This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Writing Music in Nineteenth-Century Istanbul Ottoman Armenians and the Invention of Hampartsum Notation Olley, Jacob Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 04. Oct. 2021 Writing Music in Nineteenth-Century Istanbul Ottoman Armenians and the Invention of Hampartsum Notation Jacob Olley PhD in Music King’s College London 2017 1 2 Abstract This thesis describes the invention and adoption of a new notation system, known today as ‘Hamparsum notası’ or ‘Hay ardi jaynagrut‘iwn’ (‘modern Armenian notation’), in nineteenth- century Istanbul. The first part focuses on a small group of Catholic Armenians who developed the notation system in around 1812, including the musician Hambarjum Limōnčean (1768– 1839), the Mxit‘arist scholar Minas Bžškean (1777–1851), and their patrons the Tiwzean family. I argue that the notational reform was an aspect of a larger cultural and intellectual revival led by the monastery of San Lazzaro in Venice. Based on Bžškean’s treatise on music and excerpts from Limōnčean’s memoir, I show how discussions about notational reform were linked to broader concerns about the cultural and educational situation of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. Furthermore, drawing on a ‘connected’ historiographical model, I argue that the reform can be read as a translation of Enlightenment thought into local musical contexts, and that it should be seen in relation to the simultaneous reform of Byzantine notation by Chrysanthos of Madytos (ca. 1770–1846) and his collaborators. At the same time, I demonstrate that the reformers were deeply embedded in the urban and musical environment of Istanbul, and that the development of Hampartsum notation cannot be understood without reference to the history and practices of secular Ottoman music. In the second part of the thesis, drawing on manuscript collections of Hampartsum notation as well as theoretical treatises, Ottoman court histories and accounts by European observers, I show how shifting relations between different confessional communities led to the adoption of Hampartsum notation by Muslim musicians. Finally, I discuss polemical debates about notation in Turkish and Armenian during the late nineteenth century, showing how institutionalisation, print technology and nationalist ideologies shaped attitudes towards writing music. 3 4 Table of Contents List of Tables 7 List of Figures 7 Acknowledgements 9 Note on Transliteration, Dates and Terminology 15 Introduction 19 Previous Scholarship on Hampartsum Notation 20 Enlightenment, Nationalism and Connected History: Armenian Perspectives 26 Cultural History and Musicology in Ottoman Studies 32 History and (Ethno)Musicology 38 Key Sources and Structure of the Thesis 42 PART ONE: THE INVENTION OF HAMPARTSUM NOTATION 1. Between Pera and Venice 47 1.1. Ottoman Istanbul, ca. 1750–1850 48 1.2. The Rise of the amiras and the Armenian Catholics 54 1.3. ‘The Richest and Most Favoured Rayahs of the Sultan’: The Tiwzean Family 59 1.4. The Tiwzeans and Cultural Patronage 65 2. The Invention of Hampartsum Notation 73 2.1. Minas Bžškean and His Treatise on Music 74 2.2. An Ottoman Armenian Musician: Hambarjum Limōnčean 80 2.3. The Genesis of Hampartsum Notation 88 2.4. Notational Reform and the Mxit‘arist Revival 90 3. Enlightenment and Musical Reform 103 3.1. Translating the Enlightenment: European Sources in Eražštut‘iwn 107 5 3.2. Greek and Armenian Reforms in Comparative Perspective 116 4. Ottoman Traditions of Music Writing 135 4.1. Notation and the Historiography of Ottoman Music 138 4.2. Pre-Nineteenth-Century Notation Methods 145 4.3. Texts, Diffusion and the Question of Direct Influence 158 PART TWO: THE ADOPTION OF HAMPARTSUM NOTATION 5. Muslims, Non-Muslims and the Social Contexts of Ottoman Music 171 5.1. Non-Muslim Musicians at the Ottoman Court 173 5.2. Musical Genre and Socio-Linguistic Identity 178 5.3. The Early Dissemination of Hampartsum Notation 187 6. The Collections 199 6.1. Overview 199 6.2. Musical Genres and Scribal Background 207 6.3. Performing, Teaching and Preserving the Ottoman Repertoire 214 7. Writing Music in Nineteenth-Century Istanbul 223 7.1. Literacy, Progress and Historicity 224 7.2. Orality and the Ethics of Musical Transmission 232 7.3. Alaturka and Alafranga: Towards the Republic 240 Conclusion 251 Bibliography 257 Primary Sources 257 Secondary Sources 271 6 List of Tables Table 1: List of manuscripts in Hampartsum notation ................................................. 201 Table 2: Vocal genres in collections of Hampartsum notation ..................................... 208 Table 3: Vocal genres according to origin of scribes ................................................... 208 List of Figures Figure 1: Detail from an early collection of Ottoman music in Hampartsum notation (before 1839) (İstanbul Üniversitesi Nadir Eserler Kütüphanesi, Ms. 203-1, p. 3) ........ 87 Figure 2: Detail from a late collection of Ottoman music in Hampartsum notation (ca. 1900) (İstanbul Üniversitesi Nadir Eserler Kütüphanesi, Ms. 204-2, p. 1) .................... 87 Figure 3: Detail of a peşrev written in Middle Byzantine notation (ca. 1770?) (Zakynthos Metropolitan Library, Ms. Gritsanis 3, f. 14r) .............................................................. 122 Figure 4: Detail from a copy of Cantemir’s notation collection (ca. 1710) (National Library of Tehran, Ms. 5-12804, f. 4r) ......................................................................... 148 Figure 5: Part of a notated example from ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Marāghī’s Jāmiʿ al-alḥān (818/1415) (Nuruosmaniye Yazma Eserler Kütüphanesi, Ms. 3644, f. 59r) ................ 149 Figure 6: Detail from Nayi Osman Dede’s collection of notation (ca. 1690) (private collection, reproduced in Doğrusöz 2013, p. 11) .......................................................... 149 Figure 7: Pitch symbols (rows 1 and 3) and Armenian letters (rows 2 and 4) from Tanburi Arut‘in’s musical treatise (ca. 1745) (Matenadaran Institute, Ms. 9340; microfilm reproduced from Tabar Müzik Kütüphanesi, D.36, f. 11v) .......................................... 154 Figure 8: Detail from Abdülbaki Dede’s Taḥrīrīyetü’l-mūsīḳī (1208/1794) (Süleymaniye Yazma Eserleri Kütüphanesi, Ms. Esad Efendi 3898, f. 13v) ...................................... 157 7 8 Acknowledgements This thesis was completed with the assistance of many individuals and institutions. Special thanks are due to my primary supervisor, Martin Stokes, whose invaluable encouragement, suggestions and friendship have profoundly shaped the final form of the thesis. I would also like to thank Katherine Butler Schofield, whose research and teaching inspired me to explore new historiographical directions, and who provided valuable practical advice. Alexander Lingas and Laurent Mignon both helped me to make important clarifications and corrections following their examination of the thesis in September 2017. The revised thesis was submitted in February 2018. My interest in the musical histories of the Middle East began while I was an undergraduate at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Owen Wright introduced me to many of the sources and issues in the field of Ottoman music studies, and has been an excellent mentor as well as providing crucial feedback on several chapters in the thesis. Other staff members at SOAS music department encouraged me to pursue my academic career further and taught me much about music and scholarship. I would particularly like to thank Rachel Harris and Richard Widdess for their encouragement, teaching and advice. My first practical encounter with the musics of the Middle East was facilitated by the SOAS Middle Eastern Music Ensemble, with whom I shared many valuable and enjoyable learning experiences. I would like to thank all the other members of the ensemble in 2007–2011 for introducing me to a new world of musical knowledge and experience. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Mehmet Uğur Ekinci, who originally suggested doing postgraduate research on manuscript collections of Hampartsum notation. Laudan Nooshin provided valuable encouragement and advice in the early stages of my research. Yorgos Dedes was an inspiring teacher of Ottoman Turkish and much besides. I would like to acknowledge Emine Çakır Sürmeli