Erol Koymen

This quotation from Turkish republican ideologue Ziya Gokalp's 1923 book The Principles of Turkism (Turkculugun Esaslari) has seemingly been a requirement in any account of the Turkish music reforms carried out in the early decades of the Turkish Republic. These music reforms had as their goal the creation of a new Turkish music that could join the ranks of European art music while remaining distinctly Turkish. Their ostensible culmination was achieved in the "Turkish Five"—the group of first-generation Turkish Republic composers consisting of Necil Kazim Akses, Hasan Ferid Alnar, Ulvi Kemal Erkin, Cemal Resit Rey, and Ahmed Adnan Saygun. All of these composers studied abroad at major European conservatories and devoted their careers to the composing, teaching, and performing of European-style art music in Turkey. In the limited literature on the "Turkish Five," the standard model has been to quote Gokalp's formula, give a bit of historical background, an...