Nihan Tahtaisleyen

The history of contemporary music in Turkey is rarely included in the discussions on music in Turkey, and these are primarily oral reminiscences. The pages of these memoirs are so disconnected from each other that it makes us think that contemporary music activities are pretty rare in Turkey in general and in Istanbul in particular, compared to other central European cities. On the other hand, we know that there are concerts that we have been following since we were students and that we have listened to from the memories of our professors, which were landmark concerts for the Istanbul audience. In order to make an accurate assessment of the state of contemporary music production and consumption in Turkey, it would be appropriate to open a history file in the discussion area of contemporary music by transforming oral memories into written data based on documents. In this way, it will be possible to see where today's accumulation is based, through which institutions, events, ensembles, and collaborations it has been formed, the reasons for the acceleration points in the historical line, and to be able to discuss and debate the present. As a researcher, I remember that when I started to study this subject, which I have been curious about for a long time, I wondered whether I could access enough quality material for a book chapter. One reason for this is undoubtedly our cultural-academic habit of arriving at sensible generalizations on subjects that have not yet been researched, and the other reason is that the digital archives of institutions are often incomplete or non-existent. When I accessed the physical archives, it became clear that contemporary music events in the depths of Istanbul's music history are not as few as one might think. Archival material was physically acquired by interviewing relevant institutions, ensembles, and some individuals.
In this article, the intermediaries that brought contemporary music to the ears of Istanbul listeners are analyzed in line with archival data within the framework of orchestras, radios, festivals, university music department activities, art institutions, and music ensembles/collectives from the past to the present. Throughout the article, the term 'contemporary' is preferred to define the music referred to, and polyphonic music production in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is included in the study. In the study, contemporary music is defined as the year 1974, when we were able to document its presence in the concert repertoire institutionally and the COVID-19 global focus on events between 2019 and the pandemic. Some online contemporaries that took place in 2020-21 during the pandemic music activities were also included under appropriate headings.

This paper focuses German music ethnologist Robert Lachmann’s recordings of Mesut Cemil that were made in the Berlin Phonogram Archive86 in 1923 by himself and related documents. Lachmann (1892-1939) was first initiated by non-European music, which was Arab music introduced to him by Arabian soldiers at Wünsdorf POW Camp during World War I. He became one of the researchers at the BPA with the support of Erich von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs. Lachmann focused on Arab music in his career and made phonograph recordings, including Mesut Cemil’s between 1919 and 1932, which are held in BPA and the Jerusalem National Sound Archive87. Even if Mesut Cemil’s recordings take a little place in the BPA’s Turkish Music Collection, the Lachmann’s Collection, and the history of early Turkish music recordings, they are significant materials that deserve research regarding methodology. Using
Mesut Cemil recordings from the Robert Lachmann collection preserved in the Berlin Phonogram Archive as a sample, this study establishes (b)networks about the working method of a comparative musicologist who conducted professional research for institutional sound archives in the first half of the twentieth century, his positioning of Turkish music in his conception of "oriental music" and his indirect relationship with Turkey. It draws attention to how these relations, which depend on many variables, shape an archive, to what extent they make it possible to read these archives today, and to what extent they make it possible to access sound recordings of Turkish music in various archives around the world.

This paper focuses on the institutional sound and audiovisual archives in Turkey and presents data on the reasons and conditions for the establishment of these archives, opportunities offered by these institutions to researchers, and their current situations. These archives are situated in Istanbul University State Conservatory, Ankara State Conservatory, and the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT). With the initiatives of these institutions, sound and audiovisual field recordings have been made all over Turkey since the 1920s, and these recordings are kept within these institutions. These recordings were not made accessible to researchers for years, could not be preserved under appropriate conditions, and were not digitized except for the one at Istanbul University. However, those problems are also not uncommon with leading archives like Berlin Phonogram-Archive. The comparison of methods by several institutions and new approaches will be discussed.