European classical music in the Ottoman Empire

This paper aims to present a historical overview of the westernization process in music culture of the Ottoman Empire. Contrary to what is generally believed, the transformation of Ottoman music from the monophonic system based on melodic and rhythmic patterns (makams and usuls) to the European polyphony was not the idea of the newly formed Turkish state of the early 20th century. In the beginning of the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire faced decline. Under the threat of European domination, remaining sultans tried to balance the level of development in science and technology between the West and their own country by great reforms. In the 19th century, for the Ottoman court the adaptation of the western music system was a symbol of acculturation and modernization. In the last decades of the Ottoman Empire, with the help of European musicans and theoreticians, the first institutions of western style music education were established. Thus, surprisingly, music culture seems to be a shared heritage of the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey.