Above: Emre Aracı rehearsing with the Prague Symphony Orchestra and Philharmonic Choir in the Rudolfinum during the recording sessions of
the "Istanbul to London" CD album, 13 March 2005 (photograph: Jens Franke)
the "Istanbul to London" CD album, 13 March 2005 (photograph: Jens Franke)
In Search of Lost Sounds Symphony
Adam Klemens, conductor FILMharmonic Orchestra, Prague Kalan, CD 704 In a letter to his patron Madam Nadezhda von Meck, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky reminded her of Heinrich Heine’s famous epithet: “Where words leave off, music begins”. With its power physically to touch our bodies with vibrations, music provides the creative artist with perhaps the most abstract, yet at the same time the most powerful, medium of expression. It endows the creative soul with magical codes to access a miraculous time capsule, where feelings - that words cannot express - can be preserved forever. Memories from childhood, visits to places of special significance, romantic castles, quotations from favourite authors, old paintings and faded photographs are all remembered in the symphony In Search of Lost Sounds. The emotions aroused by these accumulated memories are captured in this profoundly personal composition. Recorded in Prague under the baton of Adam Klemens, with the FILMharmonic Orchestra at the Czech Radio Studio No. 1, music historian, conductor and composer Emre Aracı’s symphony aptly enitled In Search of Lost Sounds invites others to embark on similar, individual journeys to their own past, with homage to Proust, who famously wrote: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes”. |
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Emre Aracı introduces his Symphony In Search of Lost Sounds |
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Emre Aracı Kayıp Seslerin İzinde Senfonisi'nin anlatıyor |
European Music at the Ottoman Court
Emre Aracı, conductor Cihat Aşkın, leader The London Academy of Ottoman Court Music Ensemble Kalan, CD 177 Arranged by Emre Aracı for string orchestra and recorded by Ateş Orga, the CD features works in the popular 19th-century European musical dance forms such as waltzes, polka-mazurkas, schottisches and marches, composed by Ottoman sultans including Abdülaziz (1830-76) and Murad V (1840-1904), as well as Callisto Guatelli Pasha and Giuseppe Donizetti Pasha, the elder brother of Gaetano Donizetti, who were employed at court in Constantinople at the time as "maestro di musica". Other works in the CD include Rossini’s Marcia Militare for Sultan Abdülmecid and Inno Turco by Luigi Arditi, which was commissioned by Queen Victoria and sung in the original Turkish language by a British chorus of 1600 at Crystal Palace during the state visit of Sultan Abdülaziz to Britain in 1867. Also included are military marches by a lady composer from the Ottoman Empire, the wife of Omer Pasha, the commander-in-chief of the Ottoman armies during the Crimean campaign (1853-56), whose works were published in London newspapers of the period. Recorded in The Warehouse, London, 22 and 23 January 2000 |
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Marche de L’Exposition Ottomane
Callisto Guatelli Pasha (1818-1900) Arrangement: Emre Aracı The London Academy of Ottoman Court Music Conductor: Emre Aracı / Leader: Cihat Aşkın |
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Born in Parma, Italy, Callisto Guatelli (1818-1900) came to Istanbul in the 1840s and conducted operas at the Naum Theatre for a while, before entering court service under the Ottoman sultans. He gave piano lessons to Sultan Abdülaziz and Sultan Murad V. Known popularly as Guatelli Pasha, his “Marche de L’Exposition Ottomane” was composed on the occasion of the Universal Ottoman Exhibition, which opened in Istanbul in 1863. It was dedicated to the Grand Vizier Mehmed Fuad Pasha. Some of the themes are paraphrases from Guatelli’s own “Aziziye March”, as well as the French and British National Anthems and “Rule Britannia”.
War and Peace:
Crimea 1853-56 Emre Aracı, conductor Ezgi Saydam, mezzo-soprano Cihat Aşkın, leader The London Academy of Ottoman Court Music Ensemble Kalan, CD 257 Produced by Ateş Orga and dedicated to the memory of the Turkish pianist Vedat Kosal, the present CD features works associated with the four nations central to the theatre of war in Crimea: Turkey, France, Britain and Russia. With the exception of certain pieces, the majority of the repertory is linked directly with the Crimean campaign. As with other important events occupying the headlines of the day, Crimea was an inspiration for European composers of popular music. Dances were required for the Grand Balls in London and Paris held to raise money for the War effort and the families of the wounded or deceased. Military marches were needed for the battlefields, the better if they featured the national anthems of the allied countries. Recorded in St John's Smith Square, London, 27 and 28 April 2001 |
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Bosphorus by Moonlight
Emre Aracı, conductor Cihat Aşkın, violin Prague Symphony Chamber Orchestra Kalan, CD 303 "Emre Aracı’s third Euro-Ottoman CD takes its title from his 1997 Violin Concerto, which was inspired by Abdülhak Şinasi Hisar’s wartime novel of the same name. Moonlight, memory and dream suffuse many of the numbers, nine of which are musical cameos of the Ottoman royal household published in the mid-1850s by the Sultan’s Italian music director, Guatelli Pasha. As producer of this album, I chose Prague as a location: I wanted somewhere that would release the romantic within us. How could we fail, wandering the narrow streets of the Old Town under a full moon, touched by the medieval aura of the Charles Bridge and the Jewish cemetery across the river from the floodlit castle? The neo-Renaissance Rudolfinum hall did the rest. Portrait or military quickstep, exotic refrain or Sibelian solitude every minute in that room was special. Cihat Askin’s violin lent a manly tone to the Balkan Adagio of the Concerto. Pisani’s fateful, forgotten Funeral March for the death of Abdülmecid all but stopped time as the Prague Symphony strings imbued it with a gravity to match the thunder of the night beyond". Ateş Orga Recorded in the Rudolfinum, Prague, 15, 16 and 17 August 2003 |
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Emre Aracı introduces Bosphorus by Moonlight
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Istanbul to London
Emre Aracı, conductor Prague Symphony Orchestra and Philharmonic Chorus Kalan, CD 349 "When Emre Aracı showed me the score of August d’Adelburg’s Symphonic Fantasy about the Bosphorus dedicated to Sultan Abdülmecid (c 1858-59), unearthed in İstanbul University’s Rare Books Library, it was obvious that here was something of landmark importance. A pair of ceremonial choral hymns by two Italians linked with the Ottoman court, Angelo Mariani (1849) and Luigi Arditi (1856/67) - grandly public displays of what Aracı calls the ‘unprecedented marriage between Ottoman tongue and Italian operatics’ – whetted the appetite further (Inno Turco was sung by 1,600 at Crystal Palace during the 1867 State Visit of Sultan Abdülaziz). Mindful that playing in Western-style string ensembles was the choice of many a young woman in 19th century harem life, equally that most repertory of the period has survived only through indifferent keyboard ‘blueprints’, Aracı’s previous Euro-Ottoman albums were all string-based reconstructions. Not Istanbul to London, however, where for the first time we have a chance to hear what the composers themselves wrote and wanted. Resurrecting these large-scale lost glories of Ottoman-inspired symphonic and choral music in the Rudolfinum last March, involving nearly 130 musicians and singers plus organ, was an uncommon privilege". Ateş Orga Recorded in the Rudolfinum, Prague, 11, 12 and 13 March 2005 |
For digital downloads please visit spotify or amazon websites:
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Emre Aracı conducting the Prague Symphony Orchestra and Philharmonic Choir in the Rudolfinum during the recording sessions of
the "Istanbul to London" CD album, 13 March 2005 (photograph: Jens Franke)
the "Istanbul to London" CD album, 13 March 2005 (photograph: Jens Franke)
Invitation to the Seraglio
Emre Aracı, conductor Cihat Aşkın, violin The London Academy of Ottoman Court Music Ensemble Warner Classics, 2564-61472-2 "Warner Classics presents an Invitation to the Seraglio, a wonderful new CD of undiscovered pieces from the 19th Century Ottoman Empire. When this Turkish empire developed a passion for European music, its composers forged an interesting fusion of the Western style with the exotic Ottoman characteristics. Chief architect of this style was Giuseppe Donizetti, brother of opera composer Gaetano, who became leader of the Sultan’s military bands. Besides his charming Mecidiye March, some other jewels on this disc include La Gondola barcarole by Sultan Abdülaziz, The Omer Pasha Waltzes by Henry William Goodban and military marches by Rossini and Gaetano Donizetti. Musicologist, conductor and composer Emre Aracı has arranged a delightful array of unknown pieces, and he leads the London Academy of Ottoman Court Music in a superb performance". CFMX-FM Radio, Toronto and Eastern Ontario This CD is a compilation of tracks selected from Emre Aracı's earlier albums, European Music at the Ottoman Court and War and Peace: Crimea 1853-56. |
"this is an unexpectedly attractive collection, and the musical presentation is expert, idiomatic
and alive" |
Euro-Ottomania
Emre Aracı, conductor Prague Symphony Orchestra and Philharmonic Chorus Brilliant Classics, 93613 "Don’t be put off by the bizarre title and the unfamiliar composers’ names: this is an unexpectedly attractive collection, and the musical presentation is expert, idiomatic and alive. The mid-19th-century Ottoman zeal for European music, led by the ruling dynasty (part of wider Westernisation policies), attracted many Italian musicians to Sultan Abdümecid’s palace, and it meant that when Callisto Guatelli arrived in Istanbul in 1846, he was appointed “Director of the Music Impériale Ottomane”. His piquant triptych of Arie nazionali uses Turkish melodies with a Western harmonic overlay, clothed in exotic orchestral colours. A decade later, his compariot, Luigi Arditi, was enticed from his post at Covent Garden (where he had premiered many new operas) to work in Istanbul. His ambitious hymn Inno turca, extolling the Sultan’s virtues, is spectacularly scored for solo soprano, chorus and orchestra, and with its dotted rhythm sounds jauntily like early Verdi. However, the most ambitious work here is from August Ritter von Adelburg, of Hungarian descent, but who was born in Istanbul. Aux bords du Bosphore is both a tone-poem and a set of scènes de ballet in five movements, opening with “Méditations et Réveries”, a richly scored evocation in waltz rhythm, and including a piquant Turkish march, a graceful intermezzo featuring solo horn, strings and harp, a second, grandiose Marche du Médjidié (almost worthy of Saint-Saëns in its gusto), and an extended nocturnal finale with a romantic main theme in the best ballet pas de deux tradition. Bartolomeo Pisani, who succeeded Guatelli, composed Une larme… as a public lament on the death of Abdülmecid, a rather telling funeral march, and Angelo Mariani’s ode to the Sultan’s reign, the Hymne national, closes the concert with impressive spectacle, using soloists and divided double chorus to overwhelming effect when sung as well as it is here. All the music is presented with considerable panache. The recording too is excellent: well worth exploring at super-budget price". Ivan March, The Gramophone, 9 January 2013 |
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