THE MUSIC OF THE ENLIGHTENED AND ROMANTIC NATIONAL COMPOSER OF HÜSEYİN SADETTİN AREL; TURKISH MUSIC
Sami DuralDuring his studies in Istanbul Municipality Conservatory, of which he was the chairman of scientific board in 1943, and afterwards in Advanced Turkish Music Conservatory Association, of which he was the founder, Hüseyin Sadettin Arel (1880-1955) tried to develop a perspective that would conform to the principles of scientific discourse and gain validity. In this respect, he aimed at presenting a musical perspective, which can be shared on the level of pedagogical education by the citizens of nation-state and can provide a basis for raising composers, who are competent in addressing to the feelings of people by taking into account the central position of man. This perspective for Arel, is a guarantee of building a musical basis, which would raise individuals to the top of artistic creation in a way. Arel based the music he called as “Turkish Music” on laws of nature by means of its interactions with positivist and rational frequencies and on historical grounds and progress-development mottos by means of its interactions with idealistic and romantic frequencies. Even the feeling of love he has towards Turkish music, which can be defined in mystical terms, is in interaction with this relational ground. Therefore, he stated that Turkish music is more compliant with harmony with its maqam structure, compared to other kinds of music in the world including Western music (which is especially determined in form and content by the “note” as European musical writing used currently). The only authority on the creation platform of ‘Turkish music’, having the said qualities, is the composer, who incorporates national sensitivities. The music of this composer, ‘Turkish music’, is one of the phenomena in which the new experienced social and individual perspective is being interacted. The point of emphasis for the article in question is the requirement to evaluate the said music on the level of Arel’s thinking-acting grounds and social-individual relationships.
HÜSEYİN SADETTİN AREL’İN AYDINLANMIŞ VE ROMANTİK MİLLİ BESTEKÂRININ MÜZİĞİ; TÜRK MUSİKİSİ
Sami DuralHüseyin Sadettin Arel (1880-1955), 1943’te ilmi kurul reisliğini üstlendiği İstanbul Belediye Konservatuvarında ve buradan ayrıldıktan sonra kurucusu olduğu İleri Türk Musikisi Konservatuvarı Derneğinde, müzik sahasında geçerlilik kazanabilecek, bilimsel söylemin kıstaslarına uygun bir bakış açısı geliştirmeye çalışmıştır. Bu bağlamda ulus devletin vatandaşları tarafından pedagojik eğitim-öğretim düzleminde paylaşılabilecek ve yine bu doğrultuda insanın merkezî konumunun dâhilinde onun duygularını muhatap almada yetkin kompozitörler-bestekârlar yetiştirmeye zemin oluşturabilecek bir müzikal perspektif sunmayı amaç edinmiştir. Arel için bu perspektif, bir bakıma sanatsal yaratımın en nihayetinde bulunan bireyler doğurabilecek bir müzik olgusu inşasının garantörü konumundadır. Arel, “Türk musikisi”1 olarak adlandırdığı müziği, pozitivist ve rasyonel frekanslarla etkileşime girerek doğa kanunlarına, idealist ve romantik frekanslarla etkileşime girerek de tarihsel zemin ve ilerleme-gelişim mottolarına dayandırmıştır. Türk müziğine duyduğu ve mistik bağlamda anlamlandırılabilecek aşk duygusu bile bu bahsedilen ilişkisel zeminle etkileşim içerisindedir. Bunlardan hareketle Türk müziğinin makamsal yapısıyla birlikte armoniye -özellikle hali hazırdaki Avrupa müzik yazısı ‘nota’ tarafından formal ve içeriksel mahiyeti belirlenmiş- Batı müziği de dâhil diğer dünya müziklerine kıyasla daha çok uyumlu olduğunu belirtmiştir. Bahsedilen nitelikleri haiz olan “Türk musiki”sinin yaratım platformunda söz sahibi yegâne merci ise milli hassasiyetleri bünyesinde barındıran bestekârdır. İşte bu bestekârın müziği “Türk musikisi”, yaşanılan yeni toplumsal ve bireysel perspektifin etkileşime girdiği olgulardan birisidir. Söz konusu makalenin vurgu noktası ise bahsedilen bu müziğin Arel’in düşünsel-eylemsel zeminleri ve toplumsal-bireysel ilişkileri dâhilinde değerlendirilmesi gerektiğidir.
Hüseyin Saadettin Arel has founded sound ties with the names like Descartes, Rousseau and Newton as well as their philosophies and ideas of society within the context of continuity-discontinuity. One of the most striking points among these ties or commonalities between Arel and these names is seen in Descartes’ dualist approach towards nature and human intellectuality, where nature is subjugated to human intellectuality, became godless and open to the permeation of human being, defined as finite, which as a result, paved way to the rise of human being as the sole actor. Another commonality between Arel and these names is the notion of emotion, which is asserted by Rousseau to be what separates human beings from animals and motivates them through a social life, comes before ration, and thus gained a specific importance within the context of criticism. Together with all of these, “Turkish Music” for Arel is a music that is produced from out of natural sounds and has universal tones. In this respect, Newton is another name with whom Arel shares common ideas. Newton defines the law of gravity as follows: “gravitation is universal in all objects and depends on the masses of the force between two objects and square number of distances between their centers as inversely proportional”. According to this Law of Universal Gravitation, which is accepted to be the peak of Scientific Revolution, all objects attract each other with a force directly proportional to the multiplicity of their masses and inversely proportional to the distance between them. From this perspective, the basic physical facts in the observable universe can be summed up in a single mathematical formula, and it can be claimed that earth physics and astrophysics are single and identical. Arel struggled to put music in a privileged position by associating it with scientific discourse after Enlightenment, and to restore it to the art field. In doing so, the criteria of the mind, which is the legacy of Enlightenment, and the romantic touches on these criteria, were the basis of his legitimacy. The determining subject of this ground was the national composer of ‘Turkish music’. All musical instruments were made to obey the will of this free subject. What was expected from the composer was to address to the feelings of a man who had declared a new transcendental kingdom and showed the courage to exhibit creation apart from all the classical transcendental centers. These nuances, which Arel deals with as mentioned above in a different way, can be seen in that he expresses human emotions in musical creation. A musical judgment is no longer the monopoly of a reference to the existence of the creator, who gives access to harmony with the cosmos or world above and under the moon. From this point on, the most important point of emphasis that will lead the musical aesthetics is the nature with its lawmaking and remoteness from finality and the determinations of human personality that holds the authority to deal with such nature. Arel stated that the sound materials owned by Turks and in hands of Turkish music composers have the highest extension to express human feelings in line with the determinations of such composer and processed the Cartesian dualist understanding in his own view of enlightenment and romanticism, and succeeded to turn love, longing, disappointments or despair into a catalyzer of a different kind of creation as he preferred to express on nationality grounds and can be thought together with the flow of ties he belonged to.
