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Prof. Ilhan Usmanbas
- Mimar Sinan University
Around 1930s a handful of Turkish musicians formed the first
generation of composers by their first creations to open a new path
away from an old conception of art which lasted for many centuries.
We may call this a daring step from one civilisation to another.
Daring, because not only the external aspects of this music are
different from the old one, but also the methods, of its conception
and realization needed new approaches. Besides in each work,
considering its form and category, a different technique and
expression should be used. So this young generation of composers
should take into consideration the whole contemporary musical secene
instead of obeying, as in older times, to the ideas and feeelings of
a limited musical circle and to the heavy restrictions of an
immovable Ottoman tradition. In order to understand the musician of
the Ottoman past entirely, it is necessary to comprehend his social
and artistic milieu, his aims towards his own artistic creation, his
personality, his self-imposed duties. To define the artist of the
Ottoman period will illuminate the contemporary Turkish composer who
is a new and fresh product of two disparate cultures.
The art in the Ottoman period is like an immense river, flowing
steadily and uniformly, fixed in its course, without torrents,
without cascades, nurished by small and modest streams; a river
feeding all its surroundings but unaware of its own sources. This
majestic eastern river, because of many important transformations of
the new society in which it flows is beginning to change its
direction, hence its own character, to gain a universal identity
during 1930s.
What is the eastern world? Who is the eastern artist? East is a
cocoon, completely coiled up in itself. The last thousand years of
Anatolia, cradle of many civilisations, bears the very mark of an
eastern society, with all its strengths and weaknesses. This is such
an outlook of life that it combines the idea of an unquestionably
immortal life with that of an easily forgotten past. The artist in
the East sees himself as a poor, worthless drop in a big ocean. He
even restrains himself from signing his own works. But he jealously
conceals the secrets of his art, to reveal them only to his disciple
in whom he believes they will take root. He is not wholly
responsible to himself nor to his society. He believes his talent is
a gift of God's grace. He does not want to explain, to judge, to
criticize that gift donated to him. The secrets of the art can only
be transmitted to those who are chosen like himself. This is why the
artist of the East is reserved about himself. If he explains
something, it is not more than tiny bits of his vast erudition.
Analyzing, explaining, criticising are not part of the eastern
thinking. To criticize his own art is to criticize the divine gift.
By seeing himself out of the critical attitude the eastern artist
secures himself an endless peace and to his own art a uniform course
without disturbances. He is out of the society in which he lives.
Not because he is against it or despises it, on the contrary, he is
absolutely part of it, even a very humble part, humble but esteemed.
He is out of the society simply because he does not try to change it
neither by his behaivour nor by his art. He accepts the artist's
duty as an obedience. As the divine order is once for all pronounced
for him and for the society, it only remains for him to carry out to
its best the details of it. Thus, his slight link of responsibility
towards the society turns out to be more and more a mellow ball of
threads, so soft that in the end it becomes imperceptible.
How much this old music lives in the new contemporary Turkish music;
this old, stately, uniform river which unexpectedly changed its
direction? Did it compeletely disspear?
Any tradition, unless unmistakably dead, is bound to tolerate new
interpretations. Contemporary Turkish composers, as artists brought
forth a different conception of being artist, but kept, surprisingly
enough, many characteristics of the traditional music. Where were
they seemed most remote to this music they caught the very core of
it. At this point we witness the contemporary artist's individual
approach to the tradition, his venture to change it, in a way to
mould it to his own taste. It will be interesting to examine some of
the works in order to grasp what is secretly but persistently
continuous and what is alterable and subject to fantasy:
The slow movement of the String Quartet (1935) of Cemal Resit Rey
(1904-1985) is a long single line melody; this melody retains the
peculiarities of seemingly endles curves of our old music. It is
supposedly a duplication of the original. But no! For this long
melody is uninterruptedly echoed, like in an empty room; the music
bears a totally different meaning from the old canon idea, because
the melody repeatedly coils up by coming to its own beginning. The
idea of catching in the canon is somewhat dissolved to become only
an expansion of the time.
Another example of this sort comes also from the slow movement of
the Ist String Quartet (1947) of A. Adnan Saygun (1907-1991). A
triple canon but blurred because all three voices are sometimes on
one another. To complete the atmosphere the violoncello imitates a
darabukka.
The idea of a complete suspension of the time, possibly a general
characteristic of our traditional music, is also seen in other
composers (A topic to be treated: The time process in the western
music developing by contrasts of the parts and harmonic processes
securing for being aware where are we of the listening process,
against, in the traditional eastern music, parts being not
contrasting but complementary, makes the time dimension like being
webs of tunnels one inside the other). Necil Kazim Akses (1908- ) in
his orchestral work called "Ankara Castle" (1942), in his
Ist Symphony (1966) and in his String Trio (1945) uses passages of
different aksak rythms of small particles to give us a sensation of
timelessness. In Ilhan Usmanbas's (the author of these lines, 1921-
) work called "Senlikname" (1970) it is attempted to draw
a parallelism to the two-dimensional painting of the East. For Ilhan
Berk's (1916- ) poem of the same title, the music (basso, women
chorus, harp and percussion) tries to follow the curves of the
speech, making some sort of ornaments around chorus' single tone D,
to obtain just like an oriental miniature without special dimension.
Everything, even the bass line seems glued to D sound. As the poem
takes us somewhere in a fixed past, the music becomes exempt of any
movement, of any development.
All these retrospective revaluations by the new generations of
Turkish composers signify particularly an important fact that it
existed through ages a continuous conception and practice of
composition in Turkish culture. Although during the Ottoman period,
the music subsisted only orally, the idea of separate and completed
work, of opus number was always present for the composers. That
makes a considerable difference from the music practice of other
eastern cultures where the music lives only by improvisations on
fixed rules (Persia and India). For this reason, the composition
practice of four hundred years was easily adapted by new
generations. Where in other eastern cultures composition is an
inseperable part of virtuoso playing, the contemporary Turkish
composers, although some of them remarkably fine instrumentalists,
made their career only by composing (of course by teaching).
The new Turkish culture period brought us also a conception of
national music. One of the eminent composers of the new generation
Prof. Cengiz Tanc (1933- ) explains this with the following terms:
"If we want to establish certain stages in our contemporary
music such as passing from monody to polyphony, than to a conception
of nationality and from that, to the common contemporary scene, we
must say that all these were realised step by step by passing
from restricted local thought to worldwide all embracing music
arena. Only then the conception of a national music has for me any
meaning."
To reach such a state of universal thought which will embrace also
local hence national idiom, the education and training in the field
of composition must have very strong and appropriate roots. In fact,
the composition teaching which began in 1940s in the Ankara State
Conservatory, which continues today (1977) together in the Istanbul
State Conservatory have unmistakably universal standarts like in any
other country. But what is, first of all, teaching composition?
Teaching composition is a dilemma. Painstaking acquisition of the
past techniques..equally hard study up to the minor details of the
20th century composition..then, to say, very naively, to the poor
student: "Now you can write what you wish, you can write as you
wish! Nobody can dare to stop you". A true example of education
for freedom! A very bewildering freedom, indeed. Because after the
graduation the student will endure so much different pressures: From
music institutions, to write for them easily understandable small
pieces if he/she wants that his/her music to be played; pressures of
not being played, not being edited, not being listened to. As a
member of a society, as an artist, the composer will not forget
his/her art's ethics. But after being educated in a free society as
a free artist, just at the threshold for using this freedom, the
composer will realize the cost that has to be paid. He/she will
renounce to offer his/her works to the public to carry out other
jobs, like teaching, conducting, coaching, newspaper reviewing,
piano tuning, copying notation.. There are indeed many suitable jobs
for the composer! If by any chance he/she finds the right company
who accepts hartily his/her works and pay for it. Then the
composer's honor is saved. Otherwise this profession is no more than
a delightful hobby.
That is why the teaching of composition must embrace all the ages,
all the regions. For, what is instructed is not a profession, it is
the history of humanity, the history of its brain and heart. Only
with this new method in teaching versus our old one directional art
conception the modern student can reach a better development. The
artist in the old Ottoman civilization did not differ his own art
from that of his master, not even from himself. Eastern
society never doubted the validity of this identification. That is
why they never existed any controversy among conceptions, not even
intrigues. The ageing generation left quitely his place while the
new one came to take peacefully its own. No argument, no defence, no
dispute. A permanent continuiety. Nevertheless it is not at
all possible today to live without time consciousness. Time is
either our friend or our enemy. In both cases it must be mastered.
If an eastern country with its social, economic and cultural
standarts is on the way to adopt universal values, in other terms:
Changing its dogmatic beliefs on human, cultural, scientific
realities, it must undergo strong changes, together with its music.
Thus the new generations of Turkish composers caught, in a very
short time lapse, the universal language. This language is no means
a limited one. Those unlimited possibilites carries in makes its
foremost difference form the old traditional music. Now every
generation of ten or fifteen years of period offers new conceptions,
new sounds, new resources.
In the forthcoming years, we do not know what will be the
influences, the problems and their solutions for the new
generations. What is sure, is that in music the multiplicity of
techniques, of expressions will be greater than ever. In spite of
the phenomenal expansion of the information resources which will
possibly create more uniform standarts than diversities, the
individual creations however will be more and more privately carried
out and confined in small circles. All these conjectures are equally
valid for any country accepting a universal language in music. This
adoption includes no doubt the adoption of all the working
conditions in the musical field: Those are, besides musical
creation, scientific research, education, publicity, strong
institutions, a media of higher artistic standarts, an efficient
intercommunication among artists, a better policy to encourage
creation.. In short, all what we artists expect for a better world.
FURTHER READING
Ilyasoglu, Evin. Cemal Resit Rey, Yapi Kredi Kultur Sanat
Yayincilik, Istanbul, 1997
Basegmezler, Nejat. Necil Kazım Akses'e Armagan, Sevda Cenap And
Muzik Vakfi Yayinlari, Ankara, 1993
Ilyasoglu, Evin. Ilhan Usmanbas'a Armagan, Sevda Cenap And Muzik Vakfi
Yayinlari, Ankara, 1994
A.Adnan Saygun'a Armagan, Sevda Cenap And Muzik Vakfı Yayinlari,
Ankara, 1990
Say, Ahmet. The Music Makers in Turkey, Music Encyclopedia
Publication, Ankara, 1995
Behar, Cem. Zaman, Mekan, Muzik, AFA Yayincilik, Istanbul, 1993
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