Music of Iran

The music of Iran encompasses music produced by Iranian artists. In addition to the traditional folk and classical genres, it also includes pop and internationally celebrated styles such as jazz, rock, and hip hop.

Iranian music influenced other cultures in West Asia, building up much of the musical terminology of the neighboring Turkic and Arabic cultures, and reached India through the 16th-century Persianate Mughal Empire, whose court promoted new musical forms by bringing Iranian musicians.

Music in Iran, as evidenced by the "pre-Iranian" archaeological records of Elam, the oldest civilization in southwestern Iran, dates back thousands of years. Iran is the birthplace of the earliest complex instruments, which date back to the third millennium BC. A number of trumpets made of silver, gold, and copper were found in eastern Iran that are attributed to the Oxus civilization and date back between 2200 and 1750 BC. The use of both vertical and horizontal angular harps have been documented at the archaeological sites of Madaktu (650 BC) and Kul-e Fara (900–600 BC), with the largest collection of Elamite instruments documented at Kul-e Fara. Multiple depictions of horizontal harps were also sculpted in Assyrian palaces, dating back between 865 and 650 BC.

Little is known about music in the classical Iranian empires of the Medes, the Achaemenids, and the Parthians apart from what can be gleaned from the comments of Greek historians. According to Herodotus, the magi, who were a priestly caste in ancient Iran, accompanied their sacrifice rituals with singing. Athenaeus of Naucratis, in his Deipnosophistae, mentions a court singer who had sung a warning to the king of the Median Empire of the plans of Cyrus the Great, who would later establish the Achaemenid dynasty. Athenaeus also notes the capture of singing girls at the court of the last Achaemenid king Darius III (336–330 BC) by Macedonian general Parmenion. Xenophon's Cyropaedia mentions a great number of singing women at the court of the Achaemenid Empire. Under the Parthian Empire, the gōsān (Parthian for "minstrel") had a prominent role in society. They performed for their audiences at royal courts and in public theaters. According to Plutarch's Life of Crassus (32.3), they praised their national heroes and ridiculed their Roman rivals. Likewise, Strabo's Geographica reports that the Parthian youth were taught songs about "the deeds both of the gods and of the noblest men". Parthian songs were later absorbed into the Iranian national epic of Šhāhnāmeh, composed by 10th-century Persian poet Ferdowsi. Šāhnāme itself was based on Xwadāynāmag (Khwaday-Namag), an earlier Middle Persian work, which was an important part of Persian folklore and that is now lost. It is also mentioned in Plutarch's Life of Crassus (23.7) that the Parthians used drums to prepare for battle.

Under the reign of the Sasanians, the Middle Persian term huniyāgar was used to refer to a minstrel. The history of Sasanian music is better documented than earlier periods, and is especially evident in Avestan texts. The recitation of the Sasanian Avestan text of Vendidād has been connected to the Oxus trumpet. The Zoroastrian paradise itself was known as the "House of Song" (garōdmān in Middle Persian), "where music induced perpetual joy". Musical instruments were not accompanied with formal Zoroastrian worship, but they were used in the festivals. Sasanian musical scenes are depicted especially on silver vessels and some wall reliefs.

The reign of Sasanian ruler Khosrow II is regarded as a "golden age" for Persian music. He is shown among his musicians on a large relief at the archaeological site of Taq-e Bostan, holding a bow and arrows himself and standing in a boat amidst a group of harpists. The relief depicts two boats that are shown at "two successive moments within the same panel". The court of Khosrow II hosted a number of prominent musicians, including Azad, Bamshad, Barbad, Nagisa, Ramtin, and Sarkash. Among these attested names, Barbad is remembered in many documents and has been named as remarkably highly skilled. He was a poet-musician who performed on occasions such as state banquets and the festivals of Nowruz and Mehrgan. He may have invented the lute and the musical tradition that gave rise to dastgah and maqam. He has been credited to have organized a musical system consisting of seven "royal modes" (xosrovāni), 30 derived modes (navā), and 360 melodies (dāstān). These numbers are in accordance with the number of days in a week, month, and year in the Sasanian calendar. The theories these modal systems were based on are not known. However, writers of later periods have left a list of these modes and melodies. Some of them are named after epic figures, such as Kin-e Iraj ("Vengeance of Iraj"), Kin-e Siāvaš ("Vengeance of Siavash"), and Taxt-e Ardašir ("Throne of Ardashir"), some are named in honor of the Sasanian royal court, such as Bāğ-e Širin ("Garden of Shirin"), Bāğ-e Šahryār ("Garden of the Sovereign"), and Haft Ganj ("Seven Treasures"), and some are named after nature, such as Rowšan Čerāğ ("Bright Light").

The academic classical music of Iran, in addition to preserving melody types that are attributed to Sasanian musicians, is based on the theories of sonic aesthetics expounded by Avicenna, Farabi, Qotb-ed-Din Shirazi, and Safi-ed-Din Urmawi.

Two prominent Iranian musicians who lived under reign of the third Arab caliphate were Ebrahim Mawseli and his son Eshaq Mawseli. Zaryab of Baghdad, a student of Eshaq, is credited with influencing Spain's classical Andalusian music.