Arabesque (Turkish music)

Arabesque or Arabesk (Turkish: Arabesk) is a term created by Turkish musicologists for an Arabic style of music created in Turkey. The genre was particularly popular in Turkey in the decades from the 1960s through the 1990s. As with Arabic music itself, its aesthetics have evolved over the decades. Although melodies and rhythms are predominantly byzantine and Arabic influenced, it also draws ideas from other aspects of Middle Eastern music including Bağlama music and Ottoman forms of oriental music. It continues to be played within Turkey in its purer form today, but its popularity has waned with younger people in more recent times; and it has tended to merge into, and be subsumed by, other genres such as latter-day Western dance music and Turkish pop music.

Description and history

A very small percentage of Arabesk is exclusively instrumental. For the great majority of it, a singer lies at the center of the music. Male singers dominated the genre in its early years, but female singers probably predominated during its peak years of popularity. Simultaneously with the influx of female singers, the sound grew more dancey and upbeat.^[1] Orhan Gencebay is generally considered the founder of the genre (though he disagrees with the usage of the term). Other well known older singers are Müslüm Gürses and Ferdi Tayfur. One of the most prolific and commercially successful is İbrahim Tatlıses, who broke all sales records in Turkey in 1978 and continues to turn out popular music to this day. He has maintained popularity in the Arabesk scene in recent years through remixing his tracks into dance friendly club tracks. The pure Arabesk album "Acıların Kadını" by the singer Bergen was the bestselling album in Turkey in 1986 and may be fairly labelled one of the classic albums of the genre. Bergen had several other hit Arabesk albums during the 1980s. Other singers include Gülben Ergen, Ebru Gündeş, Seda Sayan, Sibel Can. The singers Muazzez Ersoy and Bülent Ersoy designate themselves as modern exponents of Ottoman classical music but much of their work can be labelled as Arabesk with softer beats, since the strings and vocal melodies sound Arabic—or arabesque.

Also Ajda Pekkan's "Sen Mutlu Ol" (1981) and "Sevdim Seni" (1982) albums were effects of "pop-turns-arabesque" concept in early 80's. Also, Ajda Pekkan's "Sarıl Bana", smash hit of 1993 from "Ajda '93" album, was a famous Arabesque-pop song.

Criticism

Writing on his Facebook page, the Turkish classical pianist Fazıl Say gave as his opinion that Arabesque music is "third class, lives on pity, laziness, incapacity, uncertainty...", adding, "I am ashamed of Turkish people’s slimy arabesque." This sparked a controversy in which Say, conversely, was accused of being an "elitist snob".^[2]

See also

• Kanto
• Balkan pop
• Byzantine music
• Turbo-folk
• Chalga
• Manele
• Skiladiko
• Laïka
• Mizrahi music
• Filmi
• Longa (Middle Eastern music)

References

1. ^ "Turkish Music and Artists: Arabesque". Yildirim, Ali. Tarkan DeLuxe, 2006. http://tarkandeluxe.blogspot.com/2004/05/turkish-music-and-artists.html#arab. Retrieved March 21, 2006. 
2. ^ "Sound of shantytowns wins musical showdown in Turkey". Hürriyet Daily News. August 28, 2010. http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=the-classic-music-vs.-arabesque-a-conflict-between-west-and-east-sides-of-turkey-2010-08-27. Retrieved August 28, 2010. 

External links

• "Bassturk, Muhabbet, Tarkan & Co. The German-Turkish Pop Scene". Bax, Daniel. Qantara.de, 2006 (Translation from German: Nancy Joyce). http://www.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-301/_nr-75/_p-1/i.html. Retrieved April 21, 2006. 
• "Crossing The Bridge" (documentary film) on IMDb
• "Arabic Music"