Murtażā Khān Naydāvūd (Morteza Neydavood), born in 1900, was a composer and master tār player. The son of master tombak (chalice drum) player Bālā Khān, Murtażā Khān was one of twentieth-century Iran’s most renowned masters of Persian classical music. A pupil of two of the most towering figures in Persian classical music, Āqā Ḥusaynqulī (1853–1916) and Ghulām-Ḥusayn Darvīsh (Darvīsh Khān, 1872–1926), Naydāvūd began studying the tār at the age of six and, remarkably, reached the status of ustād (master) before the age of twenty.

Other than his technical and compositional contrib…