Iran: The Masters of Music, Vol. 2

Karimi, master of singing, drew on the most authentic source of the radif (classical repertoire) to create an intimate expression far removed from any artifice, in perfect harmony with Mohammad Musavi's ney flute -a simple reed with immense power.

This is how Karimi illustrates the mode in which he has chosen to sing: "Navâ has a special beauty of its own. A mode with a sweetness, finesse and subtlety that plunges the listener into a state of meditation. Its melodies are among the most traditional, having been passed on for at least three hundred years from teacher to pupil right down to my own teachers, Davâmi and Hâjji Aqâ".

Mohammad Musavi's reed flute (ney) also signifies the calligrapher's pen. There is indeed a way of emphasising a single note in a song as if it were a stroke, of echoing a fragment of it, of seizing on a motif and unfolding it in an arabesque, of organising its punctuation, which evokes calligraphy and illumination.

At this point, two ineffable breaths remain: that of a man and that of a flute. But, as Mowlânâ Rumi suggests, are they not one and the same being?