Istanbul: Dimitrie Cantemir (1673-1723)

Inhabiting that intriguing territory between ‘early music’ and ‘ world music ’ Istanbul highlights the repertoire of the 18th century Ottoman court. Boasting the unwieldy subtitle The Book of the Science of Music and the Sephardic and Armenian Traditions, it’s based on a collection of music written down by Dmitrie Cantemir (1673¬1723), a Moldavian prince taken hostage by the Ottoman army. He was commissioned to notate Ottoman music – and there are worse ways to spend time in captivity. He provides one of the few written sources for this music and added some compositions of his own, also becoming a virtuoso on the tanbur, the Turkish lute. Although he ungratefully resumed battle against the Ottomans after his escape, his music and his reputation as an instrumentalist lingered on in the empire.

Jordi Savall perfectly reveals why Cantemir’s efforts must have been so well received. Savall’s Hespèrion XXI group on this occasion includes musicians familiar from his previous Oriental projects: on oud, Yair Dalai from Israel and Driss El Maloumi from Morocco; on santur (zither), Dimitris Psonis from Greece; Turkish ney player Kudsi Erguner; and Savall himself playing Eastern violin–like instruments. So sometimes we hear a lively Turkish, sometimes an Arabic sounding ensemble, sometimes laments from Sephardic music and sometimes the melancholy of the Armenian duduk, as Savall has included pieces from the Sephardic and Armenian traditions. This is musical multiculturalism in a historical context, as Istanbul was at that time a truly cosmopolitan cultural centre.