All Because of Love

Recorded live in concert at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, this album is a celebration of the 13th-century Persian poet and mystic Jalaluddin Rumi. The pieces consist of ghazals by the poet, set to music by award-winning Iranian tanbur (lute) master and composer Seyed Ali Jaberi. The arrangements are brought to life in collaboration with vocalist Sina Sarlak and contemporary Sufi music group Hamdel Ensemble. A popular interpreter of traditional Sufi and Persian music, Jaberi's arrangements succeed in being accessible while retaining the emotional depth and devotional spirit of the source material. Presented as both an audio recording and live concert film, the set is possibly best experienced in DVD format, owing to its programmatic and often theatrical nature. An opening monologue by Professor Alan Williams of Manchester University helps give context, and certain pieces are accompanied by dramatisations of formative moments from Rumi's early life. At times the ensemble grows to a 17-piece, featuring multiple tanbur and daf (frame drum) players, ney (flute), oud, cello, double bass and female chorus; it is occasionally joined by two whirling dervishes, adding to the hypnotic and ecstatic atmosphere of the performance. The drawn-out cycles of ‘In the Heart of Fire’ serve as a suitably mesmeric bed for Sarlak's soaring melismas, and the thrilling instrumental ‘Hymn of the Dawn’ puts Jaberi's tanbur at centre focus. The trance-inducing ‘To Welcome the Spiritual King’ brings the set to a close – a transcendental end to a recording that brims with quiet intensity.