In the performance of maqam music, various styles of oud performance can be seen in the unique musical culture of many different geographies, from Iran to the coasts of North Africa and from Anatolia to the Balkans. Among this wide geographical spectrum, Istanbul has been one of the musical centers where the oud instrument has been frequently used, especially since the 1850s. Yorgo Bacanos was one of the most prominent oud players of 20th-century Istanbul. He was born in Istanbul and spent his entire life in this city as a musician who deeply influenced all oud players of his era, as well as those that came after him. Due to having taken part in many recordings and worked at Istanbul Radio for many years, a wide variety of examples of his performances have survived to the present day. His superior improvisational skills, frequent use of ornamentation, ease in preforming passages requiring technical mastery and agility, and unique right-hand plectrum technique are the main features of Bacanos’ performances. These performative characteristics may have resulted in some extreme examples being encountered in Bacanos’ recordings in terms of musical interpretation.

This study aims to reveal the theoretical performative elements behind Yorgo Bacanos’ performance of the aranağme [short instrumental passage between verses in Turkish music] at the end of the song “Gülşen-i Ezhar Açtı Her Yana,” in which he accompanied Hafız Kemal and Sadettin Kaynak. In line with this, the study first compiles some information about Yorgo Bacanos the performer and the music culture centered in Istanbul in order to prepare the groundwork for the analysis. The study then applies the performance analysis method, which includes the five subheadings of pitches and maqam lines, motivic variations, ornamentation techniques, instrument positions, and form analysis, to comparatively analyze the aranağme performance of the article’s subject against the original notes in the repertoire.

The study’s analysis determined the two-part aranağme to have been transformed into four parts through Bacanos’ interpretation. Even before the first measure has been completed, Bacanos can be said to have hastily created a motive and started to create variations with a unique tempo. Thus, a very different and original performance emerges from the original score after a while. Bacanos’ ability to create melodies that are quick and that contain different rhythmic patterns during a performance is a feature that is frequently encountered in his taksim [classical Turkish] performances. Bacanos reflected the basic characteristics of his unique oud playing (e.g., upbeat melodies, rhythmic melody sections) in his compositions. The use of I-V-I chords in the last part of the recording, which resembles a small cadence, can be explained by the fact that Bacanos had borrowed slightly from Western music as a result of his piano training.

Yorgo Bacanos is observed to have achieved a clean and bright tone in this masterful interpretation of the aranağme. The ease of Bacanos’ performance, which challenges the technical possibilities of the oud, reveals his comfort in creative performance and his command of the instrument. With Bacanos’ strong sense of rhythm and the self-confidence that comes from having internalized the ağır aksak usul [a tempo in 9/4], which is frequently used in fasıl [Turkish overture/series of compositions in the same maqam] performances, he was able to easily diversify the arrangement by using a variety of motives. Thanks to his agility in his right-hand technique and his improvisational skills, Bacanos created a passage that is extremely difficult to perform while also managing to adhere strictly to the usul [tempo]. The absence of any accompaniment other than his own instrument on the record may be considered to have allowed Bacanos to interpret freely. However, in order to fill the gap created in the recording by the relatively short duration of the song, he recomposed the four-measure piece live during the performance and extended it to eight measures. Bacanos’ aranağme performance is an attractive example of musical interpretation.