THE SUSA SCHOOL OF QURBAN PIRIMOV

When Panah Ali-Khan created the fortress of Susa [Shusha] he could not have known that, given a little over a century's time, the city that would grow up around it would becomea true cultural centre, a school for several generations of the creative intelligentsia.

Wonderful, fertile land, mineral springs, and mountain air heightened one's sense of the sublime, driving those who lived there to praise this beauty. The people of Susa were never poor. Many of them were wealthy, and entire families could afford trips to Iran, India, and Russia.

Azerbaijan's music school

The Susa intelligentsia in the mid-19th century collected in their homes what was at the time a rare luxury - books. Many of them were hand-written in calligraphy, not printed, and some of them were even hundreds of years old. In Susa tracts on music and the works of Safiaddin Urmevi from the 13th century, Abdulgadir Maragai (14th century), and Mirzabey (18th century) were especially valued. People in Susa knew things about string instruments that contemporary musicians cannot even imagine. Experimenting, they created, reworked, and perfected musical instruments. They gathered in local councils, known as "musical maclis", where they presented their playing techniques and methods of instrument production. 

In 1880 the artist, calligrapher, and poet Mir Mohsun Navvab, who was also renowned as a musical theorist in his time, joined forces with the famousxananda (virtuoso tar-player) Haci Husu to found in Susa Azerbaijan's largest "maclis of musicians", where the aesthetics of music, questions of performance, and the art of the mugam were to be discussed.[A xananda is a traditional Azerbaijani folk singer who performs mugam, a type of improvised song, to the accompaniment of musicians - translator's note.]Many of those who took an active part in these schools later became legends - professionals who created the face of Azerbaijani music. They were the xananda and saz-players Mashadi Camil Amirov, Islam Abdullayev, Seyid Susinski, the famous singer Qulu Haci Husu, and creator of the modern tar Sadigcan (Mirza Sadig). There were also many theoreticians. That was the time when Azerbaijani traditional music, which had grown from folk, often "unkempt" music, became professional, became something that could be taught in academies. 

In that very same year that the maclis was opened, a person was born who would later become a virtuosic master of the tar, but only in the next century. Qurban Pirimov began playing the instrument at the age of four; he had many teachers, and his grandfather Valeh was a Karabakh ashug [a type of folk poet and singer]. The Susa of that time was full of secular schools, since many residents of the enlightened town simply did not want to send their children to the madrassas, the old type of school. Qurban, too, finished a secular school. One important thing was that his teachers were also good at molding a child: they never tried to encroach upon the gifted child's talent. That entire small world, made up of only the few dozen kilometres in which they lived, was a space for true creative freedom.

Relatives and teachers recommended Qurban to Sadigcan himself. However, the boy lived in the mountain settlement of Abdalgulabli, while the teacher lived in the city and was often travelling. And at the age of 13 the young Qurban, having become his student, had to cross several kilometres to visit his teacher.

Success

1905 was a hard year for Azerbaijan. On one side there was the revolution in Russia, and on the other a series of revolutions and civil strife in Iran. These were very difficult times for a city that had gotten used to living well. By that time the young musician made money playing the tar [а traditional long-necked string instrument of the Caucasus - translator's note] from time to time, but poverty was coming ever closer. He moved to Ganca, where he joined the trio of the renownedxananda[folk singer] Cabbar. That is how he began performing with Cabbar Qaryadiogluand Sasha Oganezashvili. Their performances became famous far beyond the Caucasus. The trio was tremendously successfully and became a school for Pirimov's further artistic growth.

"Musical professionalism is a cocktail with several ingredients: talent, diligence, good teachers, and a seemingly unnoticeable ingredient like one's atmosphere," said the tar-player Aydin Mammadov. "If there were no Susa, that 'musical kitchen', there would not be people like Pirimov, or his teachers either. Today Qurban Pirimov has become a paragon of virtuoso performance for us. Everyone knows that it was to Pirimov, the greatest virtuoso of his era, that Mikayil Musviq dedicated his famous poem 'Play the Tar'."

Pirimov's art was intimately linkedwith the national opera. He took part in the orchestra for the staging of the first Azerbaijani opera, Leyli and Macnun. Qurban Pirimov worked at the Azerbaijani Theatre of Opera and Ballet from the moment of its formation to the end of his life - nearly forty years. In 1929 Pirimov was awarded thehonorary title of distinguished artist of the Azerbaijani SSR, and in 1931 was declared a people's artist of the republic. In 1938 and 1939 Pirimov performed with great success in Moscow at the Decade of Azerbaijani Art and at the All-Union Revue of Folk Instrument Performers.

During the Great Patriotic War Qurban Pirimov, along with other artists, gave many performances for soldiers and the wounded in hospitals. He was also a teacher. Among his students were such people's artists of the Azerbaijani SSR as Bahram Mansurov, Habib Bayramov, and Sarvar Ibrahimov.

He also recorded mugamon vinyl records. The best-quality recordings of his performances can be heard on records released in Riga.

Many years later, in his old age, Pirimov described those long-ago student days in the magazineMadaniyyat va Incasanat [Culture and Art]: "Those were good days and my town was incredible, and there were many people of genius in it.One of them was my teacher Mirza Sadig, who not only possessed great virtuosity, but also great creative foresight. Recalling the days of my youth, I think of how his performances and his lessons have left a strong impression on me."

Qurban Pirimov was married to Nabat xanim[a respectful title of address]Agalar qizi, with whom he had four children: Askar, Sara, Tamara, and Adila. The musician passed away on August 29, 1965 in Baku. Nearly a century and a half has passed since Pirimov's birth.