Classical Turkish music — a memory spilled from the tongue.

Buhûrîzâde Mustafa Itrî

~1630/1640 – 1711/1712 Classical period · reign of Mehmed IV Composer · vocalist · poet

A composer who served the court of Mehmed IV as music teacher and singer; the TDV encyclopaedia counts him amongst the few foremost figures in the history of Turkish music. His Segâh tekbir and salât-ı ümmiyye rank amongst the masterpieces of mosque music. Tradition credits him with more than a thousand works; some forty survive.

A composer and poet trained in the palace school, the Enderun, who rose to the rank of çavuş. All of his surviving works are in the şarkı form; depending on the source they number between 36 and 77. Of these songs, which bring folk verse and court music together, the best known is the hisarbûselik “Dök zülfünü meydana gel.”

Hammâmîzâde İsmâil Dede Efendi

1778 – 1846 Mahmud II · Abdülmecid Mevlevi · âyîn · şarkı

A composer initiated at the Yenikapı Mevlevi lodge under Ali Nutkî Dede; he caught the attention of Selim III and became confidant and chief muezzin to Mahmud II. Between 1824 and 1839 he composed seven Mevlevi rites; the TDV encyclopaedia counts his hüzzam rite amongst the masterpieces of the form. His pupils included Hacı Ârif Bey and Zekâi Dede.

Hacı Ârif Bey

1831 – 1885 Post-Tanzimat · Abdülmecid · Abdülaziz Şarkı composer

A composer who also studied with İsmâil Dede and taught singing in the imperial harem; the TDV encyclopaedia regards him as the reviver of the şarkı form. He is recorded as composing more than a thousand şarkılar, two-thirds of them lost for want of notation; those that survive span forty-four makams. The segâh “Olmaz ilâç sîne-i sad-pâreme” is amongst his best-known songs.

A composer who learnt from Hacı Ârif Bey at the palace, and whom the TDV encyclopaedia ranks as the most important şarkı composer of the classical school after him. He is said to have composed more than a thousand works; Yılmaz Öztuna lists 233 that survive. With more than two hundred songs in uşşak, he is remembered as the composer of that makam.

Tanbûrî Cemil Bey

1871/1873 – 1916 Late Ottoman · Second Constitutional Era Tanbur · kemençe · lavta virtuoso

A performer and composer whom the TDV encyclopaedia counts amongst the greatest tanbur virtuosos in the history of Turkish music. He changed the manner of tanbur playing towards a livelier style, and played the kemençe, lavta, ud and cello with equal command. Of his forty or so works the most celebrated are the Şedd-i Araban and Ferahfezâ saz semâîleri; his taksims survive on cylinders and 78 rpm discs.

Lemi Atlı

1869 – 1945 Late Ottoman · early Republic Şarkı composer · vocalist

A composer and singer who studied with Hacı Ârif Bey and was known in his youth as “the nightingale of the Bosphorus.” According to the TDV encyclopaedia he composed more than three hundred works, nearly half of them now lost. Of the 170 that survive, one is a saz semâîsi, one a march and the rest şarkılar.

A composer from the generation of hâfız-singers who served as imam of the Yavuz Sultan Selim Mosque. He bridged classical training and folk music, and from 1939 set new Turkish-language songs for the Egyptian films then reaching Turkey. By his own account he composed more than a thousand works; Yılmaz Öztuna lists 267.

Münir Nurettin Selçuk

1900 – 1981 Republic · Istanbul Radio Composer · vocalist

A singer and composer who spent a year in Paris studying voice, piano and solfège, returning in 1929. His first solo concert, on 22 February 1930, marks according to the TDV encyclopaedia a turning point in the concert history of Turkish music. Settings of Yahya Kemal’s poems — “Aziz İstanbul,” “Endülüs’te Raks” — form a distinct part of his hundred or so works.

Zeki Müren

1931 – 1996 Republic · television era Composer · vocalist · lyricist

The “Sun of Art.” In 1950 he came first in the Istanbul Radio soloist examination, and in 1955 “Manolyam” earned him the first Gold Record awarded in Türkiye. The MESAM and MSG registers list him as composer on 180 works; he designed most of his stage costumes himself.

A singer and composer equally assured in sacred and secular music. After the Izmir Radio years he taught repertoire and style at the Turkish Music State Conservatory. From 1962 until his death he composed nearly a hundred works in forms ranging from the Mevlevi rite to children’s songs.

A singer who pursued composition alongside his practice as an obstetrician and gynaecologist. Anadolu Agency speaks of 652 compositions, whilst Wikipedia counts some 140 works. He was named State Artist in 1991, received the Presidential Grand Prize for Culture and Arts in 2008, and taught at the ITÜ Turkish Music State Conservatory.