Iranian composer Majid Entezam's "Peace and Friendship Symphony" was performed by Iranian musicians during a recent European tour, an attempt at cultural diplomacy that apparently backfired.
Iranian composer Majid Entezam's "Peace and Friendship Symphony" was performed by Iranian musicians during a recent European tour, an attempt at cultural diplomacy that apparently backfired.
As part of a cultural offensive apparently meant to make friends abroad, Iran's theocratic leadership recently sent Iranian classical musicians on a European tour to perform a work called "Peace and Friendship Symphony" by Majid Entezami.
How did the move go over? Not so well.
The concerts were greeted by demonstrators protesting against the Iranian government. And the music was critically slammed, too.
Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times wrote:
And the music? Suffice it to say that some Iranian musicians, not orchestra members, reportedly complained beforehand that the work wasn't good enough to export. They were right. Scored for orchestra, chorus and male solo singer, with an electric guitar, amplified piano and battalion of harpists thrown in to increase the racket, the symphony approximates brief melodies in between lengthy drum assaults by burgling hints of "Dr. Zhivago" and "Lord of the Rings" along with Vivaldi and "Fiddler on the Roof." Otherwise, for the better part of 75 minutes, a whole team of percussionists gravely beat the bejesus out of a variety of very loud drums, to unintentionally (and increasingly) comic effect.
Occasionally the male soloist would slowly rise from his chair and sing a brief Persian pop riff. An Iranian woman, a businesswoman based in Geneva who, like many other Iranians I spoke with at the concert, asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals by the regime, afterward compared the effect of the soloist to the sun trying to peek through the clouds during an endless thunderstorm.
An arrangement requiring orchestra, chorus, male solo singer, electric guitar, amplified piano and harpists is certainly a little different than what I'm accustomed to hearing although I try to keep an open mind on such matters.
Parts of the symphony are available on YouTube, so you can sample them yourself and make up your own mind. To my ear, it sounds like a movie score for a Persian action-love story flick.
Not that I've seen one. But if I were to, I imagine the score would sound something like this:
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