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Turkish music (style)
Encyclopedia
"Turkish music", in the sense described here, is not music of Turkey
, but rather a musical style called Alla turca that was occasionally used by European composers of the 17th and 18th centuries. Alla turca was a European stylized convention meant to satisfy the Turquerie fad of the 17th and 18th centuries, with stereotyped conventions which were not consistent with the music of Turkish military bands: the Janissary
bands (mehter, in Turkish) except in instrumentation. But European bands were profoundly influenced by Janissary instrumentation, discipline, and uniforms.
.
When Alla turca music was scored for orchestra
, it normally used extra percussion instrument
s not otherwise found in orchestras of the time: typically, the bass drum
, the triangle
, and cymbal
s. These instruments were used by Ottoman Turks in their military music (see Janissary Music), so at least the instrumentation of "Turkish" music was authentic except for the triangle. Often there is also a piccolo
, whose piercing tone recalls the shrill sound of the zurna (shawm) of Ottoman Janissary music.
It seems that at least part of the entertainment value of "Turkish" music was the perceived exoticism. The Turks were well known to the citizens of Vienna
(where Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven all worked) as military opponents, and indeed the centuries of warfare between Austria
and Ottoman Empire
had only started going generally in Austria's favor around the late 17th century. The differences in culture, as well as the frisson derived from the many earlier Turkish invasions, apparently gave rise to a fascination among the Viennese for all things Turkish—or even ersatz Turkish. This was part of a general trend in European arts at the time; see Turquerie
.
, Mozart
, and an early Romantic era composer, Beethoven
, wrote Alla turca music. For sound files illustrating some of these works, see the External links section below.
, Michael Haydn
, Gioacchino Rossini
, Ludwig Spohr, in two operas of Gluck
's, Iphigenie auf Tauris (1764) and Die Pilger von Mekka (1779), and in Symphony No.6 A minor ("Sinfonie turque") by Friedrich Witt
(1770–1836). Paul Wranitzky
, who in his lifetime was one of Vienna's most famed composers also wrote Turkish influenced music, including a large-scale symphony. Franz Xaver Süssmayr
, best known for completing Mozart's unfinished Requiem, also composed several Turkish works, including operas and symphonies. Other composers who have written excellent examples of Turkish music include Joseph Martin Kraus
, Ferdinand Kauer
and Ferdinando Paer
.
This is the same rhythm (probably not coincidentally) as the marching cadence of soldiers: "Left ... left ... left right left ..."
The melodic instruments in Turkish music often emphasize the rhythm by playing grace note
s, either singly or several in succession, on the beat.
Both characteristics just mentioned can be seen in the following extract of Alla turca music in the Mozart concerto:
The role of Alla turca music in a larger work seems to be to serve as a form of musical relaxation. Thus, in the finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the pianissimo march (Alla turca only in its instruments but the same instruments appear in the last measures of the symphony as simply tone colors) serves as a period of lowered intensity between two more massive and emotionally charged sections. Turkish music commonly is found in finales, which (as Charles Rosen
point out) are typically the most relaxed and loosely organized movements of Classical works.
. To celebrate the treaty, the Turkish diplomatic delegation brought a Janissary band along with other performers to Vienna for several days of performances.
Although the Janissary sound was familiar in Europe during the 18th century, the Classical composers were not the first to make use of it; rather, the first imitators were military band
s. The cultural influence at first involved actual importation of Turkish musicians, as Henry George Farmer
relates:
The importation of actual musicians was only a temporary phenomenon, and the later custom was to assign the Turkish instruments in European military bands to black performers, who dressed for their jobs in exotic Eastern garb.
Thus, Alla turca music in Europe had two connotations—Eastern and military—for 17th and 18th century European composers. The Turkish association did not evaporate soon. Even during the 1820s, in planning the last movement of the Ninth Symphony, Beethoven made a note to himself specifically stating that it would contain "Turkish" music, although many musicologists today would argue that Beethoven meant "Turkish" instruments. The use of the slang term "Turkish section" to describe the percussion section of an orchestra apparently persisted into modern times.
Beginning with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony finale, it became possible to write music with bass drum, triangle, cymbals, and piccolo without evoking a Turkish atmosphere, and in the later 19th century symphonic composers made free use of these instruments. Thus in the long run the Turkish instruments are a gift to Western classical music from the Ottoman military music tradition.
According to Edwin M. Good, the Turkish stop was popular for playing the Mozart K. 331 rondo mentioned above, and "many were the pianists who gleefully used the Janissary stop to embellish it."
Links with sound files of works cited
Music of Turkey
The music of Turkey includes diverse elements ranging from Central Asian folk music and has many copies and references of Byzantine music, Greek music, Ottoman music, Persian music, Balkan music, as well as more modern European and American popular music influences...
, but rather a musical style called Alla turca that was occasionally used by European composers of the 17th and 18th centuries. Alla turca was a European stylized convention meant to satisfy the Turquerie fad of the 17th and 18th centuries, with stereotyped conventions which were not consistent with the music of Turkish military bands: the Janissary
Janissary
The Janissaries were infantry units that formed the Ottoman sultan's household troops and bodyguards...
bands (mehter, in Turkish) except in instrumentation. But European bands were profoundly influenced by Janissary instrumentation, discipline, and uniforms.
Description
Alla turca is always lively in tempo, and is almost always a kind of marchMarch (music)
A march, as a musical genre, is a piece of music with a strong regular rhythm which in origin was expressly written for marching to and most frequently performed by a military band. In mood, marches range from the moving death march in Wagner's Götterdämmerung to the brisk military marches of John...
.
When Alla turca music was scored for orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
, it normally used extra percussion instrument
Percussion instrument
A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
s not otherwise found in orchestras of the time: typically, the bass drum
Bass drum
Bass drums are percussion instruments that can vary in size and are used in several musical genres. Three major types of bass drums can be distinguished. The type usually seen or heard in orchestral, ensemble or concert band music is the orchestral, or concert bass drum . It is the largest drum of...
, the triangle
Triangle (instrument)
The triangle is an idiophone type of musical instrument in the percussion family. It is a bar of metal, usually steel but sometimes other metals like beryllium copper, bent into a triangle shape. The instrument is usually held by a loop of some form of thread or wire at the top curve...
, and cymbal
Cymbal
Cymbals are a common percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys; see cymbal making for a discussion of their manufacture. The greater majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sound a...
s. These instruments were used by Ottoman Turks in their military music (see Janissary Music), so at least the instrumentation of "Turkish" music was authentic except for the triangle. Often there is also a piccolo
Piccolo
The piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The piccolo has the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written...
, whose piercing tone recalls the shrill sound of the zurna (shawm) of Ottoman Janissary music.
It seems that at least part of the entertainment value of "Turkish" music was the perceived exoticism. The Turks were well known to the citizens of Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
(where Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven all worked) as military opponents, and indeed the centuries of warfare between Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
and Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
had only started going generally in Austria's favor around the late 17th century. The differences in culture, as well as the frisson derived from the many earlier Turkish invasions, apparently gave rise to a fascination among the Viennese for all things Turkish—or even ersatz Turkish. This was part of a general trend in European arts at the time; see Turquerie
Turquerie
Turquerie was the Orientalist fashion in Western Europe from the 16th to 18th centuries for imitating aspects of Turkish art and culture. Many different Western European countries were fascinated by the exotic and relatively unknown culture of Turkey, which was the center of the Ottoman Empire,...
.
Examples
Two noted Classical era composers, HaydnJoseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
, Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
, and an early Romantic era composer, Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
, wrote Alla turca music. For sound files illustrating some of these works, see the External links section below.
Mozart
- Mozart's opera "The Abduction from the Seraglio" (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), from 1782, is the quintessential work of Alla turca music, as the whole plot centers on the stereotyping of comically sinister Turks. (The Pasha, at least, turns out noble and generous in the end.) The overtureOvertureOverture in music is the term originally applied to the instrumental introduction to an opera...
to the opera as well as two marches for the Janissary chorus are Alla turca music in the sense just described. - The Piano Sonata in A, K. 331 (1783) ends with the famous rondoRondoRondo, and its French equivalent rondeau, is a word that has been used in music in a number of ways, most often in reference to a musical form, but also to a character-type that is distinct from the form...
marked "Alla Turca", "in the Turkish style". Repeated notes, repeated ornaments, and loud/soft passages are characteristic of the Alla turca style. The imitation probably came closer with the pianoPianoThe piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
of Mozart's day, whose bass strings made something of a rattle when played loudly, than is possible on modern pianos. - The finale of the Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major K. 219Violin Concerto No. 5 (Mozart)The Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major, K. 219, was written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1775, premiering during the holiday season that year in Salzburg. It follows the typical fast-slow-fast musical structure.- Background :...
(1775), sometimes called the "Turkish" Concerto, is interrupted by a loud episode of Alla turca music. Mozart adapted this passage from an earlier ballet, "Le gelosie del seraglio" ("The jealous seraglio women") K. 135a, composed for MilanMilanMilan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
in 1772. In the concerto, the celloCelloThe cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
s and double bassDouble bassThe double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
es add to the percussive effect by playing their instruments coll' arco al roverscio, that is to say, col legnoCol legnoIn music for bowed string instruments, col legno, or more precisely col legno battuto , is an instruction to strike the string with the stick of the bow, rather than by drawing the hair of the bow across the strings. This results in a quiet but eerie percussive sound.Col legno is used in the final...
, striking the strings with the wood of the bow.
Haydn
- Haydn's operaOperaOpera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
L'incontro improvvisoL'incontro improvvisoL’incontro improvviso is an opera in three acts by Joseph Haydn first performed at Eszterháza on 29 August 1775 to mark the four-day visit of Archduke Ferdinand, Habsburg governor of Milan and his consort Maria Beatrice d'Este...
("The Unforeseen Encounter", 1775) is somewhat similar in its subject to Mozart's later "Abduction from the Seraglio" and also includes Alla turca music, for instance the overture. - Haydn's "Military" SymphonySymphony No. 100 (Haydn)The Symphony No. 100 in G major, Hoboken I/100, is the eighth of the twelve so-called London Symphonies written by Joseph Haydn and completed in 1793 or 1794. It is popularly known as the Military Symphony.-Nickname :...
(1794) uses Alla turca music in both the second movement (which depicts a battle) and in a brief reprise at the end of the finale.
- Haydn had a somewhat remote personal connection to the Turkish army — his paternal grandparents had been living in HainburgHainburgHainburg may refer to the following places:* Hainburg an der Donau, Lower Austria, Austria* Hainburg, Germany, Hesse, Germany...
when it was destroyed by the Turks during the invasionBattle of ViennaThe Battle of Vienna took place on 11 and 12 September 1683 after Vienna had been besieged by the Ottoman Empire for two months...
of 1683; unlike most of the citizens of Hainburg, they survived the attack.
Beethoven
- In 1811, Beethoven wrote an overture and incidental music to a play by August von KotzebueAugust von KotzebueAugust Friedrich Ferdinand von Kotzebue was a German dramatist.One of Kotzebue's books was burned during the Wartburg festival in 1817. He was murdered in 1819 by Karl Ludwig Sand, a militant member of the Burschenschaften...
called The Ruins of AthensThe Ruins of AthensThe Ruins of Athens , Opus 113, is a set of incidental music written in 1811 by Ludwig van Beethoven. The music was written to accompany the play of the same name by August von Kotzebue, for the dedication of a new theatre at Pest....
, premiered in PestBudapestBudapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
in 1812. One item from the incidental music (Op. 113, No. 4) is the Turkish marchTurkish March (Beethoven)The Turkish March is a well-known classical march theme by Ludwig van Beethoven. It was written in the Turkish style popular in music of the time....
. Beethoven also wrote a set of variationsVariation (music)In music, variation is a formal technique where material is repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve harmony, melody, counterpoint, rhythm, timbre, orchestration or any combination of these.-Variation form:...
on his march for piano, Op. 76. - Beethoven's Wellington's VictoryWellington's VictoryWellington's Victory, or, the Battle of Vitoria, Op. 91 is a minor orchestral work composed by Ludwig van Beethoven to commemorate the Duke of Wellington's victory over Joseph Bonaparte's forces at the Battle of Vitoria in Basqueland on June 21, 1813...
, also called the "Battle" Symphony (Op. 91, 1813) commemorates the British victory in the Battle of VitoriaBattle of VitoriaAt the Battle of Vitoria an allied British, Portuguese, and Spanish army under General the Marquess of Wellington broke the French army under Joseph Bonaparte and Marshal Jean-Baptiste Jourdan near Vitoria in Spain, leading to eventual victory in the Peninsular War.-Background:In July 1812, after...
. The opposing British and French armies march to battle with Alla turca music versions of their respective battle songs, "Rule Britannia" and "Malbrouk s'en va-t-en guerreMarlbrough s'en va-t-en guerreMarlbrough s'en va-t-en guerre is one of the most popular folk songs in the French language...
". - Beethoven returned again to Alla turca music, by this time rather out of vogue, in a passage of the final movement of his Ninth SymphonySymphony No. 9 (Beethoven)The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, is the final complete symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven. Completed in 1824, the symphony is one of the best known works of the Western classical repertoire, and has been adapted for use as the European Anthem...
(1824). A tenor soloist, assisted by the tenors and basses of the chorus, sings a florid variation on the famous theme, accompanied by Alla turca instruments playing pianissimo. Considering the text it accompanies, this passage can best be understood as a generic march rather than as "Turkish" in any way.
Others
Turkish music also appears in works of Jean-Philippe RameauJean-Philippe Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François...
, Michael Haydn
Michael Haydn
Johann Michael Haydn was an Austrian composer of the classical period, the younger brother of Joseph Haydn.-Life:...
, Gioacchino Rossini
Gioacchino Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music, chamber music, songs, and some instrumental and piano pieces...
, Ludwig Spohr, in two operas of Gluck
Christoph Willibald Gluck
Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years...
's, Iphigenie auf Tauris (1764) and Die Pilger von Mekka (1779), and in Symphony No.6 A minor ("Sinfonie turque") by Friedrich Witt
Friedrich Witt
Friedrich Jeremias Witt was a German composer and cellist. He is perhaps best known as the likely author of a Symphony in C major known as the Jena Symphony, once attributed to Ludwig van Beethoven.-Biography:...
(1770–1836). Paul Wranitzky
Paul Wranitzky
Pavel Vranický was a Moravian classical composer. His brother, Antonín, was also a composer.-Life:...
, who in his lifetime was one of Vienna's most famed composers also wrote Turkish influenced music, including a large-scale symphony. Franz Xaver Süssmayr
Franz Xaver Süssmayr
Franz Xaver Süssmayr was an Austrian composer, now famous for his completion of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Requiem.-Early life:...
, best known for completing Mozart's unfinished Requiem, also composed several Turkish works, including operas and symphonies. Other composers who have written excellent examples of Turkish music include Joseph Martin Kraus
Joseph Martin Kraus
Joseph Martin Kraus , was a composer in the classical era who was born in Miltenberg am Main, Germany. He moved to Sweden at age 21, and died at the age of 36 in Stockholm...
, Ferdinand Kauer
Ferdinand Kauer
Ferdinand August Kauer , was an Austrian composer and pianist.-Biography:Kauer was born in Klein-Thaya near Znaim in South Moravia. He studied in Znaim, Tyrnau, and Vienna, and later settled in Vienna around 1777. In 1781 he joined Karl von Marinelli's newly formed company at Vienna as leader and...
and Ferdinando Paer
Ferdinando Paer
-Biography:Paer was born at Parma. His father was a trumpeter with the Ducal Bodyguards and also performed at church and court events. His name, Ferdinando, was after Duke Ferdinand of Parma and was given to him by Archduchess Maria Amalia of Austria, Duke Ferdinand's wife...
.
Musical characteristics
In Alla turca music, the percussion instruments often play this rhythm:This is the same rhythm (probably not coincidentally) as the marching cadence of soldiers: "Left ... left ... left right left ..."
The melodic instruments in Turkish music often emphasize the rhythm by playing grace note
Grace note
A grace note is a kind of music notation used to denote several kinds of musical ornaments. When occurring by itself, a single grace note normally indicates the intention of either an appoggiatura or an acciaccatura...
s, either singly or several in succession, on the beat.
Both characteristics just mentioned can be seen in the following extract of Alla turca music in the Mozart concerto:
The role of Alla turca music in a larger work seems to be to serve as a form of musical relaxation. Thus, in the finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the pianissimo march (Alla turca only in its instruments but the same instruments appear in the last measures of the symphony as simply tone colors) serves as a period of lowered intensity between two more massive and emotionally charged sections. Turkish music commonly is found in finales, which (as Charles Rosen
Charles Rosen
Charles Rosen is an American pianist and author on music.-Life and career:In his youth he studied piano with Moriz Rosenthal. Rosenthal, born in 1862, had been a student of Franz Liszt...
point out) are typically the most relaxed and loosely organized movements of Classical works.
History
An important impetus for Alla turca music occurred in 1699, when Austria and Ottoman Empire negotiated the Treaty of KarlowitzTreaty of Karlowitz
The Treaty of Karlowitz was signed on 26 January 1699 in Sremski Karlovci , concluding the Austro-Ottoman War of 1683–1697 in which the Ottoman side had been defeated at the Battle of Zenta...
. To celebrate the treaty, the Turkish diplomatic delegation brought a Janissary band along with other performers to Vienna for several days of performances.
Although the Janissary sound was familiar in Europe during the 18th century, the Classical composers were not the first to make use of it; rather, the first imitators were military band
Military band
A military band originally was a group of personnel that performs musical duties for military functions, usually for the armed forces. A typical military band consists mostly of wind and percussion instruments. The conductor of a band commonly bears the title of Bandmaster or Director of Music...
s. The cultural influence at first involved actual importation of Turkish musicians, as Henry George Farmer
Henry George Farmer
Henry George Farmer was a British musicologist specializing in Arabic music...
relates:
- The credit for having introduced this battery of percussion and concussion into Europe usually goes to PolandPolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
which, in the 1720s, had received a full Turkish band from the SultanSultanSultan is a title with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", and "dictatorship", derived from the masdar سلطة , meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be used as the title of certain rulers who...
. RussiaRussiaRussia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, not to be outdone, sought a similar favour of the Sublime Porte in 1725, PrussiaPrussiaPrussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
and AustriaAustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
following suit, and by the 1770s most other countries had fallen under the sway of Janissary Music.
The importation of actual musicians was only a temporary phenomenon, and the later custom was to assign the Turkish instruments in European military bands to black performers, who dressed for their jobs in exotic Eastern garb.
Thus, Alla turca music in Europe had two connotations—Eastern and military—for 17th and 18th century European composers. The Turkish association did not evaporate soon. Even during the 1820s, in planning the last movement of the Ninth Symphony, Beethoven made a note to himself specifically stating that it would contain "Turkish" music, although many musicologists today would argue that Beethoven meant "Turkish" instruments. The use of the slang term "Turkish section" to describe the percussion section of an orchestra apparently persisted into modern times.
Beginning with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony finale, it became possible to write music with bass drum, triangle, cymbals, and piccolo without evoking a Turkish atmosphere, and in the later 19th century symphonic composers made free use of these instruments. Thus in the long run the Turkish instruments are a gift to Western classical music from the Ottoman military music tradition.
The "Turkish stop" on early pianos
Around the turn of the 19th century, "Turkish" music was so popular that piano manufacturers made special pianos with a "Turkish stop," also called the "military" or "Janissary" stop. The player would press a pedal that caused a bell to ring and/or a padded hammer to strike the soundboard in imitation of a bass drum. The sound file for the first musical example above attempts to mimic the latter effect manually with a modern piano.According to Edwin M. Good, the Turkish stop was popular for playing the Mozart K. 331 rondo mentioned above, and "many were the pianists who gleefully used the Janissary stop to embellish it."
Books
- Farmer, Henry George (1950) Military Music. London: Parrish.
- Finscher, Ludwig (2000) Joseph Haydn und seine Zeit. Laaber, Germany: Laaber.
- Good, Edwin (1999) "Grand and Would-Be Grand Pianos," in James Parakilas, ed., Piano Roles (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999).
Articles
- "Janissary music" in Grove Music Online, accessed January 8, 2011.
- Signell, Karl. "Mozart and the Mehter," Turkish Music Quarterly I/1 (1988)
External links
- Ottoman Influences on European Bands and Orchestras.
- East Meets West - Turkish Influences on the Viennese Classics
- A page on authentic Turkish military music
Links with sound files of works cited
- Classics for Kids program on Janissary Music
- Web site of violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja:
- Her essay "On the 'alla turca' in the Rondo of the Violin Concerto K. 219 (in German).
- Click on first "Sound" link in this essay for a sample of Turkish Janissary music
- Click on second "Sound" link for Kopatchinskaja's performance of the "Turkish" movement of Mozart's concerto, with Roy GoodmanRoy GoodmanRoy Goodman is a conductor and violinist, specialising in the performance and direction of early music...
and the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra
- Her essay "On the 'alla turca' in the Rondo of the Violin Concerto K. 219 (in German).
- A midi performance of the "Alla turca" movement of Mozart's Piano Sonata K. 311, from the Lexscripta Web Site.
- Beethoven midi performances, from Tina Billett's "Keyboard Creations" Web site
- Jean-Baptiste Lully