Turquie

 

FOLKLORE ET MUSIQUES DE L'UNIVERS

TURQUIE

FOLKLORE AND MUSICS OF THE UNIVERSE

TURKEY

Disques BAM, ?, LD 5739

This series ''Folklore et Musiques de l'Univers'' was a good way to know a bit more about remote musical cultures although the people who recorded in the field were not always real connoisseurs. But generally speaking it was good enough for me; I was 10 or 11 years old when I got this LP for Christmas. The guy who collected the material was Merry Ottin, a French writer who knew enough about Turkish history. He divided the LP in three parts : Mehter, Mevlevi and Folklore.
Two tracks are particularly interesting : track A4 is named ''dance of  Kars'' and Ottin speaks about Russian and Turkish influences while for me that music sounds completely Armenian. It shows how heavy the Turkish propaganda was about the ethnic cleansing in the area during the first World War and how well accepted it was by foreigners  who wouldn't or couldn't question it publicly. But the players had probably introduced themselves as Turks. Nevertheless the term ''armenian'' was taboo at the time as it is still the case now. I think I got the LP  around 1969 so the recordings were conducted at the end of the 60s maybe. The other track is A9 about fiddle music by some refugee or descendant of refugees from Crimea. It is possible now to listen to CDs about this fiddle music but at the time it was quite new to me.
The other tracks are interesting too as the tracks about the resurgence of the Janissaries and their band of zurnas and davuls. 

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