REVIEW ESSAY

The Edva r of Demetrius Cantemir:

Recent Publications
John Morgan OConnell
This review concerns the musical works of Demetrius Cantemir (1673/1723). In
particular, it concerns recent studies in ethnomusicology of his famous treatise
(Edvar), a work that was compiled by the author (c.1700) while mostly resident as a
Moldavian dignitary in Istanbul between 1688 and 1710. Consisting of theoretical
writings and musical compositions, the treatise represents an important development
in Turkish music, showing a contemporary interest in empirical approaches to music
theory and manifesting a related concern for precise transcription in music notation.
In this respect, the treatise discloses a number of distinctive cultural strands, a
tangible expression of the cosmopolitan music scene in Istanbul where a Greek
influence upon Turkish music is especially apparent in the realms of theoretical
discourse and performance practice. To some extent, the life of Cantemir reflects this
influence. Schooled in Greek culture and trained by Greek musicians, he was not only
an adept exponent of Byzantine chant but he was also able to adapt his musical
interests to the study of Ottoman music, both as a performer and as a scholar. The
work of Cantemir also reflects this influence, the Edvar being one of a number of
scholarly writings completed by Cantemir concerning the composite constitution of
Ottoman society. Mostly written after his flight to Russia in 1711, these writings
generally concern religious and historical topics. However, the present review is
confined exclusively to academic overviews of his musical treatise, each author
addressing the context and the content of the work in different ways.
Popescu-Judetz (1999) offers the most comprehensive history of the Edvar. While
other authors present concise historical introductions, Popescu-Judetz situates
Cantemirs treatise within a wider cultural framework, looking at the social
circumstances and the intellectual influences that informed its production. In the
former connection, she examines the life of Cantemir, explaining his diplomatic
presence in Turkey as an Ottoman dignitary and exploring his social standing in
Istanbul among a cosmopolitan circle of residents. In particular, she shows the
significance of a group of Greek musicians who trained the Moldavian prince in
instrumental performance (on tanbur and kemenc e) and who transmitted to him a
Sionna Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick, Ireland. Email: John.OConnell@ul.ie
ISSN 1741-1912 (print)/ISSN 1741-1920 (online) # 2005 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/17411910500415887
Ethnomusicology Forum
Vol. 14, No. 2, November 2005, pp. 235/239
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repertoire of instrumental compositions featured in the work. In the latter, she
contends that social circumstances determined intellectual influences, demonstrating
how an empiricist ethos emerging from a Byzantine engagement with neo-
Aristotelian philosophy found expression in the Edvar. Rejecting a long tradition
of deductive reasoning inherited from the Systematic School, she argues that
Cantemir provided the first inductive theory, a theory which drew upon an
established history of semiotic representation in Turkish music but which
reconfigured this precedent to suit the practical needs of musical performance. As
a model, she illustrates how the Edvar influenced theoretical discourse in Turkey, an
inter-textual referent determining the form and content of later treatises. While
Popescu-Judetzs historical chronology is sometimes open to criticism, she does show
how Cantemirs musical writings address a contemporary preoccupation with Eastern
alterity in European historiography where Ottoman expressive culture features
prominently in Orientalist scholarship.
Tura (2001) provides a facsimile copy and a transliteration of the Edvar. Wright
(2000) furnishes a concise overview of the work. Published in two parts, Cantemirs
treatise addresses both academic and practical issues, the theory of music and the
transcription of music respectively. In part one, the work is further subdivided into
nine sections, dealing in principle with modal structure and metric form, although
other considerations are discussed, including interval type, modal species, melodic
development and musical genre. Avoiding a cosmological introduction typical of
similar theoretical works, Cantemir explains in detail the constitution of modes by
defining a hierarchy of melodic elements and by classifying these into primary and
secondary types. In this way, he is able to develop a musical system founded upon a
fundamental gamut that informs the musical organization of his verbal descriptions,
individual representations of pitch and contour for each mode. In part two, the
treatise features a collection of around 353 instrumental compositions, pieces that
were probably compiled at different times, showing the involvement of more than
one collector. The corpus comprises works by contemporary composers, including
Cantemir. It also contains many older works by established artists, compositions
whose provenance is often hard to authenticate. While the repertoire presented covers
a wide range of modal types and rhythmic cycles, it also discloses a formulaic style
that may indicate a distinctive interpretative tradition associated with particular lines
of transmission. In this respect, the precise date for individual compositions in the
treatise is sometimes hard to determine.
Wright (1992) and Tura (2001) present complete transcriptions of the notations
featured in the Edvar. Translating the original alphabetical system into Western
notation, they both follow Cantemirs original order and format, using his numerical
system and replicating his information, when available, on composer, mode, metre
and title. On the one hand, Wright offers detailed information on the conventions
used, providing a comprehensive model for transcribing Cantemirs representation of
pitch, duration and form. He also explains his own interpretation of different metric
codes, arguing for the precise representation of melodic density in the corpus. On the
236 Review Essay
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other hand, Tura furnishes a comprehensive index of the notations transcribed,
offering complete tables on the modes and metres used and providing a summary
where possible of the composers mentioned. Comparing both publications, Wright
follows a Turkish precedent by supplying key signatures for each mode and by
appending a representation of the rhythmic cycle with each composition. Tura does
not do this, choosing instead to replicate exactly the musical information detailed in
the original manuscript, adding accidentals where necessary and including marginalia
where appropriate. Where Wright adopts the modern Turkish standard of transcrib-
ing in relative pitch (Rast on G), Tura adheres to an older tradition using absolute
pitch (Rast on d). However, both authors append representative time signatures with
each transcription. Crucially, Tura includes a good-quality facsimile copy of the
original manuscript, allowing where necessary for a comparison between the two
publications. In this respect, Wrights use of footnotes in the score for the purposes of
clarification and comparison is somewhat cumbersome.
Wright (2000) offers the most extensive analysis of the notations featured in the
Edvar. Divided into two sections, he presents an overview of contemporary modal
structures and rhythmic cycles. For each mode (makam), he provides a useful
schematic representation of relevant compositions, highlighting melodic form and
modal profile. He also critiques the verbal representation of modal characteristics
found in the treatise. Avoiding Cantemirs original taxonomy, he starts with the least
common modal entities, developing a method of analysis applicable to the entire
corpus. Through a process of elimination, he establishes the character of each modal
family using statistical techniques that facilitate increasing levels of analytical
abstraction. Further, he attempts to define a musical grammar through the selective
examination of musical relationships that consider modal structure, modal form and
modal combination. For each rhythmic cycle (usul ), Wright examines metric
deviation from an abstract ideal, defining an idealized set of characteristic elements
and demonstrating an abstract system of cyclic interconnections. Adopting
Cantemirs limited set of mnemonic devices, he formulates melodic formulae for
each rhythmic cycle, a strategy that enables him to analyse melo-rhythmic relation-
ships beyond the realm of modal specificity. In this respect, he is able to determine
the formulaic character of the compositional process and to interrogate the
diachronic development of this process through the rigorous scrutiny of melodic
density. While his approach to musical sampling is not always statistically rigorous,
his method allows him to critique effectively the central issues of historical
provenance, musical authenticity and compositional attribution.
Feldman (1996) furnishes the most persuasive interpretation of the Edvar. Like
Popescu-Judetz (1999), he explores the significance of the treatise for the historical
development of the Ottoman court tradition, showing how the work represents the
emergence of a new musical aesthetic in Turkey during the 18th century. Explaining
the concurrent demise of a Persian musical influence there, he demonstrates the
unique character of this aesthetic in terms of cultural and musical criteria where new
social circumstances and performance practices determined its character. Referencing
Ethnomusicology Forum 237
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the Edvar, he examines the instrumental improvisation (taksim). He argues that the
taksim, operating as a locus for experimentation, allowed for the individual
expression of a new modal understanding, a different conception of melodic
progression and musical combination that enabled an independent Ottoman style
to evolve. Significantly, this style of improvisation contrasted with the controlled
character and the didactic manner of a Persian equivalent, allowing for the emergence
of an open Turkish musical system in contrast to a closed Persian precedent. By
examining the musical compositions transcribed in the Edvar and by comparing
these with contemporary sources, he provides a musical analysis of two instrumental
genres (the pes rev and the sema ), suggesting different periods of musical evolution
based upon a critical analysis of mode and metre. Although criticized by Wright, he
suggests that these pieces reveal a number of stylistic traits that confirm the
evolutionary character of Ottoman music, an evolution from a modular to an
expanded conception of melody that mirrors concomitant changes in musical
terminology and musical form.
Taken together, these authors give an authoritative overview of the Edvar. In
particular, they offer important insights into Ottoman musical practice during the
18th century, a major period of social and artistic change. However, it is a pity that
these scholars did not collaborate on this major project. Where Tura provides a
precise transliteration of the treatise, Wright presents an annotated copy of the
notations, cross-referencing each composition with relevant sources. Where Wright
offers a musicological analysis of the corpus suggesting a new modal taxonomy,
Feldman gives a literary analysis of the manuscript explaining the concepts and the
genres used. Where Feldman furnishes a diachronic overview of the musical practices,
Popescu-Judetz supplies a synchronic perspective referencing a rich collection of
contemporary sources. Inevitably, these publications feature a certain degree of
overlap. Both Wright and Feldman employ a literary style that is often awkward,
leading at times to semantic ambiguity, and their publications are sometimes poorly
annotated, with incomplete explanation of symbols and insufficient documentation
of examples. Tura and Popescu-Judetz are not without fault, the former featuring
inaccurate transliterations and the latter showing incorrect transcriptions. Some of
these problems are clearly editorial issues. With the exception of Popescu-Judetz, the
publications are expensive, not being widely available to a critical group of
practitioners and academics in Turkey. That being said, each scholar makes an
important contribution to our understanding of the Edvar and to our knowledge of
Turkish music. Despite some reservations, each publication is worthy of serious
scholarly attention.
References
Feldman, Walter. 1996. Music of the Ottoman Court: Makam, Composition and the Early Ottoman
Instrumental Repertoire . Berlin: Verlag fur Wissenschaft und Bildung, Intercultural Music
Studies, 10.
238 Review Essay
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Popescu-Judetz, Eugenia. 1999. Prince Dimitrie Cantemir: Theorist and Composer of Turkish Music .
Istanbul: Pan Yaynclk.
Tura, Yalcin. 2001. Kantemirog lu: Kitabu I

lmil-Muskala vechil-Hurufat: Musikyi Harerle Tesbt

ve I

cra I

lminin Kitab , 2 vols. Istanbul: Yapi Kredi Yayinlari.

Wright, Owen. 1992. Demetrius Cantemir: The Collection of Notations, Part 1: Text . London: School
of Oriental and African Studies, Musicology Series No. 1.
*/*/*/. 2000. Demetrius Cantemir: The Collection of Notations , Vol. 2, Commentary. Aldershot:
Ashgate.
Ethnomusicology Forum 239
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