Westernization and European Art Music in the Ottoman Empire

Early Western Influences in the Ottoman Empire

In Owen Wright's book Touraj Kiaras and Persian Classical Music: An Analytical Perspective, the author notes that the leaders of the Ottoman Empire (and Egypt) had previously worked to build a "bulwark against western expansionism" and Western influence. Honoring their own culture — through their arts, music, and writing — had become vitally important to Islamic institutions in the mid-nineteenth century (Wright, 2009, p. 2). However, a shift toward Western influences had gradually taken place. Iran had attempted to reform its army "along European lines," Wright explains, and in order to do so there needed to be "technological borrowing and the importation of foreign expertise" (p. 2).

In order to acquire the necessary military expertise from the West, resources for training and education in Western military strategy had to be imported. Through these influences, many Muslims showed "a degree of receptivity to western ideas, and not merely of administration and politics… [hence] there emerged a new intellectual elite" in the Ottoman Empire "with a western-style educational background, a knowledge of western languages," along with an increased interest in "western art forms" (Wright, p. 2).

Those art forms included Western literature, encouraged through journalism using Western-style approaches to writing, which introduced forms of narrative prose that Muslims were unaccustomed to but became fascinated with. Still in the nineteenth century, "the grand tradition of miniature painting in Iran was virtually abandoned" in favor of "western-style oil painting" (Wright, p. 2). The Qajar ruler Nasir al-Din Shah (1848–96) helped popularize Western oil paintings when he commissioned portraits and military scenes, typically depicting large-scale events. Al-Din Shah also supported the training of Muslim artists at Western art schools. The work they produced would in time result in a "radically estranged" departure from previous art genres in the Ottoman Empire, Wright continues.

However, when it came to Western music, Wright (p. 3) notes that local "elites" in the Ottoman Empire did appreciate Western music, but there is "little evidence" that outside of "court circles" and the "cosmopolitan milieu of Istanbul" many ordinary citizens were drawn to it. But it "clearly did have an impact" in the military context, Wright goes on. In fact, in 1868 al-Din Shah invited a French bandmaster named Alfred Lemaire to "institute a western-style military band to replace the traditional trumpet and drum ensembles" (p. 3). Trumpet and drum ensembles had served the Ottoman Empire's military ceremonies for many years — on the battlefield and at home at the conclusion of battle.

"Lemaire seems to have been both energetic and efficient" in his consulting work for al-Din Shah, Wright explains (p. 3). He procured instruments and introduced basic music education techniques, and "the Persian bandsmen were gradually exposed not just to notation but also to elements of western theory," Wright concludes (p. 4).

An article by Dale Olsen and Daniel Sheehy explains that art music is that music which is "formally taught, notation-reliant European or European-derived tradition of music that is associated most closely with an educated elite" (Olsen et al., 2001). The art music genre is also associated with liturgical purposes — for use in Christian church events — but the genre is most closely linked to secular compositions intended for concert performance (Olsen, p. 2). Olsen goes on to explain that art music has come to encompass the processes and issues that inform music in this genre; it is "therefore as much the domain of ethno-musicological study as it is the domain of historical musicology, music theory, and music criticism" (p. 1).

Defining Art Music

That said, Olsen points out that art music — according to ethnomusicologists — places an emphasis on processes and issues "as aspects of human behavior" (p. 1).

Stefan Pohlit argues that musical life in Turkey has been "restructured by Western influences" since the late Ottoman era (Pohlit, 2010). Early in the Turkish Republic, the government introduced "polyphonic music" as an attempt to launch a "new cultural expression for a modern, democratic society." At the same time, introducing Western music was tantamount to officially closing the door on "the classical Ottoman tradition," Pohlit explains.

Westernization of the Turkish Republic

Did the introduction of European art music truly help Turkish society evolve into a modern state? Pohlit argues that both the meaning and the contents of Western art music served more as "objectified statements" than as genuine transitions into the modern world. In fact, the introduction of art music into Turkish society following the Ottoman Empire had a disrupting effect on Turkish society.

Looking at musical tradition as an extension of a society — or, as Pohlit writes, as an extension of the sensory body of a people — that tradition cannot be separated from the environment in which it is composed, performed, or heard. There are those, Pohlit explains, who believe that music tends to "reinforce boundaries as much as it expressed community"; moreover, it reflects the "self-perception of a society" and provides a platform for the organization of "social hierarchies." Drawing on multiple examples of music's influence on cultures, Pohlit explains that Westernization has often reached "extra-European cultures" under the guise of providing a "reliable tool" for modernist progress.

In the Republic of Turkey, the introduction of Western classical music "grew from a reform" that was part of an officially promoted culture by Turkish leadership. The beginnings of art music's introduction into Turkish culture can be traced to the decline of the Ottoman Empire, Pohlit continues. In the nineteenth century, new institutions emerging in the Ottoman Empire were based on Western ideas, and following the "execution of the entire Janissary army" in 1826 — for which Mahmud II was held responsible — a European-style military system was established in Turkey (Pohlit).

As noted earlier, European-derived music was adopted in Turkey largely due to military needs. A military chapel was established in the Turkish Republic featuring a Western conservatory, directed by Italians Giuseppe Donizetti and Callisto Guatelli, Pohlit explains. The leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — the founder of the Turkish Republic — ushered in a period of sweeping change, and music was central among those changes. Atatürk's government, known as the "Kemalist" government, introduced polyphonic idioms, "orchestras and opera houses" designed to promote the "new cultural expression" of a Western-influenced society that Kemal hoped to establish.

Conclusion

The history of the Westernization of the Turkish Republic shows that as time passes, new generations of Muslim leaders can see that introducing their citizens to music beyond their own traditions serves not only to modernize their societies, but also to foster understanding of other cultures.