq (M. Maʿrūfī, Radīf-e haft dastgāh-e mūsīqī-e īrānī/Les systèmes de la musique traditionelle de l’Iran (radīf),Tehran, 1973; oral trans­mission of ʿA. A. Šahnāzī and Mīrzā ʿAbd-Allāh).

 

Bibliography:

ʿAbd-al-Qāder Marāḡī b. Ḡaybī’s Maqāsed al-alḥān, ed. T. Bīneš, Tehran, 2536 = 1356 Š./1977.

Bahjat al-rūḥ (an apochryph of ʿAbd-al-Moʾmen b. Ṣafī-al-Dīn), ed. H. L. Rabino de Borgo­male, Tehran, 1346 Š./1967.

Šīrvānī al-Moʾmen, Re­sāla fī ʿelm al-mūsīqī, tr. d’Erlanger, Traité anonyme dédié au Sultan Osmânli Muhammad II (XVe s.),La musique arabe 4, Paris, 1939.

O. Wright, The Modal System of Arab and Persian Music, A.D. 1250-1300,London, 1978.

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 بسته نگار bastenegar bastenegaar  

(J. During)

Originally Published: December 15, 1988

Last Updated: December 15, 1988

This article is available in print.
Vol. III, Fasc. 8, p. 858