Mihdi Miftah

Miftah, Mihdi (1910-1996)

Violinist, Qanun player, music instructor, composer, and orchestra conductor. He trained in music primarily under Abu’l-Hasan Saba but also was influenced by the teachings of ‘Ali Naqi Vaziri’s school of music. He began his professional activities in music in Iranian orchestras of the early 1930s and for years performed in Vaziri’s and Khaliqi’s orchestras at Radio Tehran and in the National Music Society. He taught the violin and the qanun at the National Conservatory of Music and also conducted his own radio orchestra entitled the “Miftah Orchestra.” He made a name for himself from 1950 onwards as a skillful violinist and as the first musician to methodically teach the theory and practice of zither performance in Persian music. None can deny the extremely positive impact that his highly cultured personality had on music in Iran during his own day. In terms of his contributions to the Golha programmes, he performed in one Golha-yi rangarang programme (n. 171), in which three compositions of his were arranged, and also participated in a number of the earlier orchestral recordings of the Golha-yi javidan. Sound recordings of his solo performances have not been released, though textbooks of his on teaching the zither and advanced studies of Persian violin performance have appeared in print. These include: Persian Études for the Violin (edited by Rahim Matlubi, published by the author, Tehran: 1992) and Zither Instruction (Amuzish-i Qanun) (Tehran: ‘Ilmi Farhangi Publications 1990). Due to the unpleasant circumstances in which all musicians found themselves after the the 1979 revolution, Mihdi Miftah from that date onwards totally ceased his musical activities.