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The program is built on a preliminary
work which is very important:
the motet about the fall of Constantinople written by G. Dufay.
It is the opening piece of this disc: the lament
of the whole Occident for Constantinople, which was
the last Eastern Roman Empire, which was taken by the Muslims
- and this was of course a tragedy for the Christian Occident.
And then the dialogue begins:
we play our court-music to them
or they play their court-music to us.
And then comes a moment where they give us some music that we will play
with our instruments and we give them some music
that they will play with their instruments.
And after a certain time to get acquainted, the exchange starts,
little by little.
We really play ancient art music, court-music
and they play Ottoman music,
which is art music from the Ottoman court.
The dialogue is settled between them.
There is a real difference between Ottoman music and Turkish music.
Turkisch music is a popular music - which is interesting too -
But here this is the very music that was played in the sultan's court.
These are two art music, and this is the idea that
these two communities - the muslim community that has taken
the city of Contantinople in 1453, and the Christian community,
who has stayed in Constantinople - because the Muslims showed
great restraint and didn't kill these communities: Genovese, French,
Venitian etc. So, These communities can dialogue through music
they exchange of their instruments, they try to do
something together, in spite of the huge differences that do exist
between our music. There are really differences between
western an Turkish music, which are almost insurmountable.
The most important issue is obviously that they are court instruments
- which were not designed to make a loud sound and were quite intimate
in comparison with western instruments designed
to play outside like the "bombardes", which have a naturel disposition
to make a loud sound.
So, yes, the most important issue of this recording is that we have
to unite two different worlds: one which is more intimate,
with music shaped to sound louder.