Composition
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I wonder how much human potential is locked behind indecision or lack of exposure to the right environments and resources. Sometimes all it takes - in addition to tacit learning, or ‘learning by osmosis' over the years - is meeting the right people. People whose mastery is not only a marvel to behold but is also generative, emboldening and heartening to those who have the honor to observe it.
The thought of writing music hadn’t occurred to me until fall 2019. Shortly before that I had an intensely transformative musical experience at a Groupmuse where four cellists from Juilliard - Daniel Hass, Philip Sheegog, Derek Louie and Aaron Wolff - performed a program that left a deep impression on me and stirred a flame of creative urge that was only waiting for that kindling moment, it seems.
I found myself flooded with musical ideas that begged to be written down - and at the same time my homesickness compelled me to listen more and more to traditional Azerbaijani mugham - music I grew up with. So the idea of a mugham fugue was born. Mugham is microtonal and mostly monophonic in its nature, whereas fugue is a canonical example of polyphonic music. Since I conceived it as a piano fugue, there was no space for microtonality but I could still use mugham harmonies. I started writing a draft of my fugue and reached out to Daniel Hass for advice on composition. His encouragement and support were indispensable in this first step toward composition that I took.
But the fugue wasn’t meant to be completed at that time. I was applying for postdoctoral positions, along with finishing up experiments for my paper in my PhD lab. That drained my energy away from writing music. But in spring 2020, after I landed a postdoctoral job and largely finished working on my paper, musical thoughts returned to me, this time in the form of jazz improvisations. So I reached out to Daniel again, and we started lessons in jazz theory and improv, where I learned a lot about analyzing jazz standards and started collecting seeds and sketches inspired by Azerbaijani folk music. Azerbaijani jazz pianist Vagif Mustafa-zadeh who pioneered jazz-mugham has always been one of the biggest musical inspirations for me, and we analyzed a lot of his recordings, which was tremendously helpful for me.
At some point in December 2020, I thought that I should pick up the fugue I started writing earlier and see where it takes me. To my amazement, the piece wrote itself in my hands within a month. I can’t overemphasize how much encouragement and guidance of my teacher was important throughout the whole process.
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The first fugue I wrote turned out to be dark, doleful and pain-laden, and I dedicated it to the lost and broken lives of the Second Karabakh war (2020) - the war that shook the two countries and left so many families bereft.
Below is my home recording of the fugue. It is mostly written in the Chahargah mugham mode, with digressions to other modes.
While I’d still been working on the first fugue, I started drafting more of them, with the idea of writing one fugue for each of the seven main mugham modes. I finished two fugues - in Shur and Shushtar modes - in summer 2021. The subject of the Shur fugue is taken from the opening of the Shur mugham by the Azerbaijani composer Fikret Amirov. The subject of the Shushtar fugue is based on the opening of “The Joy of Sheherezade” from his ballet “1001 nights”. These fugues are my tribute to the composer whose work I admire. These fugues, along with one I wrote in fall 2022, have been recorded by Tengku Irfan Ahmad, an outstanding Juilliard pianist and conductor.
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I also wanted to expand beyond piano, and thought of writing a string quartet. But eventually it became a Suite for cello and piano which I named ‘Bayati’, after the short four-line folk poems of Azerbaijan. Each movement of this suite is written in one of the seven main mugham modes. The suite was completed between January and May 2021. It was an overwhelming joy and a huge honor to see it recorded by my teacher and another brilliant Juilliard musician, the pianist Richard Rivale.
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Another piece I started thinking about in April 2020 is Fantasia for viola and piano which I wrote for a composers’ competition dedicated to the pioneering Azerbaijani composer, Uzeyir Hajibeyli. I ended up writing this piece pretty much within a month or so, and submitted it about an hour before the deadline in July 2021. I didn't win the competition, but it was surely an exciting, if exhausting, experience to write a ~6 min piece on a short notice. My Fantasia was recorded in October 2021 by excellent Juilliard musicians, violist Joey Fischer and pianist Ji Youn Lee.
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This piece is my tribute to the beloved Azerbaijani composer Fikret Amirov, and it quotes and revolves around the theme of “The Joy of Sheherezade” from his ballet “1001 nights”
There are 3 movements in this trio: a prelude, a fugue, and a lullaby, and each of them handles the ballet theme in its own way
The original theme is exuberant and energetic and upbeat – and it is quoted as is in the fugue. but the first movement, the prelude, flips it around and explores the dark side of the theme, charged with the tensions of dissonance
The fugue is in stark contrast to the prelude and embodies aliveness and overflowing energy. its rhythmic complexity contributes a lot to polyphony. it was so much fun to write!
Finally, the lullaby molds the original subject in yet another shape, one that is full of warmth but also gentle sadness, as lullabies are
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In Azerbaijan, the spring equinox is celebrated as Novruz, the new year, and the four Tuesdays preceding it carry the symbolism of four elements - water, fire, earth and air/wind. I’m currently working on a new cycle “Four elements” where each movement represents one of the elements. The first movement, ‘Water’ is a piano trio, and the other movements will have a different instrumentation depending on the element whose story they are to tell.
