The Fasl-ı Cedid was a musical ensemble of Classical Turkish Music

Ottoman classical music

Ottoman classical music developed in Istanbul and major Ottoman towns from Skopje to Cairo, from Tabriz to Morocco through the palace, mosques, and sufi lodges of the Ottoman Empire. Above all a vocal music, Ottoman music traditionally accompanies a solo singer with a small instrumental ensemble...

 operating within the organization of the Ottoman Imperial Orchestra, specializing in performances of Fasıl

Fasil

The fasıl is a suite in Ottoman classical music. It is similar to the Arabic nawba and waslah.A classical fasıl generally includes movements such as taksim, peşrev, kâr, beste, ağır semâ'î, yürük semâ'î, gazel, şarkı and saz semâ'î, played continuously without interludes and interconnected through...

.

History

The Fasl-ı Cedid was established by Santuri Hilmi Bey, a well-regarded musician in the Ottoman Imperial Court, with the endorsement of Sultan Mahmud II

Mahmud II

Mahmud II was the 30th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1808 until his death in 1839. He was born in the Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, the son of Sultan Abdulhamid I...

, as part of the reforms

Tanzimat

The Tanzimât , meaning reorganization of the Ottoman Empire, was a period of reformation that began in 1839 and ended with the First Constitutional Era in 1876. The Tanzimât reform era was characterized by various attempts to modernize the Ottoman Empire, to secure its territorial integrity against...

 taking place in the Empire to westernize all government functions and institutions, including those relating to state-sponsored musical education.

Structure

The ensemble was typically made up of ney

Ney

The ney is an end-blown flute that figures prominently in Middle Eastern music. In some of these musical traditions, it is the only wind instrument used. It is a very ancient instrument, with depictions of ney players appearing in wall paintings in the Egyptian pyramids and actual neys being found...

s, flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

s, and mandolin

Mandolin

A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...

s, variously complemented by violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

s, violoncellos, lute

Lute

Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....

s, guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

s, trombone

Trombone

The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...

s and castanet

Castanet

Castanets are a percussion instrument , used in Moorish, Ottoman, ancient Roman, Italian, Spanish, Sephardic Music, and Portuguese music. The instrument consists of a pair of concave shells joined on one edge by a string. They are held in the hand and used to produce clicks for rhythmic accents or...

s. More traditional saz

Baglama

thumb|180px|Cura and bağlamaThe bağlama is a stringed musical instrument shared by various cultures in the Eastern Mediterranean, Near East, and Central Asia....

 elements such as oud

Oud

The oud is a pear-shaped stringed instrument commonly used in North African and Middle Eastern music. The modern oud and the European lute both descend from a common ancestor via diverging paths...

s, ney

Ney

The ney is an end-blown flute that figures prominently in Middle Eastern music. In some of these musical traditions, it is the only wind instrument used. It is a very ancient instrument, with depictions of ney players appearing in wall paintings in the Egyptian pyramids and actual neys being found...

s, kanun

Kanun (Instrument)

The Qanun is a string instrument found in the 10th century in Farab in Turkestan...

s and zills generally accompanied these instruments.

The compositions performed featured makam

Makam

Makam In Turkish classical music, a system of melody types called makam provides a complex set of rules for composing and performance...

s closer to the melodic structures, keys and chords as defined by a western understanding of scale, i.e. major

Major scale

In music theory, the major scale or Ionian scale is one of the diatonic scales. It is made up of seven distinct notes, plus an eighth which duplicates the first an octave higher. In solfege these notes correspond to the syllables "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti/Si, ", the "Do" in the parenthesis at...

 and minor

Minor scale

A minor scale in Western music theory includes any scale that contains, in its tonic triad, at least three essential scale degrees: 1) the tonic , 2) a minor-third, or an interval of a minor third above the tonic, and 3) a perfect-fifth, or an interval of a perfect fifth above the tonic, altogether...

, and generally were of peşrev

Pesrev

Peşrev , Pişrev , peshrev, or pishrev; called bashraf بشرف in Arabic; is an instrumental form in Turkish classical music. It is the name of the first piece of music played during a group performance called a fasıl...

, saz semâ'î, canzone

Canzone

Literally "song" in Italian, a canzone is an Italian or Provençal song or ballad. It is also used to describe a type of lyric which resembles a madrigal...

, köçekçe and oyun havası performances.