ISTANBULDIMITRIE CANTEMIR

1673-1723

« Le Livre de la Science de la Musique »et les traditions musicales Sépharades et Arméniennes

Kudsi Erguner, Hakan GüngörGeorgi Minassyan, Gaguik Mouradian, Murat Salim Tokaç

Yurdal Tokcan, Derya Türkan, Fahrettin Yarkın

HESPÈRION XXIYair Dalal, Driss El Maloumi, Pedro Estevan

Pierre Hamon, Dimitri Psonis

JORDI SAVALL

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1. Taksim (Kanun, Vièle, Oud, Kemence et Tanbur) Improvisation 2’48H. Güngör, J. Savall, Y. Tockan, D. Türkan, M.S. Tokaç

2. Der makām-ı ‘Uzzâl uşūleş Devr-i kebīr«Büyük Devr» Mss. Dimitri Cantemir (118)* Anonyme (ancien) 3’03K. Erguner, Y. Tockan, H. Güngör, D. Psonis,D. Türkan, M.S. Tokaç, P. Estevan, F. Yarkın, J. Savall (vièle)

3. Los Paxaricos (Isaac Levy I.59) – Maciço de Rosas (I. Levy III.41)* Sépharade (Turquie) 5’06P. Hamon, D. El Maloumi, Y. Dalal,G. Mouradian, H. Taboul, P. Estevan, J. Savall (lyre à archet)

4. Taksim (Kanun) Improvisation 1’36Hakan Güngör

5. Der makām-ı Muhayyer uşūleş Muhammes (Mss. D.Cantemir 285)* Kantemiroğlu 5’04K. Erguner, Y. Tockan, D. Psonis, D. Türkan,M.S. Tokaç, P. Estevan, F. Yarkın, J. Savall (vièle)

6. Chant et Danse (2 Duduk et percussion) Tradition Arménienne 3’58Georgi Minassyan, Haig Sarikouyoumdjian, Pedro Estevan

7. Taksim (Oud) Improvisation 1’18Yurdal Tockan

8. Der makām-ı Hüseynī Semâ’î (Mss. D. Cantemir 268)* Baba Mest 7’48K. Erguner, Y. Tockan, D. Türkan, D. Psonis,M.S. Tokaç, P. Estevan, F. Yarkın, H. Güngör, J. Savall (vièle)

9. El amor yo no savia (Isaac Levy II.80)* Sépharade (Esmirna) 4’08J. Savall, P. Hamon, Y. Dalal, D. El Maloumi,G. Mouradian, H. Taboul, P. Estevan

10. Taksim (Lira) Improvisation 1’32Derya Türkan

11. Der makām-ı Şūri Semâ’î (Mss. D. Cantemir 256)* Anonyme (ancien) 3’33K. Erguner, Y. Tockan, D. Psonis, D. Türkan,M.S. Tokaç, P. Estevan, F. Yarkın , H. Güngör, J. Savall (vièle)

12. Lamento: Ene Sarére (2 duduk) Barde Ashot (Arménien) 2’35Georgi Minassyan & Haig Sarikouyoumdjian

13. Madre de la gracia (Isaac Levy III.29) * Sépharade (Turquie) 3’06P. Hamon, D. El Maloumi, G. Mouradian,H. Taboul, P. Estevan, J. Savall (lyre à archet)

14. Taksim (Kanun, Tanbur, Santur et Oud) Improvisation 1’23H. Güngör, M.S. Tokaç, D. Psonis, Y. Tockan

15. Der makām-ı [Hüseynī] uşūleş Çenber (Mss. D. Cantemir 96) * Edirne’li Ahmed 2’46« Makam » noté (et interprété) en mode « Hüseynī ». L’indication « Saba »qu’il y a dans le titre du manuscrit, contredit la notation originale de CantemirY. Tockan, K. Erguner, H. Güngör, D. Psonis,D. Türkan, M.S. Tokaç, P. Estevan, F. Yarkın, J. Savall (vièle)

16. Taksim (Kemancha) & Makam«Esmkhetiet-Yis kou ghimeten-Tchim guichi» Barde Sayat Nova (Arménien) 7’18G. Minassyan, G. Mouradian, H. Sarikouyoumdjian, P. Estevan

17. Taksim (Kanun, Tanbur et Oud) Improvisation 1’31H. Güngör, M.S. Tokaç, Y. Tockan

18. Der makām-ı ‘Uzzâl uşūleş Berevsan (Mss. D. Cantemir 148) * ‘Alí H^äce (Ali Hoca) 3’20Y. Tockan, H. Güngör, D. Psonis, D. Türkan,M.S. Tokaç, P. Estevan, F. Yarkın, J. Savall (vièle)

ISTANBULDIMITRIE CANTEMIR

“The Book of the Science of Music”and the Sephardic and Armenian musical traditions

Turkish book illumination, End c. 16th. Celebration of Sultan Murat II on the occasion of the circumcisionof his son, Mehmet, Istanbul, June/July 1583- Musicians. From the “Book of Celebrations”.© akg-images

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19. Venturozo Mancevo (Isaac Levy II.58) * Sépharade (Esmirna) 4’38P. Hamon, D. El Maloumi, G. Mouradian,H. Taboul, P. Estevan, J. Savall (lyre à archet)

20. Taksim (Kemence, Kannun, Oud & Tanbur) Improvisation 2’50H. Güngör, D. Türkan, Y. Tockan, M .S. Tokaç

21. Der makām-ı Hüseynī Sakīl-i Ağa Rıżā (Mss. D. Cantemir 89) * Anonyme (ancien) 3’30Y. Tockan, H. Güngör, D. Türkan, M.S. Tokaç,P. Estevan, F. Yarkın, J. Savall (vièle)

Conception du programme, sélection des musiques* et versions musicales * : Jordi SavallEnregistrement du 12 au 15 Février à la Collégiale de Cardona (Catalogne) par Manuel Mohino

Montage et masterisation SACD : Manuel Mohino

Ce projet a été financé avec le soutien de la Commission européenne.Cette publication n’engage que son auteur et la Commission n’est pas responsable de l’usage qui pourrait être fait

des informations qui y sont contenues.

INTERPRÈTES SELON LES PIÈCES

PIÈCES TURQUESKudsi Erguner ney

Derya Türkan Istanbul kemenceYurdal Tokcan oud

Fahrettin Yarkın percussionMurat Salim Tokaç tanbur

Hakan Güngör kanunDimitri Psonis santur *

Pedro Estevan percussion *Jordi Savall vièle à 5 cordes *

PIÈCES ARMÉNIENNESGaguik Mouradian kemancha

Georgi Minassyan dudukHaïg Sarikouyomdjian duduk et ney « Beloul »

Pedro Estevan percussion *

PIÈCES SÉPHARADESYair Dalal oud *

Driss El Maloumi oud *Pierre Hamon ney et flûte *

Gaguik Mouradian kemanchaHaroun Taboul tanbur à archet

Jordi Savall rebab et lyre à archet *Pedro Estevan percussion *

* Membres de l’ensemble HESPÈRION XXI

ISTANBULDIMITRIE CANTEMIR

“The Book of the Science of Music”and the Sephardic and Armenian musical traditions

Jordi Savall

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At the time of Dimitrie Cantemir (1673-1723), the city which stands at the crossroads of thecontinents of Europe and Asia, ISTANBUL for the Ottomans and CONSTANTINOPLE for the Byzantines,already marked a veritable high point in history. Despite the memory and very palpable presence of the oldByzantium, it had become the true heart of the Muslim religious and cultural world. An extraordinarymelting-pot of peoples and religions, the city has always been a magnet for European travellers and artists.Cantemir arrived in the city in 1693, aged 20, initially as a hostage and later as a diplomatic envoy of hisfather, the ruler of Moldavia. He became famous as a virtuoso of the tanbur, a kind of long-necked lute, andwas also a highly-regarded composer, thanks to his work Kitâbu İlmi’l-mûsîkî (The Book of the Science ofMusic), which he dedicated to Sultan Ahmed III (1703-1730).

Such is the historical context of our project on “Dimitrie Cantemir’s The Book of the Science of Music andthe Sephardic and Armenian musical traditions”. We aim to present the “cultivated” instrumental music ofthe 17th century Ottoman court, as preserved in Cantemir’s work, in dialogue and alternating with“traditional” popular music, represented here by the oral traditions of Armenian musicians and the music ofthe Sephardic communities who had settled in the Ottoman empire in cities such as Istanbul and Izmir aftertheir expulsion from Spain. In Western Europe, our cultural image of the Ottoman Empire has been distortedby the Ottoman Empire’s long bid to expand towards the West, blinding us to the cultural richness and,above all, the atmosphere of tolerance and diversity that existed in the Empire during that period. As StefanLemny points out in his interesting essay on Les Cantemir, “in fact, after taking Constantinople, MahometII spared the lives of the city’s Christian population; what is more, a few years later he encouraged the oldaristocratic Greek families to return to the district known as Fener or Phanar, the hub of the formerByzantium.” Later, under the reign of Suleyman – the Golden Age of the Ottoman Empire – contacts withEurope intensified on a par with the development of diplomatic and trade relations. As Amnon Shiloahreminds us in his excellent book La musique dans le monde de l’islam: “Although Venice had a permanentdiplomatic mission to Istanbul, the Empire turned its sights towards France. Towards the end of the 16thcentury, the treaty which was signed in 1543 between Suleyman and ‘the Christian king” Francis I of Francewas a decisive factor in the process of rapprochement which led to greater interaction. On that occasion,Francis I sent Suleyman an orchestra as a token of his friendship. The concert given by the ensemble appearsto have inspired the creation of two new rhythmic modes which then entered Turkish music: the frenkcin(12/4) and the frengi (14/4).”

From 1601, the Patriarchate of the Orthodox Church, the rallying point for the Greek aristocracy proceedingfrom all corners of the Empire – from the islands in the Aegean, the Peloponnese, Europe and Asia Minor –finally became established in the Phanar district, where the old aristocratic Greek families had settled afterthe fall of Constantinople. Thus, thanks to the presence of this Greek community, the ancientByzantine capital continued to be the seat of the Orthodox Church throughout the Empire. In this sense thePatriarchate’s Academy, or Great School, was crucial in ensuring cultural hegemony. Based on his readingof Cantemir, Voltaire listed the disciplines taught at the Academy: ancient and modern Greek, Aristotelianphilosophy, theology and medicine: “In truth”, he wrote, “Demetrius Cantemir reiterates many old myths;but there is no question of his being mistaken about the modern monuments he has seen with his own eyes,or the Academy where he himself studied.”

Dimitrie Cantemir’s Book of the Science of Music, which has served as the historical source for ourrecording, is an exceptional document in many ways; first, as a fundamental source of knowledgeconcerning the theory, style and forms of 17th century Ottoman music, but also as one of the most interestingaccounts of the musical life of one of the foremost Oriental countries. This collection of 355 compositions(including 9 by Cantemir), written in a system of musical notation invented by the author, constitutes themost important collection of 16th and 17th century Ottoman instrumental music to have survived to thepresent day. I first began to discover this repertory in 1999, during the preparation of our project on IsabellaI of Castile, when our friend and colleague Dimitri Psonis, a specialist in Oriental music, suggested an oldmilitary march from the collection as a musical illustration of the date commemorating the conquest ofConstantinople by the Ottoman armies of Mahomet II.Two years later, on our first visit to Istanbul to give a concert with Montserrat Figueras and Hespèrion XX,when we visited the Yapı Kredi Cultural Centre, our friends in Istanbul, Aksel Tibet, Mine Haydaroglu andEmrah Efe Çakmak, gave us a copy of the first modern edition of the music contained in Dimitrie Cantemir’sThe Science of Music. I was immediately fascinated by the music in the collection and by the life ofCantemir, and I subsequently set about studying both the music and the composer in order to learn abouta culture which, despite its proximity, seems remote to us as a result of sheer ignorance. I was determinedto find out more about the historical and aesthetic context with a view to embarking on an interesting project.

ISTANBULDIMITRIE CANTEMIR

“The Book of the Science of Music”and the Sephardic and Armenian musical traditions

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which were cultivated on the banks of the Bosphorous, that the court musicians discovered in the imperialgardens the art of the folk bards (âsik). For this reason, our choice of tempi is much livelier than thosegenerally heard in modern-day performances of music from the Ottoman repertory.

Another major difference is the instrumentation; unlike modern ensembles which almost always performpieces using all the instruments, we have chosen to use a varied instrumentation, so that all the instrumentsmay be present in the sections equivalent to our rondeau or ritournelle, whereas in the other sections of themakam the various instruments alternate or are present according to the nature of the section or dependingon the development of the piece. It is important to observe that whereas the earliest notation used by Turkishmusicians resembled alphabetical notation, the notation invented by Dimitrie Cantemir is a highly intelligentand precise system, allowing us to clearly differentiate the various tunings of the flats and the sharps,depending on the modes used.

We therefore wanted to show not only that this imaginary musical dialogue, devised for the presentrecording, is possible, but, above all that it reflects a genuine historical reality. As well as the enormousdiversity and cultural richness of Istanbul at the time of Cantemir, we should also remember the presence atthe imperial court of Greek, Armenian and Jewish musicians, as is confirmed in the various sources.According to the Comte de Saint-Priest, the French ambassador to Istanbul, the Ottomans’ prejudicesregarding the arts in general led them to relegate the musical profession to non-Muslims. Indeed, “most ofthe Great Sultan’s musical retainers, including Cantemir himself, who are the musical élite of the TurkishEmpire, are of Greek, Jewish or Armenian origin.” Among the most illustrious musicians towards the endof the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century were the Armenian Nikiğos and the Jewish tanburplayer Tamburî Ishaq (who died around 1815).

It was against this backdrop of musical excellence that Cantemir became renowned as a tanbur virtuoso. Thechronicler Ion Neculce expressed his utmost admiration in the following terms: “Nobody in Constantinoplecould play better than he.” This instrument, Cantemir asserted, “is the most complete and perfect of allknown instruments or those that we have seen” and the one which “faithfully and flawlessly imitates thehuman song and voice.” This opinion may seem exaggerated until we recall that at the time in question theinstrument could equally be plucked like a lute or played with a bow and held like a viola da gamba; andalso that, by a telling coincidence, during the same period in France the viola da gamba was also regardedas the instrument which most closely imitated all the nuances of the human voice.

JORDI SAVALLEdinburgh, August 2009

Translated by Jacqueline Minett

P.S. We include a reproduction of the picture which until recently was conserved in the Rouen Museum ofArt, even though recent research suggests that it is not in fact a portrait of Dimitrie Cantemir, because, withits wig “à la française” and its turban “à la turque” it epitomises the dialogue of cultures resulting from thisextraordinary blend of eastern and western symbols.

I would like to thank Amnon Shiloah, Stefan Lemny and Ursula and Kurt Reinhard for their research andanalysis on the history, music and the period, which I have used in documenting some of the sources in mycommentary.

Six years later, during the preparation of our ORIENT-OCCIDENT project, I selected four magnificentmakam which gave the project a new dimension in that it was the only Oriental music to come not from anoral tradition, but from a contemporaneous written source. Finally, in 2008, as a natural continuation of ouroriginal project on the dialogue between East and West, we succeeded in bringing together an exceptionalgroup of musicians from Turkey (oud, ney, kanun, tanbur, lyra and percussion) together with musiciansfrom Armenia (duduk, kemancha and ney “Beloul”), Israel (oud), Morocco (oud), Greece (santur andmorisca) and our principal specialist soloists in Hespèrion XXI, with whom we have prepared and carriedout this recording. I would like to take this opportunity to express to them all my heartfelt gratitude, sincewithout their talent and knowledge this project would never have been possible.

To begin with, we had the difficult task of selecting about ten pieces out of a total of 355 compositions,choosing the most representative and varied pieces from among the makam which struck us as being themost beautiful, although we are aware that this preference was influenced by our Western sensibility. Afterthis “bewildering” choice, we had to complete the pieces chosen for the Ottoman part with the correspondingtaksim, or preludes, improvised before each makam. At the same time, we had also selected Sephardic andArmenian pieces for the Sephardic repertoire we chose music from the Ladino repertory preserved in thecommunities of Izmir, Istanbul and other regions of the former Ottoman Empire, while for the Armenianrepertoire we selected the most beautiful of the various pieces proposed by the Armenian musicians GeorgiMinassyan (duduk) and Gaguik Mouradian (kemancha).

Nowadays, all of this music is probably performed very differently from the way it was at the time ofCantemir. Therefore, in our quest for other possible performance techniques, we had to rely on variousaccounts, often written by European travellers, which describe the specific characteristics of Ottoman musicduring those historical periods and provide a series of interesting considerations on musical performance,practice, instruments, court orchestras and military bands, as well as the ceremonies of the mysticalconfraternities. One such account is that of Pierre Belon in 1553, who remarks on the Turks’ extraordinaryskill at making bow and lute strings from gut which “are more common here than in Europe”, adding that“many people can play one or several types [of instrument], which is not the case (he observes) in Franceand Italy.” He also mentions the existence of a great variety of flutes, remarking on the wonderfully sweetsound of the miskal (panpipe), although in 1614 the Italian traveller Pietro Della Valle wrote that thesweetness of the instrument “does not match that of the long flute (ney) of the Dervishes.” Around 1700Cantemir himself observes in his History of the Ottoman Empire: “Europeans may find it strange that Irefer here to the love of music of a nation which Christians regard as barbarian.” He concedes thatbarbarism may have reigned during the period when the Empire was being forged, but remarks that, oncethe great military conquests were over, the arts, “the ordinary fruits of peace, found their place in men’sminds”. He concludes with the following words, which must have come as a shock to his European readers:“I would even venture to say that the music of the Turks is much more perfect than that of Europe in termsof metre and the proportion of words, but it is also so difficult to understand that one would be hard put tofind more than a handful of individuals with a sound knowledge of the principles and subtleties of this art.”(HOE, II p.178).

We would like to draw attention to this remark on the complexity of Turkish music which “is much moreperfect than that of Europe in terms of metre”, since we have experienced the truth of it ourselves: in thenine makam that we selected, the following metres (or rhythms) are found: 14/4, 16/4, 10/8, 6/4, 12/4, 48/4and 2/4. Of these seven metres, only the 6/4 and 2/4 rhythms are usual in the West. Metre determines therhythm and the tempo, but tempo is more subjective and may even be influenced by specific circumstances,social context and situations which are moulded by changing social custom. As in the Western world, wherethe majority of originally lively dances, such as the folia, the chaconne, the sarabande and the minuet, whichhad their origin in popular traditions, were toned down or even became slower as a result of the influence ofcourt pomp and ceremony, it seems more than likely that a similar phenomenon took place in Ottoman courtmusic. Indeed, the dances and instrumental music created by court musicians who took their inspiration frompopular musical forms progressively and, particularly during the 19th century, slowed down considerably asa result of the formal influences of the court itself, as well as the religious notion that all music of a certaindignity must be controlled and moderate. We believe that in the 16th century and during the time ofCantemir this evolution had not yet begun. The synthesis of classical and popular music can be clearly seenin the compositions of the period, particularly in the works included in Cantemir’s collection and in thecompositions of Eyyûbi Bdekir Agha (who died in 1730). It was during that, flourishing time for the arts, inthe years from 1718 to 1730, known as “Lâle devri” or the “era of the Black Tulips”, named after the tulips

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BIBLIOGRAPHYMUSICAL SOURCES

DIMITRIE CANTEMIRThe Book of the Science of Music

KANTEMIROĞLUKitâbu ‘Ilmi’l-Mûsîkî ‘alâ vechi’l-Hurûfât

Vol. I – IIYalçin Tura

Kitap Editörü, Istanbul 2001_____

Voskeporik, Jewels of Armenian music,compiled and edited by N. Tahmizyan,“Sovetakan Grogh” publishing house,

Yerevan, 1982_____

Chants Judéo-Espagnolscompiled and with notes by

ISAAC LEVY

Vol I. Lowe and Brydone. London 1959Vol. II. Author’s edition. Jerusalem May 1970Vol. III Author’s edition. Jerusalem May 1971Vol. IV Author’s edition. Jerusalem May 1973

HISTORICAL SOURCES AND ESSAYS

ALBERTO HEMSICancionero Sefardí

(in collaboration with Paloma Díaz-MasJosé Manuel Pedrosa & Elena Romero)

The Jewish Music Research Centre,The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Jerusalem, 1995

STEFAN LEMNYLes Cantemir

Editions Complexe, 2009

URSULA & KURT REINHARDMusique de TurquieBuchet/Chastel, 1969

AMNON SHILOAHLa musique dans le monde de l’islam

Les chemins de la musiqueScholar Press, 1995

Fayard, 2002

Nautical Festival before Sultan Ahmed III (1673-1736) (detail)from “Surname” by Vehbi, ca. 1720.

Levni (d. 1732) / Topkapı Palace Museum, Istanbul, TurkeyDost Yayinlari Giraudon / The Bridgeman Art Library.

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years in the metropolis on the Bosphorous, from 1688 to 1691, and then from 1693 to 1710, first as a “pledge”of his father’s loyalty to the sultan, and later as the diplomatic envoy of his brother, who was also twicedesignated reigning prince of Moldavia (1695-1700, 1705-1707). This long golden exile, spent waiting for thetime when he too would ascend the throne, was crucial to the young man’s intellectual training, both Europeanand Oriental. It also sowed the seeds for the original creative works that he would write during his Russian exile.

The body of works by the Moldavian prince constitutes a dazzling mirror of his passionate interest in all thecountries and cultures that he encountered. During his extraordinary odyssey from the Ottoman south to theRussian north, two abiding themes, Moldavian or Romanian civilisation and the Ottoman world, underpin thedevelopment of his thought over time. After devoting himself in his Turko-Ottoman youth to literature andmusic, at the height of his maturity, in Russia, he was to engage in major scholarly works.

His contributions to Romanian history and culture are the product of an author who, although residing almostcontinually outside his own country, kept his finger firmly on the pulse of its circumstances and the sensibilityof his compatriots. In Istanbul he inquired not only into the deeper meaning of his own existence: he also becamesadly aware that hardly any literature was written in his native language. In writing his first literary work, TheDivan or The Wise Man’s Parley with the World, published in Iaşi in 1698, he set out to contribute to “theglory and needs of his people and to prove to them that “flowers have sprung from its soil”: in other words,literary creation in Romanian was possible. Whilst in Istanbul, around 1704-1705, he wrote a novel entitledHistoria Hieroglyphica, in European Baroque style with an Oriental twist, in which he recreated the dramaticstruggle for the conquest of the Moldavian throne in which he himself had participated. Unpublished until the19th century, the novel constitutes, together with The Divan, a foundational landmark in the history of modernRomanian literature.

The prince approached his native Romania from a very different angle during the years of his Russian exile. Theliterary exploits of his youth gave way to the analysis of the historian, anxious to explore the remote past of hispeople and to share his findings with scholars all over the world. He had already gathered invaluable materialfor his projects in Istanbul and during his brief reign, but it was in Russia that he finally began to write, in Latinand Romanian, his work Descriptio Moldaviae (completed in 1716) and a scholarly Chronicle of the Antiquityof Romans-Moldavians-Wallachians (1714-1722). Also unpublished during the author’s lifetime, these worksmark the beginning of modern historiography in Romania, where they would subsequently have a considerableimpact on the genesis of Romanian national identity.

The importance of Cantemir’s work extends far beyond the confines of Romanian culture. The years he hadspent in Istanbul, as well as his knowledge of Turkish and the history and civilisation of the Ottoman Empire,made him an expert on the region whose writings considerably enhanced Europeans’ regard for Turkish society.

The Moldavian prince’s talent and passion for music were key factors. Unusually for a man of princely rank, herapidly gained a reputation as a virtuoso performer. He played the long-necked lute (tanbur), in his opinion “themost complete and perfect Oriental instrument” which, in his own words, “faithfully and flawlessly reproducesthe flow of human song and voice.” It is more than likely that his passion for music stemmed from his earliestdays. His father is said to have played popular airs on the flute, in the manner of Moldavian shepherds, and wealso know that his Greek teacher in Iaşi was an outstanding instrumentalist. However, it was in Istanbul that theprince received a solid grounding in the art, thanks chiefly to two Greek teachers, the “musical retainers of theGrand Sultan, the Orphic minstrels of the Turkish Empire” who, like most resident non-Muslims, were of Greek,Jewish or Armenian origin, as observed by the Comte de Saint-Priest, the future French ambassador to theOttoman Porte.

Cantemir’s renown in this domain is largely due to his treatise on music, dedicated to Sultan Ahmed III andwritten in Turkish under the title Kitâbu İlmi’l-mûsîkî (The Book of Musical Science), in which he proposes anoriginal system of transcription, the “only one”, in Cantemir’s words, capable of catering “perfectly” to “thespecific characteristics of this music”. His is also famous for having disseminated the teaching of the art of music“in order to attain perfection.” With the help of this system, he set about transcribing numerous pieces of music,thus preserving part of this legacy for posterity. He also composed several original pieces which were to survivethe passage of time. During a visit to Istanbul in 1750, the Frenchman Charles Fonton remarked on the “greatpopularity” of Cantemir’s music, “which still delights audiences today.” And in 1781, the Italian OrientalistGiambattista Toderini, who also travelled in the Ottoman Empire, heard “great connoisseurs” talk about“Cantemir’s Turkish melodies.”

Thanks to his artistic success, the prince struck firm friendships with men of influence who moved in the secretworld of the seraglio – pashas, artists and scholars, who opened new doors for him. Thus he gained access to the

Dimitrie Cantemir (1673-1723), fleetingly Prince of Moldavia (1693 and 1710-1711), was one of the foremostintellectuals of Eastern Europe, and one of the very few, until the18th century, to have enjoyed a reputation inWestern Europe. A polyglot, driven by a profoundly encyclopaedic curiosity, he left behind some remarkablecontributions both in the multiple branches of science (historiography, the study of religions and philosophy) andthe arts (literature and music). In their eagerness to place his work within the European cultural landscape,scholars have attempted to link him to various philosophical and artistic movements: some have cast him as aHumanist, while others have seen him as part of the Oriental Baroque, or even the incipient Age ofEnlightenment. The fact that none of these affiliations entirely convincing is partly because, during the lastquarter of the 17th century and the first quarter of the 18th century, the Moldavian scholar was at the crossroadsof several worlds, whose values defy the standard definitions of the major movements of European culture.

The erudite figure of Cantemir admirably illustrates the special role that Mircea Eliade identifies as having beenplayed by eastern Europeans, who, as citizens of lands forming a bridge between Europe and Asia, between Eastand West, have naturally fostered rapprochement and dialogue between such widely differing worlds. Cantemiradded further to his exoticism by claiming Tartar origins for his princely family, a legend that was eschewed byVoltaire, who believed that, in “the multiplicity of [his] talents”, the prince descended “from the race of Periclesrather than that of Tamberlaine”. However, this mythical genealogy did not prevent Cantemir from vigorouslyaffirming his Moldavian and, more generally, his Romanian identity, adducing the Roman origins of hiscompatriots of the principalities of Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania: “the Romanian people […] are alsoour people” he wrote, and “the Romans are the vine-stocks of our Dacia, and we are their offshoots.”

This complicated ancestry reflects the history of Moldavia, a neighbour of both Slavs and Tartars, a country atan international crossroads which, since the 16th century, had been subject to the Ottoman Empire, which madeit the spearhead of its European expansion. Cantemir’s immediate origins were in Moldavia, where he was bornon 23rd October, 1673, long before his father, a brave warrior with little education from a relatively prosperousboyard family, rose to the highest rank, including that of reigning prince (1685-1693), under the suzerainty ofthe Grand Sultan.

Dimitrie Cantemir pursued his father’s ambitions. But his destiny changed course when, shortly after havingsucceeded to the Moldavian throne (October 1710), he promptly abandoned his Ottoman protector to allyhimself with Peter the Great in Russia’s war against Turkey in February 1711. The prince had his reasons: anardent desire to liberate his country from Ottoman rule, his conviction that the sultan’s empire was crumbling,and his ambition to firmly establish his family on the throne and, with the help of the tsar, to found a dynasty.

The spectacular defeat of the Russians by the Turkish army in June 1711 put paid to all Cantemir’s aspirations.To save his life, he was forced into exile: he was to spend more than ten years in the Russian Empire, where hedied in 1723. Despite the official posts and honorary distinctions bestowed on him during the latter period of hislife (the title of Most Serene Prince of the Empire, his status as adviser to Tsar Peter the Great and member ofthe Senate) and his important role during the Russian campaign in the Caucasus in 1722-1723, his briefappearance on the stage of history would hardly have captured the attention of posterity, his political careerhaving quickly petered out, had the prince not also revealed the intellectual dimension of his personality.

The remarkable education that he received from earliest childhood prepared him for the diversity of cultures thathe was to encounter throughout his life. At the princely court of Iaşi, the capital of Moldavia, he was not onlysteeped in the traditional education of his day, based on the reading of the sacred texts of the Orthodox faith inOld Slavonic. He also took private lessons with an erudite Greek monk, who was an expert in the theologicalsubtleties of Protestantism and fully conversant with Western culture, thanks to his association with eminentacademics at the universities of Cambridge and Leipzig.

However, it was in Istanbul that Cantemir was to imbue the rich diversity of the city’s intellectual life: at thesame time as pursuing his studies under the professors of the Orthodox Patriarchate’s Greek Academy, hefrequented the European ambassadors, with whom he formed ties of friendship, and embarked on a discovery ofthe flourishing Ottoman culture with which he was in direct contact at its very source. He spent some twenty

Dimitrie Cantemir(1673-1723)

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library of the Grand Seraglio, a place normally forbidden to non-Muslims, where he pored over the bookcollections in preparation for his studies on Ottoman society which would finally take shape in Russia. Togetherwith his writings on his native country and the Romanian people, he also devoted himself in this new exile tooffering European scholars the fruits of his research into Ottoman civilisation. It was during this period that hewrote in Latin an impressive trilogy which provides a scholarly and illuminating account of several aspects ofthe Ottoman world: its past, in History of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire, a manuscript leftunpublished at the time of the author’s death, and whose title boldly proclaims the imminent decline of theEmpire; its beliefs, in The System of the Mohammedan Religion, a veritable treatise offering a detaileddescription of Islam and its place in society, published in Russian in 1722 thanks to the personal intervention ofPeter the Great; and, finally, its political regime, in his essay Concerning Ottoman Government”, which was lost,perhaps never to come to light, in a shipwreck in the Caspian Sea.

No sooner had Cantemir penned these works than they attracted the attention of his contemporaries, who hailedtheir author as a promising Orientalist. It was in this capacity that the scientific society which was later to becomethe Berlin Royal Academy, founded under the auspices of Leibniz, elected Cantemir a fellow in 1714. But it wasabove all his History of the Ottoman Empire, published in English, in 1734-1735, in French, in 1743, and inGerman, in 1745, under the supervision of his son Antioch (1709-1744), Russia’s ambassador to England andFrance, and one of the forerunners of modern Russian poetry, which earned Dimitrie Cantemir the respect ofeminent European literary and scientific figures of the 18th and 19th centuries: he was read by Voltaire, Prévost,Gibbon, Winckelman, Edmund Burke, Byron and Victor Hugo. And he is among the illustrious company whosenames are to be found engraved on the exterior façade of the Sainte-Geneviève Library in Paris. If he is less wellknown nowadays than in the past, it is because the knowledge that he transmitted has inevitably been supersededby later scientific work. Only music, immune to the passage of time, retains its former mystery, and Cantemir’smusic still nostalgically evokes a world long vanished.

STEFAN LEMNYTranslated by Jacqueline Minett

Bibliography:Stefan Lemny, Les Cantemir : l’aventure européenne d’une famille princière au XVIIIe siècle, Paris, Complexe, Paris,2009, 368 pp. Eugenia Popescu-Judetz, Prince Dimitrie Cantemir: Theorist and Composer of Turkish Music, Istanbul,Pan Yayincilik Publishers, 1999, 224 pp. Owen Wright, Dimitrie Cantemir: the Collection of Notations, Vol. I-II(London), School of Oriental and African Studies, 1992 –Aldershot, Ashgate, 2000.

Notation et symboles pour le tanburde Dimitrie Cantemir8

his aid, the archangel Gabriel advised him to throw the secret into a well; he did so and was relieved. Thesecret penetrated the reeds that grew around the well and imbued them with the divine substance; it was fromthese reeds that the first flute was manufactured.

The remarkable influence of Mevlevi music on Ottoman art musicFor many centuries, the music and dance the Mevlevis adopted as a way of life became a model forinspiration and a catalyst for the promotion and expansion of Turkish art music as a whole. I presume thata major factor that may explain this development is the initial adoption and the strong support given to itsspecific expressiveness by the ruling class and, to some extent, the religious authorities. Most of the firstOttoman leaders were already affiliated to the Mevlevi ritual, used to wear the sikke (tall conical hat) ofthe dervishes, and were very fond of their music played on the ney (long flute) and the rabab (fiddle).However, it was in the 17th and 18th centuries that the said influence culminated, bringing the links andinteraction between sacred and profane music to their highest expression. During this period there were anumber of famous talented musicians who intermittently acted as members of the Mevlevi confraternityat the Istanbul convent Yeni Kapu and as chief professional musicians at the sultan’s courts, where theywere considered the most outstanding musicians of their time. It is worthwhile mentioning that thosemusicians had the title dede (dervish) appended to their names.

A well-known example is that of the famous flute player Nayi Osman dede (d. 1732) who became thesuperior of the Yeni Kapu convent and wrote many musical compositions; he is also credited with theinvention of an alphabetical notation. Another superior of the same confraternity was the composer ‘Abdal-Baki dede (d. 1820), who in response to an imperial commission wrote a treatise on musical practiceand created yet another system of alphabetical notation.

In this exciting period of artistic effervescence, the sultans were not only passive sponsors and patrons ofthose extraordinarily talented musicians, but many of them were themselves concrete contributors to theenrichment of music and musical life as composers and performers. Sultan Mahmoud I (1730-1754) wasa musician of great talent, and some of his compositions are still performed today. Sultan Selim III wasthe patron of many musicians at his seraglio and was himself a fine musician; in 1845 he elevated Isma’ildede, the most famous musician of his time, to the highest rank.

In parallel to creative and performing activity, there was a growing interest in matters concerninghistorical and theoretical aspects, such as the various attempts to establish notational systems and thewriting of theoretical treatises. The Pole Albert Bobovsky (1610-1675), who as a youth was taken prisonerby the Tartars and sold as a slave to the Turks, assuming the name of ‘Ali beg or ‘Ali Ukfi, served as chieftranslator and musician at the court of Sultan Mehmet IV. He left us a collection of songs in Westernnotation. Another famous European who distinguished himself as an historian and a notable composer ofTurkish music was Prince Dimitrie Cantemir (1675-1723). As a musician he became a famous virtuosoon the long-necked lute, the tanbur, and a highly regarded composer who left us a collection of 355compositions for which he used a special notational system that he himself invented. Some of his piecesappear in the French essay written in Istanbul by Charles Fenton in 1750 comparing Turkish and Europeanmusic. Cantemir also wrote a book entitled Treatise on the Musical Science. It is, however, important tomention in this context that the first notation used by Turkish musicians was the letter-like notation basedon the Armenian ecclesiastical system that the church musician Hampatzum Limoncuyan introduced in1810 in response to a commission by Sultan Selim III.

The Sephardi TraditionThe arrival of the waves of Jews expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in the newly-established OttomanEmpire marked a turning point in the history of this country’s Jewish musical life. The newcomers broughtwith them a rich musical tradition which they continued to preserve and cultivate jealously in their newenvironment. They maintained a distinctive Judeo-Spanish idiom for secular purposes and Hebrew andLadino for liturgical purposes. They continued to maintain the musical repertory of the Spanish traditionwith remarkable persistence. Concerning this persistence, the eminent scholar A.Z. Idelsohn described thisphenomenon in the introduction to vol. 4 of his Thesaurus (published in 1922) as follows: “The fate of thecommunity called Sephardic is different from that of other communities that came into being in the courseof the dispersion of the Jews; throughout the four-hundred-and-thirty years that those Jews had lived farfrom Spain… they had remained faithful to the nation’s ancestral tradition as well as that which they hadcreated in Spain during the thousand years they had lived there. With determined obstinacy… the Sephardimguarded their spiritual possessions they took into exile with them from Spain.”

A major event in the history of Europe took place in 1453 with the capture of Constantinople by the Turksand the establishment of the Ottoman Empire. On 29th May, 1453, Constantinople was captured by SultanMehmet II. This glorious capital of the Byzantine Empire, now known by the name of Istanbul, became thecapital of the Ottoman Empire as well as the cultural centre of Islam. In order to renovate the city, populateit, and rapidly turn it into a flourishing and prosperous capital, Mehmet II adopted a policy of transferringMuslim, Christian and Jewish inhabitants from various regions of the empire.

Ottoman musicIn the capital and other major centres of the Ottoman Empire, the art of music flourished - a musical art thatwas essentially rooted in the basic concepts of the great musical tradition of Muslim lands. This great traditionis characterized by a highly subtle organization of melody and rhythm in which the vocal component is pre-eminent over the instrumental. Indeed, in all musical categories, speech and melody are intimately connected,intermingling and complementing each other to various degrees. A major concern of sacred as well as secularmusic is the potential expressiveness of the human voice as a symbol of life, a reflection of the human souland a medium of communication. Thus, a rich palette of timbres enables the musician’s voice to interpret thevarious feelings and meanings contained in the text, whether it is sung melodiously or chanted. However, inthe course of time, Turkish music developed characteristics of its own that had their source in the Turkishtemperament. In time, this distinctive style exerted influence on the entire region dominated by the Ottomans.

Numerous early European accounts reflected the salient peculiarities of Ottoman music by reference to fourmajor features: instruments, Janissary or Mehter military music, female dancing and dances and the whirlingdervishes or the Mevlevi order. The latter is the object of our following section.

The Mevlevi orderThis mystic movement is named after its founder, the greatest Sufi (Islamic mystic) poet in the Persianlanguage Jalal al-din al-Rumi (d. 1273) who is sometimes called Mevlana (our Master), thus giving rise tothe term Mevlevi. The confraternity he founded developed a highly regulated ritual ceremony in which amost spectacular music and dance achieve a degree of sophistication unparalleled in Muslim lands.

In this ceremony called `ayn sharif or Mukabele (mystical union) music, singing and dance form anindivisible union, in which all details are highly formalized. A large group of dancers, known in the West asthe whirling dervishes, wearing white gowns, black mantles and tall conical hats, perform a highly spiritualand stylized dance to the accompaniment of a large professional orchestral and vocal ensemble that performsfrom a gallery. The orchestral section comprises numerous ney (oblique flute), one or two fiddles, lutes andzithers; the vocal group, seated apart, includes professional singers who also beat a variety of drums. Mostof the music is composed by well-known musicians who are usually members of the order, whose musicbelongs to the category of art musicand is a source of inspiration to the order itself.

Al-Rumi is famous for his lyrics and his didactic epic, which are included in his anthology Masnavi-yaMa’anevi (spiritual couplets), and has had a major influence on mystical thought and literature. His workdeeply reflects his special predilection and fondness for music and dance, as can be observed in thefollowing statement:

“Many ways lead to God; I have chosen that of music and dance.”

Al-Rumi’s favorite instrument was the ney (long oblique flute), which occupies a prominent place in hislyrics; the flute is also held in great esteem among the mystics because of its proximity to the human voiceand as a symbol of the human windpipe. A story depicting the role of the ney in divulging the divine secretrecounts that before being expelled from the Garden of Eden, Adam was told a secret. Soon after hisexpulsion, the secret he was forbidden to divulge weighed on him, causing him painful torment. Coming to

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This tradition has been prominent mainly in secular life, and to a lesser extent in liturgical and para-liturgicalinstances; it essentially became the province of women in the new environment. Jewish women were notinvolved in the performance of Turkish classical music, and as a rule they did not take part in liturgicalpractice. Nevertheless, some daughters of rabbis and cantors involved in the religious activities of theirfathers were proficient in the singing of synagogal pieces in the men’s ornamented and nasalizing Turkishstyle.

In this context, it should be noted that in the realm of liturgical music and classical music as a whole therewas a fervent identification of the Jews with the Turkish art music style as a vehicle leading the worshippersto religious elevation and compassion. As a rule, there have been close relations between Jewish Ottomanmusicians and their Muslim and Christian colleagues.

Romanniots and KaraitesThe Sephardi newcomers found old communities of Romaniots and Karaites scattered in Istanbul andelsewhere.

The Romaniots constitute the original old Jewish communities of the territories of the Byzantine Empire,where they had dwelt for hundreds of years. In view of the specific circumstances of Jewish history, theRomaniots experienced the effect of a very influential factor — the constant, long-term exposure to the localmusical cultures that surrounded them. In our case, the name Romaniot, or Gregos, invokes this affinity withthe surrounding musical and other influences of Greek culture and the Greek language. The Greek languagehad been adopted in their synagogue services, as well as in para-liturgical and secular songs.

The Karaites constitute a Jewish religious movement that came into being at the beginning of the eighthcentury in Persia. Its doctrine is characterized primarily by its rejection of “oral law”, that is the rabbinicinterpretations embodied in the Talmud and commentaries as accepted by Orthodox Judaism. The movementgained a firm foothold in the Byzantine Empire toward the end of the eleventh century. By the second halfof the thirteenth century, Karaism in the Byzantine Empire entered a period of spiritual florescence andcultural integration. The Karaites were based in Constantinople and other centres, especially in Adrianople,the city which was to become the most important and creative centre of Karaism during the period of theconsolidation of the Ottoman Empire.

Coming back to the wave of Spanish Jews that arrived in Turkey, it should be noted that, due to their superiorcultural heritage and the fact that their total population outnumbered all the Romaniot communities, theysucceeded in influencing the Greek-speaking communities to adopt their own basic prayers. However, inspite of this influence, the Byzantine style that characterized the music of old Romaniot communities,including those of the Karaites, continued to be preserved in Constantinople and other Turkish centres.

A personal concluding noteIn December, 1973, a grandiloquent commemorative celebration was held in Konia to mark the sevenhundredth anniversary of Jalal al-Din al-Rumi’s death; I was privileged to be among the huge crowdsgathered in the beautiful town of Konia for the occasion. The first thing I did was pay a visit to his tomb atthe magnificent Mausoleum. A meditative atmosphere reigned over the holy shrine; it was dominated by thesoft, mysterious and plaintive sound of a recorded rabab (fiddle) casting a spell over the whole space, as ifmetaphorically ‘the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the water’. Nearby, I could admire a beautifulmanuscript of Jalal al-din’s book of lyrics, an important collection of musical instruments used in theaccompaniment of the Mukabele, exhibited in a showcase and, on the floor, a huge rosary comprising nine-hundred-and ninety-nine wooden beads corresponding to the multiple names of God.

My attention was then drawn particularly to the following sentence displayed at the entrance, next to a hugecopper container which served to collect rainwater at the beginning of April which is said to bring Baraka(blessing). It is with this sentence expressing openness that I would like to end my text:

Come, come, come again, whoever you may be.Come again, even though you may be a pagan or a fire worshipper.Our center is one of despair.Come again, even if you may have violated your vows a hundred times,Come again.

AMNON SHILOAHVue du port de Constantinople. Ivan Aivanzovskii (1817 – 1900) Musée du Louvre, Paris. © RMN / Gérard Blot10