Nizami Ganjavi, the ever Persian poet

28 November 2024

Khosrow and Shirin, Love in the Persian Poem of Nizami Ganjavi. In Catania

After the great success in Rome

“For, in truth, great love is born

from the great knowledge of the thing that is

loves and, if you do not know her, little or

you will not be able to love her for anything.

Leonardo da Vinci

Knowing is the greatest opportunity for the human being to dialogue with the world, especially with those parts that do not belong to one's ordinary sphere or to the dimensions to which one is accustomed. Coming into contact with different points of view, with ways of understanding art, culture and traditions different from those we usually frequent, causes amazement and disorientation, but also the joy of discovering something fundamental.

In Western schools, Eastern art or literature is rarely discussed, and even less so in music conservatories, while many masterpieces from the East are still waiting to be disseminated and known, especially by the new generations. One of the most striking examples is offered to us by Persian poetry, a true constellation of historical and spiritual poems, of grandiose collections of ghazals, or sonnets, created by a large number of poets, all important and still loved today by the people and even by the new generations.

The poem we present, Khosrow and Shirin, is perhaps unique in its genre. It describes the affirmation of love between a man and a woman through music, which is used to describe and transform the most intimate reasons of the two protagonists, and find the key to open the doors barred by their differences. The inner transformation of the characters, which manifests itself in the course of this story, finds its culmination in the confrontation experienced through two musicians, Barbad and Nakisa, who find the way to reach harmony, with the beginning of a new spiritual path for Khosrow and Shirin after the ecstasy of union.

Exploring this seductive power of Persian poetry can lead to essential discoveries in a field that has always remained mysterious and lives in the interiority and spirituality of man. It is also a special way of understanding aesthetics with a profound and often shocking vision in which fundamental themes for humanity, such as love, can be treated at the same time as sacred or profane, and show earthly or spiritual, practical or abstract sides.

Knowledge of the elements of arts such as music or painting, closely linked to poetry, conceal musical and artistic systems that depend on mysterious laws that have little to do with the fashions of the moment, the power of governments and institutions. This seduction comes from a science that deals with sensations and emotions, taste and nuances, where embellishments are as important as the main designs, because they express something elusive, and important secrets to be brought to light.

The Cultural Institute of Iran in Rome in collaboration with La casa dei Santi, with ISMEO - International Association of Mediterranean and Eastern Studies and the Department of Asian and African Mediterranean Studies of the University of Venice Ca' Foscari and the University of Catania present: