Download Conducted and introduced by Emre ARACI

EUROPEAN MUSIC AT THE OTTOMAN COURT
Conducted and introduced by Emre ARACI
PROGRAMME
Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687)
Marche pour la cérémonie des Turcs
Giuseppe Donizetti Pasha (1788-1856)
Marcia favorita del Gran Sultano Mahmud II
Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848)
Gran Marcia Militare Imperiale ‘Sultano Abdulmecid’
Charles Louis Napoléon d’Albert (1809-1886)
The Sultan’s Polka
Callisto Guatelli Pasha (1818-1900)
Marche de L’Éxposition Ottomane
Sultan Abdülaziz (1830-1876)
Invitation à la Valse (c.1861)
Rifat Bey (1820-1888)
Prière pour Sultan Murad V (1876)
Sultan Murad V (1840-1904)
Valse en Mi Bémol Majeur (MS, 1879)
Fehime Sultan (1875-1929)
Marche L’Union National
Burhaneddin Efendi (1885-1949)
Grande Marche
Orchestral arrangements © Dr Emre Aracı
Emre ARACI - EUROPEAN MUSIC AT THE OTTOMAN COURT - for String Orchestra
European Music at the Ottoman Court is a themed concert introduced and
conducted by the Turkish musicologist Dr Emre Aracı who specialises in the
European musical tradition in the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, when the
famous opera composer Gaetano Donizetti’s eldest brother Giuseppe Donizetti
became master of music at the Turkish court. Better known as Donizetti Pasha, his
influence prompted a fashion for Italian opera and European popular music within the
palaces along the Bosphorus, where ladies of the harem learned to play the pianoforte
with instruments imported from Vienna and the military bands of the sultans played
marches by Rossini and the Donizetti brothers expressly written for them. The passion
of the court for the ballroom music of Europe also resulted in royal compositions by
members of the imperial family in the genres of polkas, marches and waltzes, to the
extent of some even appearing in the catalogues of the publishing houses in Europe.
Through Aracı’s orchestrations these ephemeral works have found a new lease of life
and now take us to the unknown territory of forgotten compositions from the Ottoman
Empire. While explaining the history of every individual work, Aracı also shows the
levels of musical interchange that existed between East and West in an age which is
now totally confined to the dusty shelves of archives.
EMRE ARACI
A graduate of the University of Edinburgh, Dr Emre Aracı has made original
contributions to the scholarship of Turkish music through his pioneering research
focusing on the European musical practice in the Ottoman court in the 19th century.
His CDs include European Music at the Ottoman Court, War and Peace: Crimea
1853-56, Bosphorus by Moonlight and Istanbul to London, also released as
compilations under the titles of Invitation to the Seraglio (Warner Classics) and
Euro-Ottomania (Brilliant Classics), which The Gramophone praised as “an
unexpectedly attractive collection, and the musical presentation is expert idiomatic
and alive”. He is the author of six books, all published in Turkey: the biographies of
the eminent 20th-century Turkish composer Ahmed Adnan Saygun (1999) and
Donizetti Pasha (2006), Master of Music to the Ottoman sultans, Naum Theatre
(2010), Istanbul’s 19th-century Italian opera house, Kayıp Seslerin İzinde [In search
of Lost Sounds] (2011), a collection of his selected articles, Yusuf Agâh Efendi, The
first Turkish Ambassador in London (2013) and Elgar in Turkey (2014). In 2012 the
Ankara State Ballet produced Murad V, a ballet in two acts, based on Aracı’s libretto
on the life and original compositions of one of the most productive composer sultans
of the Ottoman Empire. Based in the United Kingdom, he continues his TurcoEuropean historical music research under the patronage of the Çarmıklı family / Nurol
Holding Inc. For further information please visit: www.emrearaci.weebly.com
ORCHESTRA:
6 Violin I + 4 Violin II + 4 Viola + 4 Cello + 2 Double bass = 20 players
Emre ARACI - EUROPEAN MUSIC AT THE OTTOMAN COURT - for String Orchestra