Leseprobe_Women Composers

CHAPTER I
TERMINOLOGICAL DEFINITIONS ABOUT
OTTOMAN/TURKISH MUSIC *
1.1. Defining and Categorising Turkish Music,
and the Problem of Genre
Both the musical oeuvres – especially those of which belong to the composers
addressed here – and the definitions most commonly employed in defining Ottoman/Turkish
music (the genres and the elucidation of these genres) in music
historiography, as well as a lack of standardisation in the terminology coined or
adopted by various authorities/sources, raise problems of complex and confounding
categories which consequently require detailed and further elaboration.
The definitions, categorisations, and genres that exist in Ottoman/Turkish
music historiography play a pivotal role in this research, and it is necessary to use
certain terminology that appeared, or continues to appear, in the music historiography
in order to explain the production conditions as well as the compositions
of the three composers addressed. Simultaneously, the need for clarifying and/or
standardising genres, categorisations, and definitions arises. 23
Beginning in the nineteenth century, political, legal, economic, and sociocultural
transformations in the Ottoman Empire, which can be viewed from a
modernisation paradigm, set the tone and the direction of music (as a specific component
of culture, art, and intellectual life) and of institutional music education.
It is possible to observe the influence of these developments through all three of
these composers.
Various terms, etymologically different, but used interchangeably, such as
Modernleşme [Modernisation], Çağdaşlaşma [Contemporisation], Batılılaşma [Westernisation],
Avrupalılaşma [Europeanisation], Alafrangalaşma [Alafrangisation],
Garbıyatçılık [Occidentalism] etc. are used to depict tendencies 24 and approaches,
* Unless otherwise indicated, all quoted excerpts in this chapter have been translated by Barış
İplikçi.
23 For some studies that address these questions, see: Mehmet Revnak Yengi, “Composition within
the Axis of the Concepts of Contemporary, Modern in Turkey” (PhD diss., İstanbul Technical University,
2012). Okan Murat Öztürk, “Milli Musiki Ütopyası: Halk Ruhunu Garp Fenniyle Terkib
Etmek”, Illüzyon. Cumhuriyet’in Klasik Müzik Serüveni [Illusion: Clasical Music Adventure of the
Republic], ed. Fırat Kutluk (İstanbul: H2o Yayıncılık, 2016), 3–73. John Morgan O’Connell, Alaturka:
Style in Turkish Music (1923–1938). (Oxon: Routledge, 2016), 19 and 22. Martin Greve, Die
Europäisierung orientalischer Kunstmusik in der Türkei (Frankfurt am Main: Peterlang, 1995), 22–27.
24 Muasırlaşmak [to become modern], Asrileşmek [to become contemporary], Çağcıllaşmak [to become
modern], Medenileşmek [to be civilized], Evrenselleşmek [to become universal] etc.
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