World Premiere Recordings of Music by Reza Vali

from the Amazon.com Web page for the recording being discussed

Composer Reza Vali was born in Iran in 1952. His musical studies began in Tehran at the Conservatory of Music. However, he left Iran in 1972 for further music education. His first move was to the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (formerly known as the Academy of Music), after which he continued his education in Pittsburgh, which has been his base ever since. He holds a doctoral degree in composition and theory from the University of Pittsburgh and is currently on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University.

At the end of last year MSR Classics released an album of world premiere recordings of works that Vali composed between 2011 and 2017. These include two duos for violin (Charles Wetherbee) and piano (David Korevaar) and three string quartets, played by the Carpe Diem String Quartet. (This group is led by Wetherbee, who is joined by violinist Amy Galluzzo, violist Korine Fujiwara, and cellist Carol Ou.) However, there is also one piece in which the quartet is joined by Dariush Saghfi on santur.

Vali’s résumé (at least as it is presented on the Amazon.com Web page for this recording) is an both extensive and impressive. Bay Area readers will probably make note of the fact that he has composed for the Kronos Quartet, suggesting that there are readers out there familiar with his music. Readers of that Web page will also be informed the “Vali has been termed ‘the Iranian Bartók’ due to his use of folk songs resulting in a distinct musical style, built upon this foundation.” My own knowledge of this repertoire is limited; and, among the instruments associated with Middle Eastern music, I am more familiar with the qanun than I am with the santur. However, when it comes to a clear distinction between folk sources and the composer’s own inventive voice, I would say that any comparison with Béla Bartók is more than a little exaggerated.

I should also note that, back when I was spending more time at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, I encountered several young Iranian composers, all of whom attracted and seized my attention with much more impact than any of the compositions on Vali’s album. One reason for this may be that Vali left Iran before the 1979 revolution that brought down the Shah and with him the entire Pahlavi dynasty, while the younger musicians I have encountered here in San Francisco had a more direct experience of Iran as it is currently ruled, if not the revolution that led to the change in government. As might be guessed, the compositions by this newer generation tend to be edgier, exercising freedoms of expression that would not necessarily be regarded favorably in today’s Iran.

As a result, in the context of the world as we now find it, Vali’s compositions come across as well-studied but more than a little too innocuous, possibly even a bit nostalgic for better times that never were.