Faroqhi S.N. The Cambridge History of Turkey: Volume 3, The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603-1839
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the Ottoman/Crimean Tatar sieges of Kameniecz-Podolski in the early 1630s.
Bobowski spent the rest of his life in Istanbul, and almost twenty years of
it in the Topkapı Palace, where he was employed first as a page and musi-
cian and then a translator.
14
Ali Ufki’s collection, in Western staff notation,
but written from right to left, contains around 480 pieces, both vocal and
instrumental.
Of the latter, about 100 are also present in the second collection, com-
piled around 1700 by the Moldavian prince Demetrius Cantemir (1673–1723).
15
Kantemiro
˘
glu, as he is better known in Turkey, was as a boy brought to
Istanbul where he lived for almost twenty years as a princely hostage. His
notational system uses combinations of Arabic letters to denote various
pitches.
As the only existing musical notations from the pre-modern repertoire in
the whole Middle East, the cultural and historical significance of these two
collections can hardly be overestimated. They are first-hand sources of incom-
parable importance. However, Cantemir’s technical prowess was certainly
forgotten soon after his departure from Istanbul. As to Ali Ufki, he was, due
to his ability to write music, considered a wizard of sorts during his stay in the
music school of the Topkapı Palace. Soon after his death, however, his two
manuscript collections of notations were brought to London and Paris respec-
tively by John Covel and Antoine Galland. Neither Cantemir nor Bobowski
had any emulators in Istanbul and their manuscripts of notations were not
copied, an incontrovertible indication of general indifference. Cantemir’s col-
lection of notations, containing 356 pieces, has only recently been transcribed
and published in its entirety.
16
As to Ali Ufki, his two most important musical
manuscripts have not yet appeared in a critical edition.
17
Only a facsimile of
one of the manuscripts is currently available.
18
Two other inventors of notational systems had similar fates. Of a well-
known Mevlevi s¸eyh and composer named Osman Dede (d. 1729), his con-
temporary Esad Efendi
19
tells us, as if it were a great curiosity, that he was
able to ‘write down melodies’. But no relevant manuscript of Osman Dede
14 Behar, Ali Ufk
ˆ
ı.
15 Demetrius Cantemir, ‘Kitab-ı ilm
¨
ul musiki ‘al
ˆ
a vech
¨
ul hur
ˆ
ufat’, Istanbul
¨
Universitesi
T
¨
urkiyat Enstit
¨
us
¨
u, MS Y. 2768.
16 Owen Wright, Demetrius Cantemir: The Collection of Notations (London, 1992), vol. I.
17 Behar, Ali Ufk
ˆ
ı. Manuscripts: (1) London, British Library, Oriental and India Office Col-
lections [Ms. Sloane 3114]; and (2) Paris, Biblioth
`
eque Nationale de France, Manuscrits
Orientaux [Turc 292].
18 S¸
¨
ukr
¨
uElc¸in, Ali Ufk
ˆ
ı-Mecm
ˆ
ua-i saz
¨
us
¨
oz (Facsimile, Istanbul, 1976).
19 Es‘ad Efendi, ‘Atrab
¨
ul-
ˆ
as
ˆ
ar fi tezkire-ti uref
ˆ
a’ il edv
ˆ
ar’, Istanbul University Library, MS T.
6204.
398
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
The Ottoman musical tradition
has survived. Osman Dede’s grandson, another Mevlevi s¸eyh by the name of
Abd
¨
ulbaki Nasır Dede (1765–1821),
20
was encouraged by Sultan Selim III to
devise a notational system based on the ebced, the numerical values attributed
to the letters of the Arabic alphabet. In this manner Abd
¨
ulbaki Nasır Dede
wrote down four pieces, three of which had been composed by his royal patron
inanewmakam (Suzidilara) the sultan himself had just invented. However,
royal encouragement brought with it no peer recognition and no emulators,
and Abd
¨
ulbaki Nasır Dede’s manuscript (‘Tahririye’), dated 1794, remained a
unicum. His system of notation was never employed in later times.
The only notation that met with a certain degree of success was that of
Hampartzum Limoncuyan (1768–1839). Devised around 1813–15, it was mainly
inspired by the symbols (neumes) already in use for the notation of Armenian
liturgical hymns (sharakan). The simplicity of this shorthand-type notation
system, and the fact that it was already known to many Armenian musicians
in Istanbul, contributed to its relative success.
21
Often used in conjunction with
Western staff notation, the Hampartzum notation allowed its practitioners to
preserve many works from oblivion. Numerous collections in Hampartzum
notation exist, in both public and in private libraries.
Secular and tekke music
The roots of the liturgical music of the various sufi orders are traceable to
the early seventeenth century. With time this music was much diversified,
and progressively gained in sophistication throughout the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries.As far as musical output is concerned, the most influential
dervish orders werethe Halvetisalong with their Celvetiand G
¨
uls¸eni branches,
and somewhat later the Mevlevis as well.
22
Works produced in the dervish milieu are of a stunning diversity. They range
from the plain, unadorned Bektas¸i hymns, named nefes, which have a simple
melodic structure often lacking a middle section (meyan) where modulation to
anewmakam would otherwise occur, to the long, complex and highly codified
oratorio-like Mevlevi religious compositions (ayin).
20 Abd
¨
ulbaki Nasır Dede, ‘Tahririye’, Istanbul, S
¨
uleymaniye Library, MS Nafiz Pasa 1242/2.
21 H. P. Seidel, ‘Die Notenschrift des Hamparsum Limoncuyan’, Mitteilungen des deutschen
Gesellschaft f
¨
ur Musik des Orients 12 (1972/3), 71–119.
22 Ergun, T
¨
urk musikisi antolojisi,p.13; Walter Feldman, ‘Musical Genres and Zikir of the
Sunni Tarikats of Istanbul’, in The Dervish Lodge-Architecture: Art and Sufism in Ottoman
Turkey, ed. Raymond Lifchez (Berkeley, 1992), pp. 187–202; Walter Feldman, Music of the
Ottoman Court: Makam, Composition and the Early Ottoman Repertoire (Berlin, 1996).
399
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Some tekkes were centres of musical activity by the early seventeenth cen-
tury, and it seems that individuals connected with a dervish order were those
who reached greatest prominence, both in religious and secular music. About
one-third of the musicians whose short biographies are recorded in Esad
Efendi’s Atrab
¨
ul-
ˆ
as
ˆ
ar indeed show that kind of connection.
23
The music sung
and played in the tekkes was usually the product of the zakirs; these musi-
cally gifted dervishes led the zikir ceremonies, in which the name of God was
invoked as part of the mystical way. There was nevertheless a considerable
degree of interpenetration and overlapping between the religious and secular
spheres. Master musicians were appreciated in both and moved back and forth
between the two. The palace, for instance, was always careful to select the
prayer leaders (imams) who officiated in the presence of the monarch from
among those who were musically most gifted and had beautiful voices.
Among the better-known composers of tekke music, there is ‘Aziz Mahmud
H
¨
udai (d. 1628), who was also a key figure in the development of the Celveti
order in Istanbul and trained many other zakirs. S
¨
utc¸
¨
uzade
˙
Isa (d. 1627), who
was a well-known singer, and ‘K
¨
uc¸
¨
uk
˙
Imam’ Mehmed Efendi (d. 1674) also pro-
duced religious pieces. But one of the most famous was yet another Mehmed
Efendi, nicknamed Hafiz Post (d. 1693) who set to music, among other things,
many poems written by the Halveti mystical poet Niyazi-i Mısri.
24
Hafiz Post
is in fact one of the best-known composers of the seventeenth century, and
the author of one of the first specifically Ottoman song-text collections (g
¨
ufte
mecmuası).
25
As analysed in detail by Owen Wright, this collection turned into
a model for the genre.
26
As to Buhurcuo
˘
glu Mustafa Efendi, better known as Itri (1640?–1712), his
compositional range is astonishing. Probably a pupil of Hafiz Post and himself
a Mevlevisympathiser (muhib), Itri is one of the key figuresin Ottoman/Turkish
music. He composed for the Mevlevi ritual and for other sufi orders as well as
for the secular public. Some of Itri’s religious compositions have become so
popular that they have almost exhausted the dynamic of their own genre by
becoming, so to speak, canonical. Some Islamic rituals in mosques in Turkey
are unthinkable without the singing of Itri’s sal
ˆ
at-i
¨
ummiye. Moreover, the na‘t
(eulogy of the Prophet) he has composed on a Persian text by Celaleddin
Rumi, the founder of the Mevlevi order, has become the unavoidable, almost
compulsory, opening piece of any performance of a Mevlevi ayin in any makam
whatsoever. It is certainly due to Itri’s stature as a composer, to his influence
23 Behar, Zaman,p.37. 24 Ergun, T
¨
urk musikisi antolojisi.
25 Hafiz Post, ‘Mecmua’, Topkapı Palace Library, MS Revan 1724.
26 Wright, Words without Songs.
400
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The Ottoman musical tradition
and prestige, that the Mevlevi musical ritual acquired the form and structure
it has had ever since. Perhaps Itri’s influence also ensured that the Mevlevis,
especially in the second half of the eighteenth century, came to take precedence
over all other dervish orders in terms of musical production.
The musical form most widely used in the liturgical realm was the ilahi
(hymn). This is a broad term comprising many sub-types, one of which was
sung during the zikir ceremony.
27
˙
Ilahis had fixed rhythmic cycles (usuls) and
their language was normally Turkish, ilahis in Arabic being called s¸ugl. There
were, as far as we can judge, no clear formal or stylistic differences between
the ilahis sung in Halveti, Cerrahi or Kadiri zikir ceremonies, and the hymns
composed by a member of any of these orders could very well be sung in other
sufi tekkes. Many collections of ilahi texts in fact contain pieces ‘belonging’ to
a wide variety of dervish orders.
28
The non-zikir ilahis were called tevs¸ih, tesbih or cumhur ilahi. These last two
types were also often sung in mosques. However, contrary to the practice of
most dervish orders, the singing of ilahis in mosques was always done a capella
and never admitted of any instrumental performance or even of rhythmic
accompaniment. There were also some dervish liturgical songs that like the
ilahi were pre-composed but – exceptionally – lacked a given rhythmic cycle.
These were the na‘t and the durak.Theduraks were sung at certain particularly
solemn pauses of the zikir ceremony or during a reading of the mevlid, a poem
in praise of the Prophet Muhammad often recited in pious company down to
the present day.
Probably from the very beginning the liturgically and musically most com-
plex sufi ritual was that of the Mevlevis. The Mevleviyye is the only Sunni
order without a zikir ceremony of any sort and no liturgical singing of ilahis.
Its liturgy consists only in the musical performance of a pre-composed ayin in a
certain mode, to accompany the dervishes’ cosmic (‘whirling’) dance, the sema,
the whole ceremony being called a mukabele. Internal evidence concerning the
ayin texts and the rhythmic cycles used to set them to music suggests that the
oldest of these long liturgical suites, the three anonymous compositions now
called beste-i kadim (ancient compositions), cannot have been composed – or
fashioned – before the early 1600s.
29
With the later adjunction of Itri’s na‘t,
the Mevlevi ayin took its final form, most probably in the last quarter of the
seventeenth century.
27 Feldman, ‘Musical Genres’.
28 Yusuf
¨
Om
¨
url
¨
u (ed.), T
¨
urk musikisi klasikleri-ilahiler (Istanbul, 1979–91), vols. I–VIII.
29 Wright, Words without Songs,p.7.
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In fact, the Mevlevi ayin is the longest and most complex pre-composed
musical form within the Ottoman/Turkish tradition. Probably from the early
seventeenth century onwards, the details of its performance were highly for-
malised. An ayin always began with the solo singing of Itri’s na’t, followed
by an improvisation on the flute (ney), the order’s sacred instrument, in the
makam of the ayin to be performed that day. A strictly defined ritual included
the succession of vocal and instrumental pieces and the choice of sacred texts
to be set to music, the different rhythmic cycles used in the various parts
(called sel
ˆ
am) of the ayin, as well as the prayers and invocations to be read
at the very end. Apart from the musical aspect, the various movements and
postures of the s¸eyhs, dervishes, instrumentalists and dancers, and even the
smallest details of their dress and headgear, were part of a minutely arranged
ritual performance.
30
The complexity and length of the Mevlevi ayins must indeed have seriously
challenged the skills of all master musicians and composers. This is probably an
important reason why the Mevlevihanes were always considered as de facto
music schools. As the Mevlevis acquired musical pre-eminence in Istanbul
after the last quarter of the eighteenth century, a wealth of new ayins were
composed.
31
There are now more than sixty ayin compositions extant, only
ten or twelve of which predate the nineteenth century.
Groups, instruments and performers
Ottoman/Turkish music was essentially a ‘chamber music’ in terms both of
general performance styles and of the number of performers usually involved
in various ensembles. There is ample historical evidence to support this view.
32
The only known exception was the royal military band, the mehter, which
performed martial music and added pomp and splendour to special ceremonial
occasions. The sound it produced had therefore to be as ‘loud’ as possible. But
this whole mehter genre, the instruments used therein – mainly the zurna
(shawm), cymbals and brass drums of various sizes – and most probably its
repertoire were all significantly different from Ottoman/Turkish art music
at large. Europeans often tended to identify the mehter with Turkish music,
as it was much in vogue in eighteenth-century Europe. In Ottoman terms,
however, mehter instruments and performances were often qualified as ‘rough
30 Abd
¨
ulbaki G
¨
olpınarlı, Mevl
ˆ
an
ˆ
adan sonra Mevlevilik (Istanbul, 1953).
31 A. Rıfat et al. (eds.), Mevlev
ˆ
ı ayinleri (Istanbul, 1934–9), vols. VI–XVIII.
32 Behar, Zaman,pp.119–38.
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The Ottoman musical tradition
melodies’ (kaba saz), in opposition to ‘delicate melodies’ (ince saz), a term often
used in the eighteenth century to denote mainstream classical Turkish music.
Otherwise, music-making in the seventeenthand eighteenth centuries – and
also later – was essentially based on the skills of individual performers, who
addressed themselves to a relatively small and intimate audience. Performing
ensembles were small, usually comprising one or two singers and a handful of
instrumentalists, all of whom demonstrated their art by frequently performing
solo passages, improvised or not. Performing and singing were always an
individual affair, even if they took place within a group. Therefore the concepts
of chorus or orchestra never emerged. The emphasis was on the display of
individual virtuosity and personal creativity, and not necessarily on collective
discipline. Lastly, the absence of written notation and of the notion of a musical
‘model’ to be ‘reproduced’ at each performance excluded standardisation.
Whenever music was played, what took place was a recreation more than a
straightforward execution.
The largest musical ensemble ever to have been recorded by a bona fide
historical source was the one which performed a fasıl in the presence of Sultan
MahmudII (r. 1808–39)on5 Rebi‘I 1239/9 November 1823. This groupcomprised
all in all twelve singers and instrumentalists, most of whom were attached to
the palace.
33
No other musical ensemble in early nineteenth-century Istanbul
could have been much larger than that mustered by a music-loving monarch.
Large musical bodies, however, were progressively to replace the traditional
small and intimate ensembles in republican Turkey, thereby contributing to a
radical change in the aesthetics of performance of classical Turkish music. But
that is quite a different matter.
An intimate atmosphere, encouraging artistic communion between the
audience and the performers, was probably the general rule in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. There were of course no pre-established settings for
a musical performance, no stages or concert-halls. The audience, never totally
passive, participated in the musical creation by frequently making its reactions
known. Moreover, there was as yet no divorce between composers, performers
and teachers of music, a master musician having to be a bit of all three. As
in all Near Eastern music throughout the ages, singing had a primacy over
instrumental performance. This is reflected in the repertoire of Turkish music.
Exclusively instrumental pieces make up no more than about 10 per cent of
the total number of extant compositions.
33 Ibid., p. 124.
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As to the musical instruments known or used in Istanbul in the seventeenth
century, these have been listed in great detail by the erstwhile courtier and later
world traveller Evliya C¸ elebi.
34
Evliya lists no less than seventy-four different
names of instruments. Many, however, are obviouslyvariants, only very slightly
different from a single generic instrument type. Other visual sources such as
miniatures and prints, as well as written sources such as Fonton and Toderini,
show that the most frequently used instruments were quite restricted in num-
ber. Fonton, whose work is the closest one can hope to get to an ‘insider’s
view’ of the mid-eighteenth-century musical world of Istanbul, gives details
on four instruments only (the ney, the tanbur, the miskal and the keman, in that
order).
35
The ney (end-blown reed flute) was the main wind instrument, and it is
perhaps the only item that underwent no significant change after the second
half of the sixteenth century. The cenk (smallish harp) was much in vogue in the
1500s and 1600s but had already been completely abandoned by the end of the
eighteenth century. The miskal (panpipes), still in use in the 1750s,
36
went out
of fashion around 1800. More or less the same thing happened to the ‘ud (lute),
an instrument of major importance in Arabic music, but dethroned in Turkey
by the tanbur. As for the kanun (zither) and the santur (dulcimer, cembalum),
they also fell into neglect in the mid-eighteenth century, but, unlike the miskal,
these three instruments were reintroduced in musical circles and regained
popularity about a century later.
The tanbur or tanbur-i t
¨
urki temporarily ousted the ‘ud from public favour
during the whole of the eighteenth and part of the nineteenth centuries. The
1700s saw the rise of the tanbur, which notwithstanding the later return of
the ‘ud, has remained ever since ‘the favourite instrument of the Turks’.
37
A
precisely fretted long-necked instrument, it eases the definition, performance
and differentiation of distinct microtonal intervals and may, if need be, serve
as a standard, as a kind of monochord. Apart from the deep and touching
tone of the tanbur, which also contributed to its popularity, there must have
been a need for an instrument with such practical advantages. For the 1700s
were a period when the basic tonal system of Ottoman/Turkish music was
34 Henry George Farmer, Turkish Instruments of Music in the Seventeenth Century, as Described
in the Siyahat Nama of Ewliya Chelebi (Glasgow, 1937).
35 Charles Fonton, ‘Essai sur la Musique Orientale compar
´
ee
`
a la Musique Europ
´
eenne –
1751’, Biblioth
`
eque Nationale de France, Manuscrits Franc¸ais, Nouvelles Acquisitions
4023.
36 Ibid.
37 Rauf Yekta, ‘La Musique turque’, in Encyclop
´
ediede la musique etdictionnaire duconservatoire,
ed. A. Lavignac (Paris, 1922), vol. V, pp. 2945–3064.
404
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The Ottoman musical tradition
probably undergoing major changes and new makams (modes) and terkibs
(modal compounds) were constantly being created.
As for bowed and stringed instruments, there was basically the keman or
kemance, a vertically held viol with two or three silk strings and a spherical
sound-chest. It was later to be renamed rebab. In the late eighteenth century,
there was a new acquisition, the viola d’amore, baptised, in opposition to the
keman, sinekemanı or chest-violin. For percussion, essential to performances
of tekke music, the kud
¨
um (double copper kettledrums), its smaller version,
the nakkare and the bendir (vertically held large frame-drum) were already
available in the seventeenth century.
As to the musicians themselves, whether singers or instrumentalists, in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and even later very few could be con-
sidered ‘professionals’ in the contemporary sense of the term. The amateur–
professional distinction was usually blurred. Relatively few musicians recorded
in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century historical sources seem to have earned
their living mainly through their art and/or to have been socially perceived
as musicians only. Less than a quarter of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-
century musicians found in Atrab
¨
ul-
ˆ
as
ˆ
ar are on record as having had, at one
time or another, some kind of appointment in, or financial connection with, the
palace. The number of musicians attached to the palace, even during the reign
of Selim III, that most musical of rulers, never exceeded fifteen or twenty.
38
Non-governmental sources of income for musicians were also probably scanty
and irregular, since the teaching and transmission of music did not usually
involve any direct financial reward, considered unethical in many instances.
39
Secular forms and the fasıl suite
Of the pre-sixteenth-century Middle Eastern compound form, the nawba or
nevbet and its various components (kavl, gazel, terane, f
¨
urudast, etc.), not much
seems to have been directly transmitted to the Ottoman/Turkish musical
tradition.
40
Even in the 1650s the Ali Ufkı collection of notations shows that
the new Ottoman/Turkish vocal forms – the nakıs¸, semai and murabba‘ (or
murabba ‘beste) – were already well established.
41
This collection also contains a
substantial numberof ilahis and of folk formslike the t
¨
urk
¨
u and the varsagi. Only
38 Uzunc¸ars¸ılı, ‘Osmanlılar’. 39 Behar, Zaman.
40 Wright, Words without Songs,p.154.
41 Ali Ufk
ˆ
ı, ‘Mecmua’, Biblioth
`
eque Nationale de France, Manuscrits Orientaux, MS Turc
292; Ali Ufk
ˆ
ı, ‘Mecmua-yi saz u s
¨
oz’, British Library, MS Sloane 3114.
405
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fifty years later, the fasıl suite, as performed by an ensemble of instrumentalists
and singers, was described in detail by Cantemir.
The fasıl is an articulated compound form, a sort of concert suite that
includes a fixed sequence of different types of pieces, with modal unity. It begins
with a taksim (instrumental improvisation) introducing both performers and
audience to the ‘ethos’ of the makam selected. Then comes an instrumental
prelude (pes¸rev), usually composed of three or four parts (hane) each followed
by a refrain (teslim). The fasıl ends with another instrumental piece, a saz
semai, which has a similar form but most often features an aksak rhythm of
10/8. Between these two instrumental pieces are placed various vocal genres:
a k
ˆ
ar, one or more bestes, semais and s¸arkıs, most often in that precise order.
Improvisations, vocal or instrumental, may also be woven into the middle
section of the fasıl.
The structure of the fasıl was not as rigid as it may seem, and the performers
were always allowed to skip certain items, or else multiply one or more of the
component forms by adding pieces of their own choice. Some other formal
characteristics of the fasıl took shape only at the end of the eighteenth century
and probably during or immediately after the reign of Selim III. A sequence
of two bestes and two semais gradually became an established sub-structure
within the vocal section of the fasıl. The first beste was to have a relatively
long and the second a shorter rhythmic cycle. As to the semais, the first, called
a
˘
gır semai, had a 10/8 rhythmic pattern and was to be played before the other,
called y
¨
ur
¨
uk semai, which had a 6/4 or 6/8 ternary rhythmic cycle. This sub-
structure of two bestes and two semais came to be called a takım (a team) in
the nineteenth-century, and musicians started composing whole takımsinthe
same mode.
Other nineteenth-century developments include, for instance, the sequenc-
ing of the various s¸arkıs (lighter songs) within the fasıl according to the number
of time-units in their rhythmic patterns. Those s¸arkıs having the longer pattern
and/or those with a slower tempo were to be played first. The fasıl has, in the
late nineteenth century, also accommodated some imported lighter instru-
mental forms such as the Greek sirto or the Romanian Gypsy longa, which
now often replace or complement the final saz semai. The adjunction of a
k
¨
oc¸ekc¸e (a light song-suite for dancing) after the s¸arkıs and just before the saz
semai is also a nineteenth-century development. Even the sacrosanct principle
of modal unity in the fasıl could eventually be abandoned, provided a transi-
tional instrumental improvisation (gecis¸ taksimi) was appropriately inserted.
The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries span a crucial period in the
long, creative and heterogeneous history of Ottoman/Turkish art music. The
406
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The Ottoman musical tradition
end of this period coincides with the beginnings of the so-called process of
‘Westernisation’. In the early 1800s, during the reigns of Selim III and Mah-
mud II, two music-loving rulers who were themselves musicians and com-
posers, some European impact on musical forms and styles was already being
felt. In general, however, the various European influences were assimilated
and integrated into the already well-established musical tradition much more
easily and with more self-confidence than is usually imagined. For the ‘golden
age’, so to speak, of the Ottoman/Turkish musical tradition was indeed the
nineteenth century.
407
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