MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2023
Approaching 60,000 reviews
and more.. and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

alternatively
Download: Classicsonline

 

Ahmet Adnan SAYGUN (1907-1991)
From Anatolia op.25 (1945) [08:47]
12 Preludes on Aksak Rhythms op. 45 (1967) [23:21]
Inci’s Book op. 10 (1934) [08:49]
10 Sketches on Aksak Rhythms op. 58 (1976) [19:51]
Sonatina op. 15 (1938) [10:07]
Zeynep Űçbaşaran (piano)
rec. 23-24, 27 February 2007, Abravanel Hall, Music Academy of the West, Santa Barbara, California, USA. DDD
NAXOS 8.570746 [71:05]
Experience Classicsonline


In 1934 Turkish President Kemal Atatürk, founder of modern Turkey, specifically took up the question of music, calling in Parliament for the creation of a new musical style which would draw upon Turkey’s musical heritage. German and Austrian architects provided designs for a new Conservatoire in Ankara, to be directed by Hindemith, and for a new opera house, under Carl Ebert. If this doesn’t sound very indigenous, a native composer, Ahmet Adnan Saygun, was commanded to write – and conduct with the Presidential Orchestra – a new opera to celebrate a state visit to Ankara by the Shah of Persia.
 
Whether a new musical style can be created by political decree is a moot point. In truth we know so little about the “Turkish Five” who dominated the Turkish musical scene over the next few decades – Erkin, Rey, Akses, Alnar and Saygun himself – that it is impossible for an outsider to say what was actually achieved. An equally moot point might be whether Hindemith, for all his qualities, was quite the man for this particular brief. Probably Saygun would have agreed. Certainly, he was disappointed that a place was not found for Bartók, surely a more logical choice. In 1936 Saygun left the new Conservatoire and took a trip through the Turkish countryside, collecting native folk melodies in the company of the Hungarian master.
 
Earlier still, from 1928,  he had studied in Paris, with Borrel at the Conservatoire and D’Indy at the Schola Cantorum. Despite the temporary hiatus in 1936 he received much honour as one of Turkey’s leading national composers – as well as ethnomusicologist and writer – and perhaps the best known Turkish musical figure internationally. In 1958 Stokowski conducted his oratorio “Yunus Emre” at the United Nations General Assembly Hall in New York.
 
Of the pieces here, I was particularly taken with “From Anatolia”. Despite his admiration for Bartók, Saygun does not particularly remind us of that master, though he perhaps shares the Hungarian’s ideals of textural clarity and clear-cut forms. In this suite he exhibits a more lyrical gift and a considerable sense of atmosphere. Mindful of his Schola Cantorum period, Roussel with a Turkish accent might be a fair description.
 
The early “Inci’s Book” makes a pleasing addition to the world’s stock of childhood-inspired pieces while the Sonatina makes a bigger effect than its name or length would suggest. It also encompasses a fair range of moods and concludes with an impressive visiting card for the pianist’s virtuoso address.
 
The “12 Preludes on Aksak Rhythms” ought to be the major offering here, but it is the one that convinced me least. Saygun’s post war music, on this showing, achieved a sharp-etched purity but, while some of the Preludes – usually the faster ones – are engaging, others seemed rather sterile. Yet the obvious inference that the composer’s talent dried up is countered by the still later “10 Sketches on Aksak Rhythms”. While they cover similar ground, they said rather more to me. In truth, we know too little about the composer to make more than tentative judgements.
 
Zeynep Űçbaşaran is a Turkish pianist who has been resident in Santa Barbara, California, since 1996. She has made a number of discs for a small local label, Eroica, all of which I have reviewed with growing interest. Concentrating on a fairly circumscribed repertoire so far – Mozart, Schubert and Liszt in particular – she is a pianist who puts the music first. On a disc dedicated to miniatures she included “Inci’s Book” and five of the “Preludes”. Recorded two years earlier than the present disc, there are just enough small differences to prove that the previous performances haven’t been just quietly recycled, but the main difference in “Inci’s Book” comes from the recordings. The more wide-ranging dynamics offered by Eroica add a dimension of boldness to “The Giant Puppet”, for example. Yet this must be a matter of Naxos’s post-production policy, since the venue and recording team are the same in both cases. Taken on its own, the Naxos recording sounds fine, I should add. The one piece which actually seems to have been reconsidered by Űçbaşaran is the fourth Prelude which is more fluid, I would say to its advantage, adding to the attractiveness of what is in any case the most communicative – to me – of this group of pieces.
 
Insofar as I can judge without scores or comparative versions – except by the same pianist – the performances are excellent. The colours and pacing are everywhere convincing. In my review of the earlier CD I see I suggested that Űçbaşaran might like to give us a monographic Saygun disc, based around the late (1990) Sonata. Well, here’s the monographic disc, but instead she chose to go back to Saygun’s earlier works. Given their attractiveness, I suspect she had her reasons. Or is there more to come?
 
Saygun’s cause has also been taken up by CPO (see below for reviews).
 
Christopher Howell
 
See other reviews of Sayguns music
Complete String Quartets
Cello Concerto
Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2
Symphony No. 4
Symphonies Nos. 3 and 5



 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.