{"id":59,"date":"2012-03-18T00:50:10","date_gmt":"2012-03-18T04:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pdme\/?page_id=59"},"modified":"2012-04-10T20:27:01","modified_gmt":"2012-04-11T00:27:01","slug":"59-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pdme\/59-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Panayotis League “\u00c7e\u00e7en K\u0131z\u0131: Tracing a Tune through the Ottoman Ecumene”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00c7e\u00e7en K\u0131z\u0131<\/em>: Tracing a Tune through the Ottoman Ecumene<\/p>\n

Panayotis League<\/p>\n

Between 1910 and 1914, the great multi-instrumentalist and composer of Ottoman classical music Tanburi Cemil Bey made 181 wax cylinder recordings for Julius and Hermann Blumenthal\u2019s Istanbul-based Orfeon Records, a subsidiary of Odeon and later of Columbia Records. One of these recordings was of a moderate tempo dance tune reminiscent of Anatolian village music, a rarity in Cemil Bey\u2019s catalogue of predominantly classical pieces and non-metered taksim<\/em> or modal improvisations. The selection was released as a 78 rpm disc stamped with the title \u00c7e\u00e7en K\u0131z\u0131<\/em> – \u201cChechen Girl\u201d- and became a success among Turks, Greeks, Armenians, and other aficionados of Ottoman music within and outside the waning empire; the virtuosic ease with which Cemil Bey plays the notoriously difficult kemen\u00e7e<\/em>, an upright three-stringed fiddle, has been a source of wonder and inspiration for generations of students and lovers of Near-Eastern music.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the tune has become an undeniable standard of the Ottoman classical repertoire in the century since it was recorded by the eccentric genius. This is perhaps due to kemen\u00e7e and tanbur virtuoso Ihsan \u00d6zgen (b. 1942), widely considered Cemil Bey\u2019s successor and a mentor to many of the current stars of Turkish classical music, who kept \u00c7e\u00e7en K\u0131z\u0131<\/em> as a standard part of his concert and recording repertoire and taught it to his students as a h\u00fcseyni oyun havas\u0131<\/em> \u2013 a dance tune in the makam<\/em> or mode h\u00fcseyni <\/em>\u2013 whose form makes it ideal for use as a transitional piece in a set of light classical music.[1]<\/a> The Turkish classical music community at large seems to take the melody\u2019s authorship by Cemil Bey for granted, and appears to have done so ever since a transcription of the recording was first published in 1919 by Istanbul musician Kemal Emin Bara and Armenian luthier Onnik Zadurian (Example 1).[2]<\/a> Nearly every extant edition of Ottoman classical music scores includes it, listed either as \u00c7e\u00e7en K\u0131z\u0131<\/em> or H\u00fcseyni Oyun Havas\u0131 <\/em>(or both), and it is always presented as a Cemil Bey composition. Every source for Turkish classical music scores on the Internet similarly attributes the melody to Cemil Bey,[3]<\/a> and the essay by Harold G. Hagopian and Erc\u00fcment Aksoy in the liner notes to Cemil Bey\u2019s re-mastered recordings expressly mentions the piece as one of his compositions.[4]<\/a> YouTube returns, at the time of writing, hundreds of results for the title \u00c7e\u00e7en K\u0131z\u0131<\/em>; nearly half of the videos are performances of the melody originally recorded by Cemil Bey, with versions ranging from solo ud<\/em> recitals to avant-garde Turkish jazz, and nearly all of them list Cemil Bey as the composer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Example<\/p>\n

Example 1 \u2013 \u201c\u00c7e\u00e7en K\u0131z\u0131\u201d as recorded by Tanburi Cemil Bey (Bara and Zadurian, 39).<\/p>\n

There are a number of reasons to question whether Cemil Bey actually composed the melody, which I will examine in the rest of this article, and they lead us on a fascinating journey through the musical, social, and political history of modern Greece, Turkey, and the Balkan peninsula. Just as compelling, though, are the questions raised by the fact that Cemil Bey is so frequently credited in Turkish music circles as the tune\u2019s author. From one point of view, this attribution is not far-fetched at all; he was a prolific composer, and many of his other recordings are of his own classical pieces. However, placed within the context of the rise of the Kemalist republic and Turkish nationalism that followed the collapse of the old Ottoman political and social milieu, the appropriation by the state-run classical music establishment of this extremely popular melody speaks volumes about music\u2019s symbolic import.\u00a0 As we will see, possible sources for the tune include one of several antagonistic and historically oppressed non-Turkish ethnic groups with aspirations of independence (Kurds or Armenians); and another such group, one that succeeded in breaking free from Turkish occupation (Greeks), explicitly claims the melody as its own. Discussing music\u2019s role in the rise of twentieth-century nationalisms, ethnomusicologist Philip Bohlman reminds us that \u201c\u2026music does narrate histories. Music does point the way toward origins and beginnings.”[5]<\/a> The sociopolitical origins and beginnings evoked by insistence on \u00c7e\u00e7en K\u0131z\u0131 <\/em>as Cemil Bey\u2019s composition are firmly rooted in the unified Ottoman state with \u201cglobal Istanbul\u201d at its core \u2013 a vision that resonates equally with both the Islamic and secular sides of modern Turkey\u2019s ideological divide,[6]<\/a> and that makes an investigation into the tune\u2019s origins all the more timely and relevant.<\/p>\n

The emphasis on Cemil Bey\u2019s authorship of \u00c7e\u00e7en K\u0131z\u0131 <\/em>also points to the enhanced status of the composer and the written score in twentieth-century Turkish classical music. A departure from popular Ottoman practice, where oral tradition played a much more prominent role, this is only one of many changes brought about by a conscious modeling after Western art music and conservatory culture. Aside from the actual music being performed and some of the instruments on stage, the observer of a typical Turkish classical music recital in Istanbul will find few differences (if any) in dress, atmosphere, demeanor, or personnel from an analogous event in London, Paris, Vienna, or Boston. This controlled environment, in which performances can be meticulously crafted according to a prescribed ideal, fosters a sense of timelessness and deep, personal connection with a national or international artistic tradition \u2013 as well as, significantly, with the composer and his presumed intentions. Clearly, the portrayal of these intentions depends upon the ideological lens through which they are interpreted; what then if the lens is that of Westernization, Orientalist fantasy, Turkish nationalism, or \u201cglobal Istanbul\u201d? When viewed in this light, the question of \u00c7e\u00e7en K\u0131z\u0131 <\/em>becomes more than simply a matter of historical curiosity.<\/p>\n

All of these issues and tensions are eloquently present in a cursory examination of three of the aforementioned YouTube videos, which contrast in both their original contexts and their reception by their respective online audiences. The first is from a performance on March 24, 2006 by Istanbul Technical University\u2019s Turkish Music State Conservatory Chamber Orchestra (T\u00fcrk Musikisi Devlet Konservatuar\u0131 Oda Orkestras\u0131’n\u0131n), where \u00c7e\u00e7en K\u0131z\u0131 <\/em>is played by an ud<\/em> soloist as the rest of the orchestra looks on.[7]<\/a> The setting is reminiscent of a classical Western music recital: the musicians are wearing tuxedoes and evening gowns, they are seated in a semicircle on the elevated stage of ITU\u2019s modern concert hall, and with the exception of the ud<\/em> all the instruments would be at home in a Western orchestra. The information provided by the video\u2019s uploader credits Cemil Bey as the composer, and the comments in Turkish, English, and French by other users are generally confined to praising the virtuosity of the soloist and the beauty of the music, referencing Sufism and the Ottoman past.[8]<\/a><\/p>\n

Another video, uploaded by YouTube user muzbey on May 6, 2008, features an audio recording of a modern Turkish chamber orchestra performing an intricately arranged and highly virtuosic rendition of the piece.[9]<\/a> The video\u2019s description consists of two sentences, \u201cTraditional Ottoman Turkish Music from early 20th<\/sup> century,\u201d and \u201cComposer: Tanburi Cemil Bey (1873-1916),\u201d and the music is set against a backdrop of three successive images: an Ottoman miniature painting depicting an orchestra of turbaned ney<\/em> (end-blown flute), tanbur <\/em>(long-necked lute, for many the Ottoman classical instrument par excellence<\/em>), bendir<\/em> (frame drum), and miskal<\/em> (panpipe) players, a painting of the Bosphorus with Sultan Ahmet mosque in the background, and a drawing of the same scene from a different perspective. Many of the comments, too, reference the shared Ottoman and Muslim heritage celebrated by these images: in addition to numerous religious sentiments in Turkish and Arabic, these statements of Islamic solidarity are typical:<\/p>\n

\n

this is a very beautiful clip, thank you for placing it as it brings back the memories from the ottoman glorious days, who did so much for us in hejaz and elsewhere in \u00a0 the muslim world, may Allah because of them bless the turks for generations to come, we are proud of our turkish brothers and sisters. (by user aazarinni)<\/p>\n

The Ottoman Turkish music is one of the most beautiful and the richest in kinds, it needs very accute ears and high musical culture, may GOD bless the souls of all those excellent, long live Turkish Music musicians. (by user clickright)<\/p>\n

we should be very proud of our turk brothers and sisters, indeed.\u00a0I wish those glorious days come back again. When i listen to such magnificent music, i wish that i lived in that era. (by user malazzeh)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Though some dissenting views are represented in the comments, the dominant tone is one of Islamist nostalgia for the glory days of Ottoman rule, when cosmopolitan Istanbul was the center of the Muslim world, and the recording of \u00c7e\u00e7en K\u0131z\u0131<\/em> \u2013 here a composition of Cemil Bey \u2013 signifies that longed-for time, evoking images of Mevlevi dervishes and the Sultan\u2019s court.<\/p>\n

In stark contrast to these presentations and receptions of the piece is a performance of \u00c7e\u00e7en K\u0131z\u0131 <\/em>(entitled \u201cCicen Kizi\u201d in the video) by the Greek group Thria on the program \u201cStin Ygeia Mas\u201d, broadcast in 2008 on ERT (Elliniki Radiofonia Tileorasi<\/em>, Greek Radio and Television).[10]<\/a> The majority of Thria\u2019s members belong to the generation of urban Greek musicians who came of age in the 1990s and early 2000s amid a heady mix of regional Greek and Turkish folk music, Ottoman classical music, and Byzantine ecclesiastical music, and many of them, including the principal arranger, have spent large amounts of time studying Turkish music in Istanbul with its most prominent exponents. The ensemble is a mix of Greek folk instruments such as the laouto<\/em> (steel string lute) and santouri<\/em> (hammer dulcimer), instruments associated with Turkish or Asia Minor traditions (ud<\/em> and the long-necked lute known as saz<\/em>, here referred to by the Greek term tambouras<\/em>), instruments common to both traditions (clarinet, violin, the goblet-shaped dumbek<\/em> drum), and the pan-Balkan kaval<\/em> or end-blown flute.\u00a0 Indeed, the arrangement of \u00c7e\u00e7en K\u0131z\u0131 <\/em>performed by Thria in the video clip, as well as the general playing style, is firmly rooted in the contemporary Greek paradosiak\u00e1 <\/em>genre, which strongly references modern Turkish performance practice and aesthetics; and the version performed by the ensemble is clearly modeled after Tanburi Cemil Bey\u2019s recording.[11]<\/a> While the video\u2019s description makes no mention of Cemil Bey, the uploader decided to use a version of the tune\u2019s Turkish title, presumably referencing the musicians\u2019 announcement of the selection. The scene is fairly typical of Greek entertainment variety shows, with the musicians smartly but casually dressed, on a lighted stage with microphones, monitors, and music stands, performing to a seated audience of the hosts, guests, and various personalities; it is more reminiscent of a nightclub performance than a concert hall, sufi lodge, or imperial palace.<\/p>\n

While the context of Thria\u2019s performance differs from the previous two examples, the reaction to the video in the comments section is even more telling of the emotions roused by music\u2019s narration of history. The question of the tune\u2019s authorship comes up immediately, in one of the first comments: \u201cyou should have mentioned the composer… Tanburi Cemil Bey…\u201d (posted by user aram34), and the discussion goes back and forth for some time, developing into an argument heated enough that extremely offensive racial slurs are exchanged, several abusive comments are removed for receiving too many negative votes, and many users go out of their way to compensate by emphasizing the shared aspects of Greek, Turkish, and Mediterranean culture. The comment by Alexis022 is typical of these:<\/p>\n

\n

Could we Stop to fight like stupids childs?! What happened, just it’s past. Come \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 on, all together, with Respect to each other. Armenians Turkish Greeks Persians Arabs Kurdish, all of we, The Greatest Musicians, artist, poets in the world! C’mon, enjoy the music, without insults! And try with all your inner forces to understand each other.[12]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Despite the prevalence of such cooler heads, the argument in the comment section of this video continues for over two years, with participants debating not only the origins of the piece in question, but of other songs and musical instruments common to both Greek and Turkish culture. In this case, the history narrated by the sight and sound of Greeks performing \u00c7e\u00e7en K\u0131z\u0131<\/em> proved unsettling enough to some viewers and listeners to spark a violent debate, inflaming passions still seething after nearly a century since the end of official hostilities between Greece and Turkey.<\/p>\n

****<\/p>\n

Bearing these various issues in mind, there are several compelling reasons to question whether Cemil Bey actually composed the melody of \u00c7e\u00e7en K\u0131z\u0131<\/em>. <\/em>First, in the context of the corpus of his work \u2013 181 recordings made between 1910 and 1914 \u2013 the piece sticks out, along with at least two others, as a \u201cfolk\u201d tune, with an entirely different melodic and aesthetic character than his compositions in pesrev <\/em>(prelude) or saz semaisi<\/em> (instrumental theme and variation) form. While the melodic contours of the tune conform to classic h\u00fcseyni seyir <\/em>or melodic progression (with a brief modulation to karcigar makam), the rhythmically insistent phrasing and intervallic jumps are reminiscent of Anatolian folk music, and the ABCD form is typical of such dance tunes. The ud<\/em> accompanying Cemil\u2019s kemen\u00e7e, played by Kadi Fuad Efendi, holds a continuous ostinato throughout the performance in the dance-oriented d\u00fcyek<\/em> usul<\/em> pattern rather than playing in unison with the kemen\u00e7e, as it would in the classical style.<\/p>\n

Second, the name \u00c7e\u00e7en K\u0131z\u0131<\/em> is puzzling. While his two other recordings of obviously non-classical melodies have names that give them away as either folk pieces or self-consciously folk-inspired arrangements \u2013 such as \u00c7oban taksim<\/em> (\u201cShepherd taksim<\/em>\u201d) and Gaida havas\u0131 <\/em>(\u201cBagpipe tune\u201d) \u2013 this tune is simply recorded under a title, as if of a song, the only one of his instrumental recordings not to be classified by makam<\/em> (or in the case of the two aforementioned \u201cfolk\u201d pieces, other clear genre marker) and compositional form.\u00a0 If Cemil Bey did compose these other two pieces, inspired by regional folk music, it makes sense that he gave them generic names acknowledging the inspiration, much like Mozart\u2019s Rondo Alla Turca<\/em> or, more to the point, Bartok\u2019s Romanian Folk Dances<\/em>. But if \u00c7e\u00e7en K\u0131z\u0131<\/em> was indeed his composition, it seems unlikely, judging by his otherwise strict adherence to naming pieces by makam and form, that he would invent for it a fanciful title invoking a distant province of the Ottoman Empire.\u00a0 He would probably have simply called it H\u00fcseyni Oyun Havas\u0131<\/em>, as it was eventually classified in later music editions by his successors. But he didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Third, unlike many Istanbul gentlemen of his time and station, Cemil Bey, who spent much of his life in and around the Sultan\u2019s palace as a bureaucrat and court musician, had a deep appreciation for the regional folk music of Turkey and the Balkans. At the turn of the twentieth century, Istanbul \u2013 whose population had grown to roughly one million \u2013 was a \u201cheaven of folk music\u201d, according to Cemil\u2019s son Mesut, himself a revered tanbur virtuoso; the city was full of migrant musicians from other regions of the Empire, living in sufi lodges and inns in its burgeoning slums.[13]<\/a> Cemil frequently visited with many of these itinerant musicians, playing saz<\/em> (an Anatolian lute) with wandering troubadours[14]<\/a> and deserting his post at the foreign ministry to listen to the palace cooks and gardeners play and sing.[15]<\/a> Mesut Cemil recalls his father being so taken with the singing of a blind beggar that he left the house and followed him down the street, writing down the melody in Hamparsum notation (a shorthand developed in the 18th<\/sup> century to transcribe, among other things, Ottoman classical music) on the back of a pack of cigarettes.[16]<\/a> Mesut, who accompanied his father, describes the tune as a \u201csemi-mystical folk song\u201d, and thinks that it must have been from Harput, Diyarbak\u0131r, or Elaz\u0131g, areas in Southeastern Anatolia traditionally populated by Armenians and Kurds.[17]<\/a><\/p>\n

Mesut has quite a lot to say about this song in particular, and the influence of folk music on Cemil in general. The experience of hearing the blind man\u2019s \u201csemi-mystical\u201d melody seems to have been profound for both father and son, and Mesut is \u201csure that (his) father incorporated this tune into the music he recorded\u201d.[18]<\/a> Certainly, Cemil was taken enough by the melody to transcribe it, presumably for future use. Discussing the impact of regional Turkish music on his father\u2019s recordings, Mesut writes:<\/p>\n

\n

The pure folkloric style in the K\u00fcrdi and G\u00fclizar taksims with tanbur,\u00a0H\u00fcseyni taksim with yayl\u0131 tanbur, \u00c7e\u00e7en K\u0131z\u0131 and \u00c7oban taksim with kemen\u00e7e<\/em>, and others\u2026 seeped into Cemil\u2019s creative and receptive soul from these kinds of sources, and they took shape there (italics mine).[19]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This statement, when taken in the context of Mesut\u2019s numerous anecdotes, causes one to wonder: could the blind beggar\u2019s \u201csemi-mystical folk song\u201d in fact be \u00c7e\u00e7en K\u0131z\u0131<\/em>, or something like it? We may never know. For all of Mesut\u2019s waxing rhapsodic about the impression the tune made on his father (and presumably himself), he doesn\u2019t notate it for us, or tell us exactly what Cemil did with that pack of cigarettes; and the melody is absent from Cemil\u2019s published personal notes.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

But the story doesn\u2019t end in the pages of Mesut Cemil\u2019s homage to his brilliant father, or with Cemil Bey\u2019s wax cylinder recording on the eve of the First World War. Variants of the melody are common in at least two other areas of the former Ottoman Empire, though, as far as I have been able to ascertain, not in Southeastern Anatolia (as one might suspect based on Cemil Bey\u2019s title for it and Mesut\u2019s aforementioned assumptions). In fact, both of these versions are found to the west, in Greece: one on the eastern Aegean island of Mytilene or Lesvos, just a few kilometers from the Asia Minor coast, and the other, interestingly, around the port city of Preveza in Epirus, the westernmost province of the Greek mainland and the opposite coast of the former Ottoman dominion. These two variations display the central melodic and rhythmic features of Cemil Bey\u2019s version while deviating from it in ways that suggest, musically, that all three are related descendents of a common ancestor; and the various names associated with these two tunes, as well as the folklore surrounding them, suggest a myriad of other possibilities for their common origin.<\/p>\n

In Mytilene, the melody is generally associated with the village of Agiasos, where it is most commonly known today as Ta Xyla<\/em> (\u201cThe [pieces of] wood\u201d \u2013 Example 2). Oral tradition links the tune to the construction of the village\u2019s first steam-powered olive press in 1878, during Ottoman rule. Trees for the building\u2019s roof were felled in the nearby forest and carried to the site on the shoulders of local men; to encourage them and coordinate their steps, the village\u2019s Turkish mayor ordered a military band to play his favorite march, and the tune caught on, becoming part of the local repertoire.[20]<\/a> The melody is also known in Agiasos as Ta Tabania<\/em> (from Turkish taban<\/em>, \u201cboard\u201d) and Ta Tsamia<\/em> (from the Turkish \u00e7am<\/em>, \u201cpine tree\u201d).[21]<\/a> The military band connection makes sense on Mytilene, whose population has been historically receptive to this musical aesthetic; until very recently, brass bands were extremely popular all over the island, and still survive in a mixed form known as fisera<\/em> (\u201cgroup of wind instruments\u201d), with violin, accordion, and guitar playing alongside trumpet, clarinet, and trombone.<\/p>\n

\"Example2\"<\/p>\n

Example 2 \u2013 \u201cTa Xyla\u201d as recorded in 1994 by Harilaos Rodinos (violin), Kostas Zafeiriou (santouri<\/em>), and Stavros Rodinos (guitar), Agiasos, Mytilene.<\/p>\n

Older Agiasos musicians also identify the tune as an old Ottoman march. Several elderly musicians interviewed by ethnomusicologist Nikos Dionysopoulos in the 1970s reported that before the Second World War it was usually played as a processional \u201cwith a heroic and stately air\u201d, slightly slower than a march, and that before Mytilene was incorporated into the Greek state (1912) it was performed only once a year, at the annual celebrations of the local Turkish police force.[22]<\/a> In the village of Plomari, it was used only as a processional,[23]<\/a> and singer Solonas Lekkas claims that it was played in eastern Lesvos as a processional before horse races in honor of St. Haralambos.[24]<\/a> [25]<\/a> In light of these associations with outdoor marching and Ottoman military bands, it is interesting to note that Cemil Bey spent much time with the musicians of the Muzika-i H\u00fcmayun<\/em>, the Sultan\u2019s Westernized brass and wind band \u2013 the very ensemble that replaced the mehter<\/em> or Ottoman Janissary bands of the nineteenth century.[26]<\/a> This suggests another possible source from which Cemil might have learned the tune; and if the anecdote connecting the melody to the pre-1912 years is accurate, it is virtually impossible that he composed it and it then spread to Mytilene, since his first records were made in 1910.<\/p>\n

Although the tune is popularly known as Ta Xyla<\/em> today, it had other names in the past \u2013 names which suggest alternative origins and associations. Musicians from Agiasos,[27]<\/a> Plomari,[28]<\/a> and Kapi[29]<\/a> report that it was known before the Second World War as Kiourtiko <\/em>\u2013 \u201cKurdish tune\u201d \u2013 and in Plomari it was also called Kiourtiko Alem Havasi<\/em>,[30]<\/a> a hybrid Greek-Turkish title meaning roughly \u201cKurdish party tune\u201d. Interestingly, violinist Manolis Pantelelis of Plomari claims that an old clarinetist invented the name Ta Xyla<\/em> or Ta Xylarelia<\/em> in order to create confusion among rival musicians who knew it as Kiourtiko<\/em>;[31]<\/a> if true, this would of course raise questions about the olive press story. Kurdish origins would certainly make sense based on the melody\u2019s character[32]<\/a>, and it is tempting to summon the specter of Cemil Bey\u2019s blind beggar and his \u201csemi-mystical folk song,\u201d who Mesut Cemil speculated was from a Kurdish or Armenian region of Anatolia.<\/p>\n

Another name associated with the melody in prewar Mytilene, though less frequently, was Skopos tou Osman-Pasa<\/em> (\u201cOsman Pasha\u2019s tune\u201d).[33]<\/a> Osman Nuri Pasha was an Ottoman general and the hero of the siege of Plevna in Bulgaria, fought in 1877 during the Russo-Turkish War, for which he received the title Gazi<\/em> or victorious hero. Advisor to Sultan Abdulhamid, the staunchly anti-European Osman was wildly popular among the Muslim masses of the Empire, and various military marches were composed in his honor. One of these, variously known as Osman Pasha Mars\u0131<\/em> or Plevne Mars\u0131<\/em>, is still among the most performed military marches in contemporary Turkey.[34]<\/a> Two marches dedicated to Osman appear on Kalan Records\u2019 2000 re-issue of Ottoman military marches recorded in the early 20th<\/sup> century, though neither of them corresponds to the melody played in Mytilene. It is entirely plausible that a hero of Osman\u2019s stature would inspire a number of popular songs in a variety of styles, and perhaps it is not a coincidence that the siege of Plevna was fought in 1877, a year (or two, depending on the source) before the event in Agiasos that oral tradition connects with the popularization of \u201cOsman Pasha\u2019s Tune.\u201d A year or two is plenty of time for the melody to have worked its way to Mytilene from wherever in the Empire it was composed, especially if the agent of its movement was an Ottoman government official, perhaps newly stationed in Lesvos and full of patriotic fervor. With a little imagination, one can picture him whistling the tune as he drinks his coffee and stamps his approval on the plans for the village\u2019s new olive press.[35]<\/a><\/p>\n

Around 1935, Mytilenean musicians began playing the melody differently, changing the march rhythm so that it could be danced as a syrtos<\/em>, one of the most popular dance forms on the island.[36]<\/a> Since then, it has become one of the island\u2019s most beloved melodies, mandatory at every celebration, and for many people has come to define the traditional music of Mytilene. Violinist Manolis Pantelelis claims that \u201cno matter where you go today, even to Australia, people ask for it and you have to play it\u201d, and says that \u201cit has become like a national anthem<\/em>\u201d (italics mine).[37]<\/a> This very phrase is used by many Mytilenean musicians to describe the tune,[38]<\/a> a curious label indeed for a melody previously associated on their very island with Kurds, an Ottoman general, and the military band of a hated occupying power.[39]<\/a><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

The associations with Osman Pasha and the siege of Plevna lead us to the third version of the tune considered here, recorded under the name \u201cPlevna\u201d by Greek clarinetist Nikos Tzaras in 1933 for Columbia.[40]<\/a> Tzaras was born a few miles from the Albanian border near Ioannina in Epirus, the north-westernmost province of Greece, and at the age of fifteen left home, eventually settling in the port city of Preveza on the western coast. Though he began his working life as a coachman, his extraordinary talents on the clarinet — and the sudden obsolescence of his profession after the introduction of the automobile — led to his transition to a professional musician by 1911.[41]<\/a> Aside from his mastery of the local Greek repertoire,[42]<\/a> he was famed for his proficiency in and special affection for ala Tourka<\/em>, a pan-Ottoman genre of makam-based music common to most urban centers of the Empire. Like Mytilene, Preveza remained under Ottoman control until 1912, and being a significant port city had a sizable Turkish population before liberation; even in the decades after union with Greece, the musical culture of the city reflected its Ottoman past, as Turkish ensembles continued to be contracted to play for extended periods at the caf\u00e9s in the Saitan Pazar[43]<\/a> district, and Tzaras and other local Greek musicians frequently played in mixed orchestras with their Turkish colleagues.[44]<\/a><\/p>\n

In 1928 Tzaras spent several months in Istanbul, where he performed with renowned classical tanbur player, composer, and singer M\u00fcnir Nurettin Sel\u00e7uk, and befriended local musicians whom he later brought back to Preveza for musical engagements.[45]<\/a> Sel\u00e7uk was a key figure in the modern Turkish republic\u2019s classical music establishment and certainly would have been familiar with Tanburi Cemil Bey\u2019s \u201c\u00c7e\u00e7en K\u0131z\u0131\u201d; but it seems unlikely that Tzaras would have learned the tune from Sel\u00e7uk, since the version he recorded in 1933 varies even more from Cemil Bey\u2019s rendition than does the version popular in Mytilene (Example 3).<\/p>\n

\"Example3\"Example 3 \u2013 \u201cPlevna\u201d as recorded by Nikos Tzaras in 1933.<\/p>\n

There is also, of course, the matter of the name \u201cPlevna\u201d, which, invoking the site of the aforementioned battle, clearly implies a connection to the Mytilenean \u201cOsman Pasha\u201d and the eponymous Ottoman general. Though I am not aware of a brass band tradition in Preveza, it stands to reason that a sizable Ottoman town with vested commercial interests would have had a garrison large enough to boast competent musicians, and it seems plausible that the tune could have entered the local repertoire that way, if indeed its origins lie in the Ottoman military band tradition. Clarinetist Makis Vasiliadis and laouto player Christos Zotos, both natives of the region, claim that the tune was brought to Preveza by refugees from Asia Minor, who settled there after the catastrophe of 1922 that ended the Greco-Turkish War.[46]<\/a> Either way, \u201cPlevna\u201d appears to have been unknown outside the immediate vicinity of Preveza, and seems to have disappeared from the local repertoire of Preveza itself in the years since Tzaras\u2019 death in 1942.[47]<\/a> Incidentally, Tzaras\u2019 version was recorded in the 1970s by clarinetist Vasilis Soukas from Komboti in the neighboring district of Arta with the title \u201cPlevra\u201d \u2013 presumably a Hellenized corruption of the foreign-sounding Slavic name of the original.[48]<\/a> This suggests to me that Soukas, or whomever he learned the tune from (or, for that matter, the record company\u2019s graphic designer), was unaware of the melody\u2019s associations with Ottoman military history. Considering the strength of oral tradition in this region of Greece, and Soukas\u2019 notoriously encyclopedic knowledge of the area\u2019s music, this would suggest that such associations never became part of the musical folklore of Preveza — perhaps because Tzaras himself wasn\u2019t aware of them in the first place.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

So where does all this leave the question of authorship? For better or for worse, nowhere definitive. While several intriguing possibilities present themselves \u2013 the most likely of which seems to be some connection with Osman Pasha and Ottoman military music \u2013 the only conclusions we can make are cautiously apophatic ones. In the face of all the evidence presented here, it seems probable that Cemil Bey did not compose \u201c\u00c7e\u00e7en K\u0131z\u0131\u201d, and it is just as unlikely that the tune originated in the Caucasus, despite the name under which it was first recorded. Without a detailed survey of Kurdish, Armenian, and Bulgarian music \u2013 a formidable project in itself \u2013 it is difficult to speculate on possible origins stemming from those regions. In the end, perhaps what we are left with is simply a deeper sense of the richness and complexity of music\u2019s multiple roles, and the fluidity with which it insists on crossing \u2013 and re-crossing, and crossing again \u2013 so many of the boundaries that we contrive.<\/p>\n

Notes<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\n

[1]<\/a> Robert Labaree, personal communication; March 1, 2011.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[2]<\/a> Kemal Emin Bara and Onnik Zadurian, Tanburi Cemil Bey <\/em>(Istanbul: 1919), 39.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[3]<\/a> Two versions of the piece, listed as \u201cOyun Havas\u0131 (\u00c7e\u00e7en k\u0131z\u0131)\u201d, are available at www.neyzen.com\/huseyni.htm — the most popular site for Turkish classical music scores, with nearly two million hits since its inception in 2002 — in the section of classical pieces in h\u00fcseyni makam.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[4]<\/a> Harold G. Hagopian and Erc\u00fcment Aksoy, Tanburi Cemil Bey Volumes II & III<\/em> (New York: Traditional Crossroads, 1995), 12.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[5]<\/a> Philip Bohlman, Music, Myth, and History in the Mediterranean: Diaspora and the Return to Modernity. Ethnomusicology Online 3<\/em>. http:\/\/www.umbc.edu\/eol\/3\/bohlman\/index.html.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[6]<\/a> Martin Stokes eloquently summarizes Istanbul\u2019s theoretical status as a global city as follows: \u201cFor Turkish Islamists \u2018global Istanbul\u2019 endorses a nostalgic vision of an Islamic social order supervised by Turks, free from petty ethnic squabbles and the ravages of modern capitalism. For secularists it resurrects Istanbul as the cosmopolitan and polyglot intellectual center it was before secular modernists relocated the capital to Ankara.\u201d Martin Stokes, The Republic of Love: Cultural Intimacy in Turkish Popular Music<\/em> (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 11.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[7]<\/a> \u201cCECEN KIZI,\u201d uploaded by hokelen July 6, 2007 on YouTube<\/em>, accessed January 14, 2012, http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=xBgeZp9rmlY.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[8]<\/a> A promising link in the comment section to the \u201cOriginal of this song on chechen language\u201d (sic), posted by user Shadowlessss, unfortunately leads to an apparently unrelated tune.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[9]<\/a> \u201c\u00c7e\u00e7en K\u0131z\u0131,\u201d uploaded by muzbey May 6, 2008 on YouTube<\/em>, accessed January 14, 2012, http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=SMfQgjdoj6Y.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[10]<\/a> \u201cThria \u2018Cicen kizi\u2019,\u201d uploaded by mpoulgari on YouTube<\/em> April 30, 2008, accessed January 14, 2012, http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=hrFr8ZADRyI.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[11]<\/a> For a nuanced discussion of the genre of paradosiak\u00e1<\/em>, in which Greek, Turkish, and other related elements mix freely, see Eleni Kallimopoulou, Paradosiak\u00e1: Music, Meaning, and Identity in Modern Greece<\/em> (Burlington: Ashgate, 2009).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[12]<\/a> Incidentally, the comment with the most positive votes \u2013 46 in all \u2013 reads \u201cAll racist Greeks and Turks should drown in baklava’s syrup!!\u201d (posted by user kostaras2).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[13]<\/a> Mesut Cemil, Tanburi Cemil Hayat\u0131<\/em> (Ankara: Sakarya Bas\u0131mev\u00ee, 1947), 71.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[14]<\/a> Ibid; 71.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[15]<\/a> Hagopian and Aksoy, 4.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[16]<\/a> Cemil, 72-73.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[17]<\/a> Ibid, 73.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[18]<\/a> Ibid, 73.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[19]<\/a> Ibid, 73.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[20]<\/a> This story is repeated \u2013 always as a report of oral tradition – in many sources, including S. Kolaxizelis, Thrylos kai Istoria tis Agiasou tis nisou Lesvou<\/em>, vol. 4. (Mytilene, 1950), 320-321; S. Anastasellis, \u201cKai diegontas ta,\u201d in Agiasos<\/em>, 5 (Athens, 1981), 2-4; and G. Hatzivasileiou, \u201cEna politirio tou 1879,\u201d in Agiasos<\/em>, 30 (Athens 1985), 9. The year of the olive press\u2019 construction is variously given as 1878 and 1879.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[21]<\/a> Dionysopoulos, Nikos, Lesvos Aiolis<\/em>: Tragoudia kai Horoi tis Lesvou <\/em>(Irakleio: University of Crete Press, 1997), 94.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[22]<\/a> Ibid, 94.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[23]<\/a> Ibid, 94.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[24]<\/a> Solonas Lekkas, interview in \u201cEkteni viografika simeiomata mousikon tis Lesvou,\u201d Kivotos tou Aiagiou<\/em> (Lesvos: University of the Aegean, 1997), accessible at http:\/\/www3.aegean.gr\/culturelab\/Biografika\/Lekkas.htm<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[25]<\/a> Events of this kind, with horse races and wrestling accompanied by live music \u2013 particularly the zurna<\/em> (a double-reed shawm) and daouli<\/em> (a two-headed bass drum) \u2013 are common throughout the Balkans and Anatolia. Mesut Cemil (1947: 115) mentions that Cemil Bey attended a wrestling event in the early 1900s near Istanbul, and was so impressed by the zurna players that he bought a zurna and taught himself to play.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[26]<\/a> Cemil, 69-70.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[27]<\/a> Dionysopoulos, 94.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[28]<\/a> Georgios Nikolakakis, \u201cProsopografies \u2018Laikon\u2019 Mousikon,\u201d in Mousika Stavrodromia sto Aigaio: Lesvos (19-20 aionas)<\/em>, ed. Sotiris Htouris (Athens: Exantas, 2000), 251. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[29]<\/a> Dionysopoulos, 94.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[30]<\/a> Ibid, 94.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[31]<\/a> Nikolakakis, 251.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[32]<\/a> The makam (mode), usul (rhythmic cycle), melodic range and various motives are fairly typical of music from Eastern Turkey, including areas with large Kurdish populations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[33]<\/a> Dionysopoulos, 94.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[34]<\/a> Kemal H. Karpat,\u00a0 The Politicization of Islam: Reconstructing Identity, State, Faith, and Community in the Late Ottoman State<\/em> (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001),\u00a0 191.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[35]<\/a> It may seem odd that Greeks would take such a liking to a piece of music ostensibly celebrating the exploits of a Muslim Turkish general against their fellow Orthodox Christians. Although there was certainly tension and resentment between the two communities, and the nineteenth century saw various revolts on Mytilene put down by the Ottoman forces in bloody fashion, the Greek inhabitants of the island were Ottoman citizens, and the politics of the situation were extremely complex. Further, many Turkish songs are an integral part of the musical tradition of Mytilene as well as virtually everywhere else in areas of Greece once controlled by the Ottomans; Mytilene\u2019s proximity to the coast of Asia Minor \u2013 at points close enough to swim across \u2013 ensured a centuries-long cultural, economic, and political connection to the mainland that only began to be severed in the early twentieth century.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[36]<\/a> Dionysopoulos, 94.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[37]<\/a> Nikolakakis, 251.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[38]<\/a> Ibid, 270; Konstantinos Lampros, personal communication, April 5, 2011.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[39]<\/a> Perhaps the military band connection somehow subconsciously suggests the anthemic quality of the melody. On the other hand, there is at least one version of the tune\u2019s history that explicitly engages in Greek nationalist rhetoric: Solonas Lekkas claims that it was played by the defenders of Constantinople during the fateful Ottoman siege of 1453, and is called \u201cTa Xyla\u201d because at the time of their escape they had only wood to use as weapons (Dimitris Papageorgiou, \u201cOi mousikes praktikes,\u201d in Mousika Stavrodromia sto Aigaio: Lesvos (19-20 aionas),<\/em> ed. Sotiris Htouris (Athens: Exantas, 2000), 152).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[40]<\/a> Panagiotis Kounadis, Eis anamnisin stigmwn elkystikon, keimena giro apo to rempetiko<\/em> (Athens: Katarti, 2003), 358.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[41]<\/a> Markos Dragoumis and Gregores Benekis, Gianniotika tou 1930 me tin kompania tou Nikou Tzara \/ istorikoi diskoi ton 78 strofon apo ti sullogi tou Mousikou Laografikou Arheiou tis Melpos Merlie<\/em> (Athens: Center for Asia Minor Studies \/ Syllogos Palion Giannioton, 1996), 5-6.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[42]<\/a> Much of the folk music of the Preveza region consists of adaptations of Arvanitika<\/em> \u2013 the music of Greeks of Albanian origin who settled in southern and central Greece between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[43]<\/a> \u201cDevil\u2019s Market\u201d in Turkish.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[44]<\/a> Vasileios Triantis, \u201cOi Laikoi Praktikoi Organopaiktes,\u201d in I Dimotiki Mousiki stin Preveza ta teleutaia 30 chronia tis akmis tou limaniou (1930-1960)<\/em> (Masters thesis, TEI Artas, 2008), 3.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[45]<\/a> Ibid, 4.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[46]<\/a>Vasileios Triantes, \u201cTa Organika Kommatia\u201d in I Dimotiki Mousiki stin Preveza ta teleutaia 30 chronia tis akmis tou limaniou (1930-1960)<\/em> (Masters thesis, TEI Artas, 2008), 11.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[47]<\/a> Ibid, p. 12.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[48]<\/a> Soukas\u2019 version is entitled \u201cPl\u00e9vra,\u201d with the accent on the first syllable, mirroring the pronunciation of \u201cPl\u00e9vna.\u201d Though the word is meaningless in Greek, it is reminiscent of the word \u201cplevr\u00e1,\u201d accented on the second syllable, which can variously be translated as \u201cside,\u201d \u201csurface,\u201d \u201caspect,\u201d \u201cdirection,\u201d and many other related terms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00c7e\u00e7en K\u0131z\u0131: Tracing a Tune through the Ottoman Ecumene Panayotis League Between 1910 and 1914, the great multi-instrumentalist and composer of Ottoman classical music Tanburi Cemil Bey made 181 wax cylinder recordings for Julius and Hermann Blumenthal\u2019s Istanbul-based Orfeon Records, a subsidiary of Odeon and later of Columbia Records. One of these recordings was of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5706,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pdme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/59"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pdme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pdme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pdme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5706"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pdme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pdme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/59\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pdme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/59\/revisions\/71"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pdme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}