Mike's Oud Forums

Stories, anecdotes, curiosities and myths around composers and pieces

alchemy - 8-21-2015 at 05:38 PM

Hey Oud folks, I would like to open this space for forum members to share stories, anecdotes and myths around compositions. I will play in a music student's gathering in which one has to tell a story about what is going to play and since I don't have any and I'm not sure what will play, wanted to ask you. Do you have any interesting story about a composer or a composition? Don't have to be lengthy or anything, just something interesting and/or curious about the composer or the specific composition.
I think many of you have some! Eager to read your stories!
Thanks

Alfaraby - 8-22-2015 at 08:19 AM

Om Kolthum sang the same lyrics of Abu Firas Al Hamadany "Araka A'aseyya Aldam'a" - اراك عصيّ الدمع - in three different melodies: first, of Abdu Alhamouli, second of Zakaria Ahmad and third of Riad Alsonbaty, which was the most famous of them all. This was the only song in which a piano joined OK's orchestra.

Do you mean stories like this ? I wonder !
Yours indeed
Alfaraby

alchemy - 8-22-2015 at 09:20 AM

Yes Alfaraby, thank you very much. I'm looking for something that a general non-oriental musician could find interesting and/or enjoy. There are composer stories behind some compositions, I've heard a few about local folklore music of Argentina, but I'm not into that.

alchemy - 8-26-2015 at 10:23 PM

Found this piece about Tanburi Osman Bey.

Tanburi Büyük Osman Bey was born in 1816 in the Tophane district of Istanbul. Most of the information we have on him originates from an oral tradition amongst his pupils and the pupils of those who knew him. His father, Zeki Mehmed Ağa as well has his grandfather Tanburi Numan Ağa were musicians of renown. At the age of eight, he was accepted to the Imperial School of Enderun, where he began his education among the foregoing masters of Turkish classical music, from whom he required a firm theoretical basis. His acquaintance with the tanbur also dates back to those years.

As his father Zeki Mehmed Ağa is said to have refused to pass on to his son his knowledge of the tambur, most of the work must have come to be incumbent on Osman Bey himself. He is also said to have participated in fasıls with prominent vocal musicians of his time such as Rifat Bey and Haşim Bey, improving mostly his vocal technique. With the death of his father, he gave up singing and concentrated solely on his instrument and took part in "incesaz fasılları" performed at the court of Sultan Abdülaziz Han. He is said to have made most of his compositions at this period. As he was enthusiastic about Mevlana Djelaleddin Rumi, he frequented many mevlevihanes, especially the Kulekapısı Mevlevihanesi on Fridays.[1]

He is also said to have had an obsessive temperament, known for attempting to beat a kanuni who played a false note while playing the transition to the final part of his uşşak peşrevi.

suz_i_dil - 8-27-2015 at 12:15 AM

I know there is a particular story around the famous nahawand samai for Mesut Cemil Bey.
I cannot catch the details maybe someone can be more precise than I.

I think to remember something around conflictual relations between him and his father Tanburi Cemil Bey. Sometyhing talking in their relations to compositions. To the point, but I'm not sure, the son and his father didn't even talk to each others.
Then, I think to remember, the samai of Mesut Cemil Bey deals with this relationship issue. It alternates between westernized style parts and very turkish..." father like " parts.. As a way to claim for his own style, different from his father way of thinking...But with a dialogue between west and east flavors wich sounds like a " let's talk again ".

Sorry if very unprecise. Hope another memeber can be more precise than me on this story

keving - 8-31-2015 at 06:25 AM

I love composers lives and stories about the times they lived in, unfortunately for us English speaking folk there is so few resources other than generic encyclopedic information. Trying to research an anecdote about Sevki Bey that I couldn't remember I came across this:
Quote:

“From a musical standpoint, it’s very interesting because Ottoman court music is a multicultural music derived from Greek, Armenian and Jewish composers as well as Turkish Muslim ones,” said Ederer. “But for the last few hundred years of the empire, the nobility was trying to westernize. They were teaching their kids piano and they wanted them to listen to Brahms and chamber symphonies. “And so you had this funny moment when all the great Ottoman composers couldn’t find gigs,” Ederer continued.

“So they were trying to find work, and the places this was happening was in the cabaret scene — bars and restaurants, which because they served alcohol had to be owned by non-Muslim minorities.” In these venues, there was this mixing of high and low culture, and of East and West. According to Ederer, from the point of view of the old musical establishment it was disastrous, as centuries-old classical music turned into pop music, now played in places forbidden to “respectable people,” while from the point of view of popular music there was a kind of renaissance catalyzed by the influx of classical players.

“The earlier part of this repertoire is a lot of that, and finding a mix that was going to work for everybody,” Ederer said. - See more at: http://www.news.ucsb.edu/2015/014942/echoes-ottoman-empire#sthash.L...