Customer Reviews

Abu-Ata Concert

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The concert performance is great, and the music is great as well. I'd recommend the album to anyone. I should warn that there is a very unnatural sounding echo across the entire recording, which at loud volumes is very noticable and can get pretty annoying. Maybe some people don't notice it, but I sure do--Every note happens twice. Moreover, it seems like a studio-added, digital echo; making me think that the remastering may have been done in bad taste. If anyone has any ideas of how to get a copy of a clean recording of this concert, please post them here!! Technical gripes aside, Shajarian totally rocks, and this concert is amazing.

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(I later found out from the producer of this CD that the echo is a tape delay effect turned on on the 2 track tape recorder used to record this concert. Apparently such effects were in vogue at the time. There's no existing recording of this concert without the echo.)

This is one of the best performance of two greatest masters in Iranian classical music. I enjoy it every single time I listen to it. It will take you up from earth. Lotfi on tar is expressing his deep artisitic thoughts and anger on the political situation when this CD was recorded. I rated as a must listen CD.

The best music to me is the music that can transcend the body, the intellect, and the emotion to reach the soul. Unfortunately, we see a very small percentage of music today deliver to that true potential. This recording comes through in this regard with flying colors. It is a masterful delivery of music that goes well beyond the incredible technique of the two artists to give us a magical experience in sound and poetry.

I got turned on to this CD from an internet news group, so I thought I'd return the favor. This is Iranian classical music at its most austere and its most focused. 2 masters, as serious as your life. This is the only Iranian classical CD I've heard that I would categorize as essential. After you listen, rent a Kiarostami film. This music and his films are completely different from each other, but they interpenetrate in terms of an approach to time and scale. Something I intuit as being fundamentally (pardon this word!) Iranian.

The Abu-Ata Concert is a CD issue of one of the greatest Middle Eastern Concerts ever recorded. Lofti's musicality and Sharjarian's voice are full of power and grace. Outstanding