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Turkish Instruments of Music in the Seventeenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Henry George Farmer
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Extract

One of the most complete and entertaining accounts of the instruments of music of Turkey is that given by the chatty and voluble, though highly imaginative writer, Ewliyā Chelebī 1611– ca. 1669. Although his family held high appointments at the Ottoman court, yet young Ewliyā yearned for a literary career and, like many such Parnassian aspirants, began his public life as a ḥāfiẓ in Aya Sofia on the Lailat al-kaḍr of 1045 (=A.D. 1636), whenhe attracted the notice of Sultan Murād IV, who took him into the royal household. Here he was specially favoured, mainly on account of his musical and literary gifts. He had been taught music and singing by one of the best masters of the day, the Khalwatī dervish 'Umar Gulshanī, who lived to the great age of 140 years, himself having been taught by the eminent shaikh Ibrāhīm Gulshanī (d. 1533–4) of Cairo. After two years' service as a muṣāḥib, Ewliyā began his travels which have made him famous.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 68 , Issue 1 , January 1936 , pp. 1 - 43
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1936

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References

page 2 note 1 He may, however, have quitted the seraglio in 1636, as it appears that. he was a sipāhī in the expedition against Erivan in this year.

page 2 note 2 It appears to have been published in parts, the first part being issued in 1834. Vol. i, comprising parts 1 and 2, was published in 1846, whilst vol.ii appeared in 1850.

page 2 note 3 Cf. Encydopædia of Islām, ii, 34.

page 3 note 1 Nos. 22–3. Mordtmann (Encyclopædia of Islām, loc. cit.) is wrong in saying that the British Museum possesses a manuscript of the Siyāḥa nāma.

page 3 note 2 Other authors quoted by me are: Ibn Ghaibī, Jāmi' al-alḥān, Bodleian Library, Marsh, 282; Kanz al-tuḥaf, British Museum, Or. 2361; Villoteau, , in Description de l'Égypte . . . (Paris, 1809)Google Scholar; Kaempfer, , Amoenitatum exoticarum . . . (Lemgo, 1712)Google Scholar; Niebuhr, , Voyage in Arabie (Amsterdam, 1776–1780)Google Scholar; Farmer, , Studies in Oriental Musical Instruments (Lond., 1931)Google Scholar; Toderini, , Letteratura Turchesea (Venice, 1787)Google Scholar; Lavignac, , Encyclopédie de la musique (Paris, 1921)Google Scholar; Gibb, History of Ottoman Poetry.

page 4 note 1 They are to be found in the works quoted as follows: (a) VH., vol. i/ii, pp. 225–8; PT., i, 620–5; MS., i, 232–4v. (6) VH., vol. i/ii, pp. 233–240; PT., i, 632–645; MS., i, 237v–242.

page 5 note 1 I have not seen the form as given by Babinger, in the Encyclopædia of Islām, iv, 482Google Scholar.

page 5 note 2 PT. and MS. have 1,000, which is obviously incorrect.

page 5 note 3 The singular is green throughout this article.

page 7 note 1 The various catalogues of collections of instrumentsof music quoted by me are: New York = Catalogue of the Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments of all Nations (New York, 1904, et seq.)Google Scholar; South Kensington Museum = Engel, , Descriptive Catalogue of the Musical Instruments in the South Kensington Museum (Lond., 1874)Google Scholar; Brussels = Mahillon, , Catalogue descriptif . . . du Musie Instrumental du Conservatoire Royal de Musique de Bruxelles (Brussels, v.d.)Google Scholar; Paris = Chouquet, , Le Musee du Conservatoire National de Musique. Catalogue . . . (Paris, 1884)Google Scholar, and supplementary catalogues by Pillaut (Paris, 1894; 1899; 1903).

page 11 note 1 Elsewhere in his Travels he describes a procession with eighty kettle drums being carried by forty white camels.

page 11 note 2 It may refer to 'Uthmān II, who was unsuccessful against Khotin in 1620.