On the Genesis of “Tradition/Modernity” Discourse in the Field of Iranian Music

An important discourse in the field of Iranian music since its formation was—and still is—centered on a philosophical duality of tradition versus modernity. This duality emerged when traditional Iranian court music was challenged by new music influenced by the West. The discourse and attendant struggles arose from the differently oriented actions of the field’s agents who were invested to different degrees in modern versus traditional culture. While the discourse was mostly articulated in the 1960s in the intellectual field in Iran, its formation can be traced back to the 1910s at a time when the music field was starting to form. The aim of this article is to investigate this discourse’s genesis in music in the 1910s, mostly by focusing on the debate between Vaziri and Aref, two main figures of the field. The conceptual framework for this research comes from Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory. A case study method was employed, drawing material mainly gathered from writings by and about field agents in journals, magazines, books and biographies. The study shows that what is considered as the duality between tradition and modernity did not exist in the years when the field of Iranian music was forming, but was worked out in the next generation of the field of Iranian music by the intellectual and political fields in the 1960s.