|
|
- by CIHAT AKIN
- Contents
- String
Tradition In Turkish Music
- The Violin
And Its Usage
- Violin
Education
- Tuning
- Notable
Violinists In Turkish Music
String Tradition In Turkish Music
There has been a string playing tradition
in Turkish Music, long before the violin was brought in to the Ottoman
Empire. The most used string instruments were; the Iklig, Gicek,
Ki-yak, Kopuz and Kemence. In the late centuries only the Kemence
became the main instrument. Like the kemence; Iklig, Gicek, Kiyak and
bowed Kopuz was also played on the knee.
- The kemençe consists of two words in
Persian. Keman and Ce: Keman means violin and ce is small, then we
can con-sider the Kemence as a small violin and it held the place of
the violin in classical Turkish Music. The Kemençe has three
strings and tuned in fourths and fifths. However there is an-other
type of Kemence, which has four strings. This had been used by
Kemenceci Vasilaki for the first time. Huseyin Saad-eddin Arel
re-used the four stringed kemence as an alternative to the western
violin and tuned it as same as violin which in-creases the
possibilities of the instrument. But when the west-ern violin
entered in to the classical Turkish Music, it was ri-valled by the
kemence. Therefore there are stylistic differ-ences between the two
instruments and must not be compared with each other because the
kemence has a different playing technique and style. Some of the
violin players of the late century has imitated the style of kemence
in violin playing and established a kind of different violin sound.
Keman is a very old Persian word. It was used for the violin in
Istanbul for the first time. The stem of word Keman in Per-sian is:
Hemiden which means bowing or bending. In all western languages the
meaning of the word Bow is the same as in Turkish: Yay. Bow means ok
in Turkish. There is an instrument called Iklig in Anatolia.. The
bow of Iklig was also called keman and the performer ke-manci in
Anatolian Turkish. Today, keman refers to the European violin. But
two centuries ago keman was not the same instrument which we know as
an European violin. The old keman is called the Rebab today.
Before the violin was brought in to Turkey, the Sinekeman occupied
the place of the violin. Rauf Yekta Bey suggests that Sinekeman
together with the Ney and the Tambur estab-lished an excellent trio
in the peak time of the Turkish Music at the time of the Sultan
Selim III. Rauf Yekta suggests some claims such as Sinekeman being
brought in to Turkey by Miron, a Moldavian violinist during the time
of Sultan Selim III (1789-1807). But Sinekeman was played long
be-fore 1789. Toderini who lived in Istanbul between 1781 till 1786
suggests that Sinekeman was already common among the Turks. Although
Sinekeman is not a Turkish instrument, Rauf Yekta suggests that we
do not know the exact date of the first time it was used. There was
already a tradition of violin playing among the non-muslim musicians
such as Ke-mani Yorgi Aga, Kemani Anastasios and Kemani Stefano.
Probably the oldest examples of the violins were found in cities
such as, Istanbul and Trabzon as a result of being in commercial
contact with Latin countries. Rauf Yekta Bey suggested that the
violin was brought in to the Ottoman Em-pire from Austria- Hungary
via Serbia and the Balkans. But It is not known exactly when the
violin appeared in the Otto-man Empire. Although it did not appear
in Turkish Music immediately, it was common among the people and in
the Kahvehane-s (Cafe or Tea rooms). But it was Yorgi, a fa-mous
violinist who introduced the modern violin to the bour-geoisie.
Sixteen years after Fonton, another westerner Blain-ville mentioned
Yorgi as the violinist of the Sultan. Aksoy claims that an older
document than Fonton and Blainville ex-ists, which is the picture of
‘’Turkish Musicians playing the violin’ by a Swiss painter
called Liotard. But the oldest document is Paralleles des Ancients
et des Modernes a book by Perrault. Perrault mentioned an Iranian
violinist who played the violin in the French ambassador’s
residence in Is-tanbul. But we do not know if the violin was a
western type or eastern.
The Violin And Its Usage
The violin took its place in Turkish Music
even in the Der-vishes convent. It was also used to perform in groups
at the palace. The number of violins in these groups increased
gradually. One of the writers of the 19th Century says (Ozalp Derleme)
‘...There were cafe’s in different places of Istanbul that were
like concert halls. In those places occasionally performers such as
the kemençe players Vasilaki, the violinists Tatyos, Memduh and
Tanburi Ovakim.... who were well known, would give concerts on Fridays
and Sundays. in day time and at night. Towards the end of the 19th
Century these cafes were called Semai Cafes. The mu-sic which was
performed in those places had different motives from Turkish Folk
Music and classical Turkish Music. At the same time, performing in
casinos became a profes-sion. The most magnificent month for these
places was the Ramadan. People who wanted to listen to Poem and Music
recitals used to visit these places..’
- REFERENCES
The violin brought its own culture when it came to the Otto-man
Empire. The most important factor of that culture was the Gypsy
players. When the Ottoman army gained a new ter-ritory, Gypsies were
moving and re-establishing themselves in there. Gypsies spread
Turkish culture over Europe and took the European culture in to the
new Turkish territories. An Hungarian writer made following
explanation. (A.H.Tanpinar: Ismail Dede, Musiki ve Niota , Vol. 32
- p.21)REFERENCES AND WRITER
" ... It is a known fact that, our musicians play with Turkish
instruments and in Turkish style... Our violinists were mostly from
among Turkish prisoners of war.... Our peo-ple were used to having
Turkish singers and players... It is clear that, there was a close
relationship between Turkish and Hungarian players. In those days,
Gypsies were settled down in the places where the army had been.
Therefore those Gypsies had an important role as Turkish Music
became known widely in the Balkans... Generally, Gypsy players
walked around in pairs. One used to play the violin, the other used
to play ‘the‘Saz’ ( and instru-ment also called ‘
Baglama’)... During the war, it was much easier to find Gypsy
play-ers. Once captured they were not released be-cause it was
difficult to find good violinist and Zurna (a wind instrument)
players, thus there were Turkish singers in Hungarian castles and
Hungarian singers and players in Turkish cas-tles". REFERENCES
Violin Education
The violin was not taught in schools. The
style was unique. Violinists, singers, kemence players etc. performed
in the same style because composers did not write any music for
particular instruments. They did of course compose music with or
without words, but instrumental music was played by every instrument.
Every instrument performed the same pieces, but in a different way.
Turkish Music was not devel-oped as the polyphonic music was. They all
played in unison. They did not bother to sing the works in different
keys. Male or female voices performed the same works. Therefore
par-ticular techniques of the instruments or voices were not
de-veloped in an academic way. There was no work written es-pecially
for the violin so it was not expected to have an edu-cational method
for the instrument. Violinists, always stud-ied learned and performed
from memory. Many of them be-came violinists from studying on their
own. They sometimes listened to other players and sometimes imitated
them. When one looks at the life story of many Turkish violinists, one
sees that usually, they had learned to play the violin from their
father. There were innumerable Gypsy, Armenian, Turkish and Greek
violinists in the late Ottoman Empire. This was one of the great
examples of the mixed culture.
Tuning
Players did nor use the western tuning
system although they changed the chanterelle to one tone lower. When
we look at the past, before the violin and Sinekeman were used, the
first strings of the Kemence and the Rebab were tuned to D. When the
keman first appeared in Istanbul the tuning did not suit the players
and they changed the first string to one tone lower which nowadays is
still the case, although some Turk-ish Music players use the
international tuning system today. Another opinion is that, before
they were met with the mod-ern violin, they were using the Sinekeman
and the first string of it, was tuned to D. When the violin was
introduced, they had some difficulty to play it with the chanterelle E
and they changed it into D.
I have heard personally the following opinion from a famous Kemence
player Cuneyd Orhon. He said that some of the makams in Turkish Music
are very difficult to perform on the violin. These makams in the high
pitches have got critical in-tervals especially on Gerdaniye (D)
Therefore it was easier to play with them on the open string and they
usually played with the same tuning.
The violin entered and being used in Turkey as a result of the
entrance of western tradition and music. We find out that, earliest
relationship between Turkish and Western Music has started in the 16th
Century. François I, then the king of France, had sent an ensemble to
the Suleyman II as early as 1543. Elizabeth I had also sent an organ
as a present to the Sultan Murat III in 1599. But the real occupation
of the western music started in 1826. When the Sultan Mahmut II
abandoned the old Jannisary army, he founded a modern army called
Nizam-_ Cedid. Therefore the old mehter band as a part of the old
military tradition was also disbanded, a new western style brass team
was established. In two years time (1828) Giuseppe Donizetti was
invited and he founded the first western style military band. The band
became the Sultan’s Music Ensemble so called Muzika-i Humayun.
Support for western Music increased. Opera and Theatre companies
appeared and there were performances at the Pal-ace in Istanbul that
was then the capital of the Ottoman Em-pire. Great virtuosos came from
Europe to give concerts, in-cluding Franz Liszt and Henry Vieuxtemps.
Mesut Cemil Tel who is the son of Tamburi Cemil Bey, writes in his
book called ‘Tanburi Cemil Bey’ in Hayati’,
‘...When Vieuxtemps visited Istanbul, Tan-buri Cemil Bey played for
him. Vieuxtemps was impressed with his playing and marvel-lous bow
technique. REFERENCE
Even violinists such as Wieniawsky composed works influ-enced by
Turkish Music. The best example is his Oriental Fantasy for violin and
piano Op.24.
Notable Violinists In Turkish Music
According to a pamphlet written by
Suleyman Faik Efendi, Musahip Hizir Aga and Kemani Ali Aga were famous
in the second half of the 18th century. It was written by Evliya
Celebi that there were about 80 professional Kemence players in the
middle of the 18th century. They were called Kemani because the Rebab
was called keman. Evliya Celebi also mentioned Ahmed Celebi ( ?-1720)
who was the favourite pupil of Kemani Mustafa Aga. He also mentions
the names of two other players, Kursuncuzade and Murad Celebi.
Unfortunately we do not have any information about the style of the
older violinists, as we do not know if they played Re-bab, Sinekeman
or the western violin.
Kemani Ali Aga was born in Istanbul and studied in Enderun. After his
graduation, he became sergeant of the treasury, companion of Selim
III. Afterwards he became chief muezzin and was given a nickname Ali
Efendi. He died at the age of 60. He played the oriental violin
(Rebab) at the palace with well known musicians such as Dede Efendi,
Dellalzade Shakir Aga etc. Kemani Yorgi Aga (18th Century) as
mentioned above was one of the first violinist to use the western
violin in Turkish Music. He was a violinist and composer of the palace
also worked in Enderun, during the time of Sultan Selim III and Mahmud
I. Another pioneer violinist along with Yorgi, was Miron (18th
Century), he was from Moldovia. Yorgi, Miron and Todori influenced
each other. However, Yorgi had played the oriental violin (as we call
it Rebab today.) before he played the western violin. His teacher was
Kemani Ali Aga. Kemani Hizir Aga (18th Century) and Sadik Aga
(1757-1815) were also important violinists of the 18th century.
Avram Barzilay was a violinist of Jewish origin. Towards the end of
the 18th century he lived in Thessaloniki. Among the famous
compositions there are two pesrevs in Cargah and Pencgah modes. His
grandson Barzilay also continued to perform in the same tradition.
Hamparsum Limonciyan was born in Istanbul in 1768. He was a composer
and violin-ist of Armenian origin. He attended churches and dervishes
convents to make music. He also took lessons from Ismail Dede Efendi.
He invented a new notation system with en-couragement from Selim III.
He died in 1839. Hamza Aga ( died in 1830s) and Bedros Comlekciyan
(1785-1840) were among the well known violinists of the 18th century
as well.
Kemani Riza Efendi lived between 1780 and 1852. His style was very
classical and dominated the Turkish Music un-til Tanburi Cemil’s
style became popular. He also taught the violin in Harem-i Humayun
Music Performance Group.
In the 19th Century the art of violin playing developed. In the first
half of the 19th Century Sinekemani Agop and a gypsy player Denizoglu
Kemani Ali Bey were important influ-ences to its development and in
the 2nd half of the 19th Cen-tury, there were many violinists who were
exposed to the new recording medium of that era.
One of the famous violinists was Kemani Aleksan Aga (1850?-1910?). He
was usually known as Kemani Aga, lived in Istanbul. When Darulmusiki-i
Osmani was established un-der the patronage of Shehzade Ziyaeddin
Efendi in Istanbul, he had worked there as a teacher. He was the
teacher of Ke-mani Serkis and Kemani Mustafa Sunar. He also gave
private lessons to the children of wealthy families. Kemani Aleksan
Aga’s style left an important mark on the other violinists. After
his death, the other musicians continued to play in his style.
Necabeddin, who played the violin in the Turkish Music State Ensemble,
was one of Aleksan Aga’s followers. Through out his life he was
known as the master of the violin. He made records of Taksims, Yegah,
Segah and Saba makams and made compositions as vocal and instrumental
pieces. According to Öztuna, he improved his art by imitating the
others before him. Öztuna PAGE NUMBER Unfortu-nately, no recorded
example of his work survives today.
Another famous violinist was Kemani Sebuh. He was also called Kör
Sebuh because of his blindness. He played the violin in Muzika-i
Humayun for a while and worked at night clubs for a long time. His
lively and characteristic playing style can be seen in his
compositions ‘ Oyun Havalari’. Vio-linist Tatyos Efendi was one of
his students.
Another violinists of Armenian descent was Melekzet Efendi. He was
born in Istanbul in 1857. He was also known as a singer. He went to
Egypt and established a Music Society in Cairo and taught in several
Armenian Schools. He died in Cairo, in 1937.
One of the pupils of Kemani Sebuh was Tatyos Efendi and he was also of
Armenian descent. Tatyos Efendi was born in Istanbul in 1858. He
studied with Kemani Sebuh. He worked as a performer in Pirinççi
Night Club for a while, he was an alcoholic and died of cirrhosis at
the age of 55 in 1913. He was one of the teachers of Mustafa Sunar.
Kemani Bulbuli Salih Efendi was born in the second half of the 19th
century and died in 1923.
- He was of Gypsy origin and became very
famous in the night clubs and because of he imitated the nightingale
and was called Bulbuli. He was one of the teachers of Mustafa Sunar.
He often played with Tanburi Cemil Bey and left some re-cordings.
We can find out from his recordings that his style is very plain and
does not use ornaments as much as the others. His vibrato is an arm
and wrist vibrato as we can perceive from the recording. He does not
use finger vibrato very often. Much of the time he uses continuous
vibrato. Sometimes he does not use any vibrato. He defines the
differences between the notes clearly. He has a small but musical,
non-creamy and sweet tone. His intonation is always correct even in
the high pitches. He alternates the amount of bow he uses for the
characteristics of the melodies.
- Kemani Andon ( ?-1915) and Kemani
Dikran ( ?-1924) were the important violinists of the second half of
the 19th century. Another violinist Kemani Kirkor was born in
Is-tanbul in 1868, he was of Armenian origin and also studied
religious music. He worked in different churches as a singer and he
even wrote the notes of the traditional Jewish rites for the chief
Rabbi. He joined Darul Musiki-i Osmani as a per-former. He also made
some records. He died in 1938.
Kemani Memduh lived between 1868 and1938. He was of a gypsy origin
and was born in Istanbul. He played in the pres-ence of Abdulhamid
II several times. He also made records and he was one of the first
users of western tuning system.
Sinekemani Mehmet Nuri Duyguer (1877-1963) was born in Istanbul. He
learnt the Kanun from his sister and he took music lessons from
Enderuni Ali Bey. He composed songs and was admitted into
conservatory performing ensemble by Arel. He taught many students.
He both played the violin and Sinekeman.
- Kemani Serkis (1885-1944) was of
Armenian origin and was born in Istanbul. His teacher was Kemani
Aleksan Aga. He played the violin in the school of Muallim Ismail
Hakki Bey in Laleli, Istanbul, later on he emigrated to Paris and
died there.
Haydar Tatliyay was a violinist of Gypsy origin. He was born in
Draman in 1890, started to play the violin at the age of eight. In
1914, he emigrated to Canakkale and worked in the clubs in Izmir
region. In 1928, he went to Egypt and stayed there for 4 years. He
also stayed in Haleppo for three years and came back to Istanbul.
His style was arabesque and his compositions display the influence
of Arab Music. He used to practice regularly. In a short time, he
was called the Paganini of Turkish Music. His instrumental works
were a revolution for the instrumental Turkish Music. But nobody was
able to play them because of the difficulties of the tech-nical
passages. However, he was a great technician but was poor musically.
His musical taste was far away from the style of Turkish Music. He
used some Arabic tunes in his taksims that affected his position in
Turkish Music Society. He did not know to read the music, always
played by memory. In his playing, he played very long phrases which
were full of or-naments. He used finger vibrato when he needed. He
did not need to use the vibrato much of the time because the
orna-ments did the same job. His playing was far from classical
Turkish music, but there is technical brilliancy in his record-ings.
Mustafa Sunar was also born in Draman. In spite of his family
reservations he studied music. He taught in schools for a while.
After 1945 he worked as a performer in the Istanbul Conservatory. He
also taught in Eyub Music Society. He died in Ankara in 1961. He had
improved his playing by taking private tuition from Kemani Aleksan
Aga, Kemani Tatyos Efendi, Kemani Memduh and Bulbuli Salih Efendi.
At the same time he was a very good performer of the Sinekeman and
Rebab.
- Resad Erer was born in Istanbul in
1899. He began to play the violin when he was a child and soon
became famous. He was one of the founders of Darulelhan and
Darultalim-i Mu-siki. Although he took lessons from some tutors, he
was largely self-taught. He was influenced by Tanburi Cemil Bey.
When we listened to his violin playing, it is obvious to see this
influence. His style was much more close to that of the Kemence. He
died in 1940 in Ankara.
- Sadi Isilay was born in Istanbul in
1899. He first studied with his father. Later he attended the Darul
Musiki-i Osmani Music Society. He was taken to a tour to
Thessaloniki when he was just at twelve. After Erer’s death he
took his place in the Municipal Conservatory Performing Ensemble. He
was one of the most important violinist of traditional Turkish
Mu-sic. His virtuosity was not satisfying but his musical quality
was extraordinary. He used very long bows and did not play any false
notes. He played with a musical and strong sound but the sound
quality itself was not satisfying. He died in Is-tanbul, 1969.
Cevdet Çagla was born in Istanbul in 1900 and was one of the most
precocious violinists. His parents were fond of mu-sic. His father
was an amateur violinist and his mother was a pianist. Çagla gained
his first musical knowledge throughout his childhood in his musical
environment. Although his par-ents dealt with classical Turkish
music, they wanted him to study western music. As a matter of fact
he began to take his first lessons from Ama Hafiz Osman. When he was
at the age of six, he started to take private lessons from
Antoniyadis, who was an expert tutor of western music. Çagla soon
im-proved and was sent to Germany where he stayed for two and a half
years and completed his music and high school educa-tion. Having
returned to Turkey, he attended Istanbul Econ-omy and Trade College.
Meanwhile, he joined in Darultalim-i Musical Society and worked
there for 15 years. Within this period he took part in many concerts
both in Istanbul and abroad. He worked in radio broadcasting when
Istanbul Radio was established in 1927. Then in 1938 he was
appointed to the chief performer post. In those years, he belonged
to the Ankara Music Society which was established by the composer
Fehmi Tokay.
- Between 1950-1956 he worked as a chief
of Istanbul Radio Music Broadcasting. Later on, he was appointed to
Baghdad Conservatory as a violin teacher in accordance with the
cul-tural relations between Turkish and Iraqi governments in 1956
for three years. Çagla gained here a well deserved fame all around
the Arab world, giving concerts on radio and televi-sion. When he
came back to Istanbul he continued to work as a chief of music
broadcasts. He also taught in the Turkish Music State Conservatory
until his death in 1988.
- Hakki Derman was born in Istanbul in
1907. He began to play the violin at the age of ten. When he was
twelve, he joined in Besiktas Musical Society where he met Serif
Icli and studied with him for a long time. He graduated from
Be-siktas Gazi Osman Pasha High School and in 1926 graduated with a
degree in Pharmacology. He worked as a performer for a while and
then he was accepted to Istanbul Radio. In 1931 he took part in a
tour to Greece for three months. In 1936 he was transferred to
Ankara Radio. Between 1937 and 1940 he studied chemistry and became
a chemist in the Municipality. Then he came to Istanbul and worked
there in the radio and in many clubs as a performer. In 1966 he was
chosen as a sec-ond president of the control commission in Istanbul
Radio. In 1967 he joined in repertoire commission. He never dealt
the art of composition and remained as a performer.
- He played in an extraordinary way with
his own very dex-trous and frisky bow technique. His style
influenced many musicians. He made various recordings. When his
style is ob-served, one can see his quick and lively bow style. He
gener-ally uses short bows and plays at the tip most of the time. He
does not use long bows and his phrases are not long like that of
Haydar Tatliyay’s. His intonation is impeccable and tone is very
sweet. He often uses the bowing effect of Ponticello. In his
playing, very fast notes can be observed. He does not use his
technique for virtuosity as Haydar Tatliyay does. The technique
helps him to have a better musical sound and he uses this very well.
- Nobar Tekyay was born in Istanbul, in
1906. He was of Armenian origin and his real name was Nobar Çomlekçiyan.
When he was six, he started to learn music from his father who was a
well-known Ud player. First he learned western music but later
performed Turkish music. He worked in some clubs and the Istanbul
Radio for a while and then went to Paris where he stayed for a few
years. On his return he worked in Istanbul Radio again. He died in
1955.
Nobar Tekyay opened a new age in violin playing in Turkish music by
making a synthesis of western technique and Turk-ish music. He
produced a smooth sound on the violin. He had a sweet tone and used
arm vibrato. He used both long and short bows. He also used double
stops in his performances. He used his technique purely for musical
purposes.
Today younger generations do not know about the musical
personalities of their recent heritage. They do not even search for
them. The style of performing traditional Turkish Music is close to
extinction as there is no link between the younger and the older
generations. It is no longer traditional. Musicians are creating a
degenerate industrial music. No one is listening to Tekyays, Caglas
and Cemils.
- MUSIC EXAMPLE:
MAHUR PESREV BY TANBURI CEMIL BEY
THE ORIGINAL VERSION
MUSIC EXAMPLE:
MAHUR PESREV BY TANBURI CEMIL BEY
AS PLAYED BY KEMANI BULBULI SALIH EFENDI
Bibliography
AKSOY, Bulent: Avrupali Gezginlerin
Gozuyle Osmanlilarda Musiki, / Music in the Ottoman in the Eyes of
European Travellers, Pan Publications, Istanbul 1994
ASKIN, Cihat: The Violin in Turkey, Master Thesis, City University of
London, 1992
FARMER, Georg Henry: A History of Arabian Music to the 13th Century,
Luzac & Company Ltd., 1973
FARMER, Georg Henry: Historical Facts of the Arabian Mu-sical
Influence, Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim, 1970
FARMER, Georg Henry: The Music of Islam, Oxford Uni-versity Press,
London, 1975
FONTON, Charles: 18. Yuzyilda Turk Muzigi / Turkish Mu-sic in the 18th
Century, Ed. Cem Behar, Pan Publications, Is-tanbul 1987
KALAYCIOGLU, Rahmi: Turk Musikisi Bestekarlari Kulli-yati, Favori
Print House, Istanbul, 1978
KUTAHYALI, Onder: Çagdas Muzik Tarihi / Contemporary Music History,
Varol Press, Ankara 1981
NEUMAN, Frederick: Ornamentation in Baroque and Post-Baroque Music,
Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 1978
OGEL, Bahaeddin: Turk Kultur ve Medeniyet Tarihi / His-tory of Turkish
Culture and Civilization, Milli Egitim Print House
OZALP, Dr. Nazmi: TRT Turk Musikisi Tarihi / History of Turkish Music
of Turkish Radio Television, Collection, vol. 1
RAUF YEKTA BEY: Turk Musikisi / Turkish Music, Trans-lator: Orhan
Nasuhioglu, Pan Publications, Istanbul 1986
TANPINAR, Ahmet Hamdi: Ismail Dede, Musiki ve Nota Mecmuasi, vol. 32
TEL, Mesut Cemil: Tanburi Cemil Bey’ in Hayati / Life of Tanburi
Cemil Bey, Istanbul
WELLESZ, Egon: A History of Byzantine Music and Hym-nography, Oxford,
1961
ZONIS, Ella: Classical Persian Music- An Introduction, Har-vard
University Press, 1973
|
Music
For Sale Online Shopping
