![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
It's Forgotten Masterpiece Friday!
In the 18th and early 19th centuries, Viennese society went crazy for all things Turkish. Music was no exception to the trend: all the leading composers of the day, including Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, produced what they referred to as "Turkish music." This was, of course, ersatz Turkish music filtered through a Western classical lens. The European idea of Turkish music was a limited one. Austrian soldiers had heard Janissary military bands during the Ottoman invasions of Europe in the 17th century, and when the Treaty of Karlowicz ended the wars between the Austrian and Ottoman empires, the Ottoman diplomatic delegation brought a Janissary band to perform before civilian audiences in Vienna. From then on, it became fashionable for European monarchs to import Janissary bands. For European audiences, "Turkish music" had two connotations: Eastern and military. Therefore, the "Turkish music" of Viennese composers invariably meant little more than the use of heavy percussion instruments (or in the case of Mozart's piano music, percussive effects) to imitate the sound of Turkish military bands.
The rest of Turkey's musical heritage took far longer to penetrate into Western art music. Western music began to take root in Turkey around the same time that Vienna became fascinated with Turkish music. Italian opera was popular in Istanbul by 1800, and by the middle of the 19th century, European symphonic music was regularly performed in the major cities of the Ottoman Empire. But throughout the 19th century Western and Turkish music remained stubbornly separate. The separation continued after the fall of the Ottoman Empire: Atatürk and his revolutionaries, in their effort to modernize Turkish society, required Turkish composers to follow the principles of Western tonal music. In Atatürk's view, the future of Turkish music was in combining Turkish folk melodies with Western music theory. He saw Ottoman music -- the music of the court and of urban popular entertainment -- as backward and unsuitable for the Turkish Republic's entry into Western civilization, and banned it from radio broadcasts for a time. Beginning in 1926, the Atatürk government began to send talented young composers to Western Europe for further education. The crowning achievement of this policy was the emergence of a group of composers known as the "Turkish Five," among whom was Hasan Ferid Alnar (1906-1978).
That was the prevailing narrative of 20th century Turkish art music, anyway. Hasan Ferid Alnar, however, occupied an especially precarious position in the Turkish musical establishment because, alone among the "Turkish Five," he had been a composer and performer of Ottoman classical music prior to the revolution. While the others were trained exclusively in Western music and Western instruments, Alnar was a virtuoso on the kanun, a microtonal zither used in Ottoman court music. Ironically, having learned Western music theory to preserve his livelihood, Alnar went to Vienna and found encouragement to look to his roots in Ottoman music and challenge the suppression of his first musical idiom. Though he composed in Western forms like his colleagues, he unapologetically drew from Ottoman classical music, even composing a concerto for the kanun that premiered in Vienna in the 1950s. Because of his continued connection to a banned genre of music, Alnar was the least-performed of the Turkish Five in Turkey, but perhaps the second most successful abroad.
Alnar's Cello Concerto, composed in 1942, was his first major work to integrate Ottoman ideas into Western music. With it, Alnar broke a seven-year silence as a composer. After receiving great critical acclaim for his Prelude and Two Dances for orchestra when it premiered in Vienna, Alnar had moved back to Turkey in 1935, accepting a teaching position at the newly founded Ankara State Conservatory and a conducting position at the Ankara State Opera. For several years, he was mainly known for several productions of Western operas in Turkish translation. During the years after Atatürk's death, attitudes toward Ottoman classical music had begun to soften. Commissioned to compose a concerto for the local symphony orchestra's principal cellist David Zirkin, Alnar saw the opportunity to act on his Viennese teachers' advice. He used several Ottoman scales in the concerto, and rather than the kinds of virtuosic figures and techniques typically found in cello repertoire, he deliberately tried to evoke the falsetto singing of the Ottoman vocal tradition. The concerto was highly successful with the public -- but with the exception of a handful of individuals who attributed the impact on the audience to the Ottoman stylistic features, most Turkish critics savaged the piece and emphasized the departures from Western tonality as proof of Alnar's inferiority. The concerto would be his only major work to premiere in Turkey. From 1945 onward, virtually all of his compositions premiered in Germany and Austria, and in 1961 he moved back to Vienna himself. His music remained rarely performed in Turkey until the turn of the 21st century.
Movements:
I. Moderato
II. Largo ma non troppo (13:55)
III. Allegro con brio (23:52)
In the 18th and early 19th centuries, Viennese society went crazy for all things Turkish. Music was no exception to the trend: all the leading composers of the day, including Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, produced what they referred to as "Turkish music." This was, of course, ersatz Turkish music filtered through a Western classical lens. The European idea of Turkish music was a limited one. Austrian soldiers had heard Janissary military bands during the Ottoman invasions of Europe in the 17th century, and when the Treaty of Karlowicz ended the wars between the Austrian and Ottoman empires, the Ottoman diplomatic delegation brought a Janissary band to perform before civilian audiences in Vienna. From then on, it became fashionable for European monarchs to import Janissary bands. For European audiences, "Turkish music" had two connotations: Eastern and military. Therefore, the "Turkish music" of Viennese composers invariably meant little more than the use of heavy percussion instruments (or in the case of Mozart's piano music, percussive effects) to imitate the sound of Turkish military bands.
The rest of Turkey's musical heritage took far longer to penetrate into Western art music. Western music began to take root in Turkey around the same time that Vienna became fascinated with Turkish music. Italian opera was popular in Istanbul by 1800, and by the middle of the 19th century, European symphonic music was regularly performed in the major cities of the Ottoman Empire. But throughout the 19th century Western and Turkish music remained stubbornly separate. The separation continued after the fall of the Ottoman Empire: Atatürk and his revolutionaries, in their effort to modernize Turkish society, required Turkish composers to follow the principles of Western tonal music. In Atatürk's view, the future of Turkish music was in combining Turkish folk melodies with Western music theory. He saw Ottoman music -- the music of the court and of urban popular entertainment -- as backward and unsuitable for the Turkish Republic's entry into Western civilization, and banned it from radio broadcasts for a time. Beginning in 1926, the Atatürk government began to send talented young composers to Western Europe for further education. The crowning achievement of this policy was the emergence of a group of composers known as the "Turkish Five," among whom was Hasan Ferid Alnar (1906-1978).
That was the prevailing narrative of 20th century Turkish art music, anyway. Hasan Ferid Alnar, however, occupied an especially precarious position in the Turkish musical establishment because, alone among the "Turkish Five," he had been a composer and performer of Ottoman classical music prior to the revolution. While the others were trained exclusively in Western music and Western instruments, Alnar was a virtuoso on the kanun, a microtonal zither used in Ottoman court music. Ironically, having learned Western music theory to preserve his livelihood, Alnar went to Vienna and found encouragement to look to his roots in Ottoman music and challenge the suppression of his first musical idiom. Though he composed in Western forms like his colleagues, he unapologetically drew from Ottoman classical music, even composing a concerto for the kanun that premiered in Vienna in the 1950s. Because of his continued connection to a banned genre of music, Alnar was the least-performed of the Turkish Five in Turkey, but perhaps the second most successful abroad.
Alnar's Cello Concerto, composed in 1942, was his first major work to integrate Ottoman ideas into Western music. With it, Alnar broke a seven-year silence as a composer. After receiving great critical acclaim for his Prelude and Two Dances for orchestra when it premiered in Vienna, Alnar had moved back to Turkey in 1935, accepting a teaching position at the newly founded Ankara State Conservatory and a conducting position at the Ankara State Opera. For several years, he was mainly known for several productions of Western operas in Turkish translation. During the years after Atatürk's death, attitudes toward Ottoman classical music had begun to soften. Commissioned to compose a concerto for the local symphony orchestra's principal cellist David Zirkin, Alnar saw the opportunity to act on his Viennese teachers' advice. He used several Ottoman scales in the concerto, and rather than the kinds of virtuosic figures and techniques typically found in cello repertoire, he deliberately tried to evoke the falsetto singing of the Ottoman vocal tradition. The concerto was highly successful with the public -- but with the exception of a handful of individuals who attributed the impact on the audience to the Ottoman stylistic features, most Turkish critics savaged the piece and emphasized the departures from Western tonality as proof of Alnar's inferiority. The concerto would be his only major work to premiere in Turkey. From 1945 onward, virtually all of his compositions premiered in Germany and Austria, and in 1961 he moved back to Vienna himself. His music remained rarely performed in Turkey until the turn of the 21st century.
Movements:
I. Moderato
II. Largo ma non troppo (13:55)
III. Allegro con brio (23:52)