SHEIDA GHARACHEDAGHI – CHESS OF THE WIND

Description

Mohammad Reza Aslani’s acclaimed 1976 masterpiece Chess Of The Wind hears its once-lost soundtrack reissued for the first time. Composed by Tehran-born musician Sheida Gharachedaghi, the eponymous score lent Aslani’s film a much needed added weight of mystery and intrigue, which historically compounded well with the film’s then-unfortunate, but now mythologised, banning by the Pahlavi Imperial State of Iran upon its release. The score was lost along with the film in its entirety; only when it was rediscovered in an antiques shop in 2014 did it go on to receive a full thoroughgoing remaster by the Martin Scorsese Film Foundation. With the film revolving around the death of a wealthy estate owner and the familial fallout that ensues, Gharachedaghi’s score – made up of Persian classical instrumentation fused with her Western classical conservatory background – makes for a chilling but ultimately warming, radical and proto-revolutionary sonic experience.