Turkish musical delights come in many forms, and over the past four centuries have infiltrated many cultures beyond that country’s borders. Where does the intoxicating style of the brass bands of Macedonia come from? From the Turkish military bands of the 19th century. Where are the origins of bellydance? Pre-eminently among the Gypsies of Istanbul. Bellydance isn’t merely titillation for tired Western businessmen - as liberated women in California are rediscovering, this ancient dance-form (get RGNET 1085CD) generates healing energy.
But if there’s one form of music for which Turkey is primarily noted, it’s the mystical dance of the Mevlevi dervishes. When this is done for tourists, it’s indeed an astonishing spectacle, part-juggling and part-gymnastics, with multi-coloured robes flying out all round. But as the central act of Mevlevi devotion, it has as much grace and poise as the medieval Byzantine Christian chant with which it is sometimes compared.
The Celestial Harmonies CD Music of Islam, Volume Nine (13149-2) is a recording of a complete dervish ritual, which begins with a lovely sung invocation before launching into the dance proper, with flute, lute, fiddle and drums. Why do the dancers spin with their right arm pointed to heaven and their left to the floor? To represent the act of pulling down grace from Allah and spreading it around on Earth. They themselves represent the heavenly bodies circling the Sun. Their order was founded by the medieval poet Mevlana Jalalu’ddin Rumi, whose work has now acquired cult status among America’s West Coast mystics. It’s nice to reflect that he was born in Afghanistan and that he was a superstar in his own day, too.
The music, strictly speaking, is not Arabic, but it does follow Arabic tonal patterns. Where we divide our scale into 12 chromatic notes, Turkish music divides it into 24. And those divisions are not even - not precise quarter-tones, dividing our semitones. Their gradations are intentionally uneven, so as to create that indefinable, but instantly recognisable, Middle Eastern miasma.
