The Perfumed Garden: what's underneath?

The Perfumed Garden is my return to scalar melodies. Shipwrecked isn't really scalar: it's chord-defined. However, that depends on the story: Bahloul and Hamdonna's story evinces a Persian influence, which happened naturally, as Bahloul is a Persian name. I was really keen to try Persian music; that was the initial impetus for writing the score.

Persian and African melodies are typically defined as tunes or gestures rather than by scales. Unlike Asian melodies, there isn't such a pentatonic feel. Arab and Indian melodies are scalar, so that crops up in other stories. -

Thematically, it's all about different combinations of the first five degrees of the scale. One of the things that cropped up in Persian music theory is that the scales aren't microtonal, but are defined by intervals that are spaced apart by different amounts of cents: using accidentals to form whole-tone and harmonic minor figures seemed like a Western response.

Tried to get Golriz to sing There Is Only One We Praise. My phrasing is too choirboy, despite the bends.