Celebrated
\nin 2023 on the anniversary of 350 years since his birth and 300 years
\nsince his death, the ruler and scholar Dimitrie Cantemir was born in
\n1673 in Ia\u0219i and died on his estate in Russia in 1723. Cantemir led
\nthe principality of Moldavia in 1693 and again between 1710 and 1711,
\nfought to defend his country, read and wrote works of history,
\ngeography, musicology, philosophy and literature and was even
\nadmitted into the Berlin Academy of Sciences, being recognised to
\nthis day as the first promoter of the Enlightenment in these parts.
\nEndowed with great intellectual abilities, Dimitrie also benefited,
\ntogether with his brother Antioh, of a good education, secured by
\ntheir father Constantin Cantemir. The latter also ruled over
\nMoldavia, but was not himself educated, and it is even believed he
\nwas semi-illiterate. When he was young, Dimitrie was sent as a
\nhostage to the High Porte in Istanbul, as was the custom at the time
\nas a way for the sultan to secure the loyalty of the voivodes of the
\nRomanian principalities that were vassal states to the Ottoman
\nEmpire. During his time in Istanbul, the future ruler furthered his
\neducation and training, learning to speak several languages,
\nacquiring knowledge of theology and philosophy and studying music. He
\nwould excel at Oriental music, which was dominant in this part of
\nEurope. His contribution in this field was crucial at a time when
\nthere were no musical scores in these lands, the musician Bogdan
\nSimion explains:<\/p>\n
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Before Cantemir we didn’t have manuscripts in these parts and
\neven his manuscripts are very complicated to read and especially to
\nperform. First of all, because there is no indication of tempo, we
\ndon’t know how fast or how slow the tunes in question are to be
\nplayed. Of course, we can establish that by looking at Iranian,
\nAfghan and Turkish music and imagine a kind of prolonged tempo. Other
\nindications in this respect are given by foreign travellers who
\nlistened to the respective music. Cantemir, however, invented a music
\nnotation system. We, in the Romanian countries, didn’t write music
\nbefore Anton Pann and his Hospital of Love work of 1851, that was
\nalready a different era and Pann was using the Byzantine musical
\nnotation, like in church chants. Cantemir invented a system that was
\nrelatively easy to write down and interpret, easy to use and which
\nthe composers at the court of the sultan of the Ottoman Empire
\nadopted and used until 1900, so it was quite good. Travelling to
\nIstanbul I was surprised to learn that Dimitrie Cantemiroglu, as the
\nOttomans called him, is remembered first and foremost as a pioneer of
\nTurkish music in the Ottoman Empire. It isn’t much known that he
\nwas a ruler or that he wrote works of geography and philosophy or
\nthat he spoke Latin or that he was a member of the Berlin Academy.
\nDimitrie Cantemiroglu is believed instead to come from a province of
\nthe Ottoman Empire, perhaps being of Tartar origin himself, and of
\nleaving an extraordinary mark on Turkish musical culture.<\/p>\n
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Dimitrie
\nCantemir’s main contribution is a treatise of musicology entitled
\nThe Book of Science of Music, most probably written in Istanbul
\nbetween 1695 and 1700. Musician Bogdan Simion tells us more:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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The Book of Science of Music was written in Arabic and was
\ndedicated to sultan Ahmed III, a great patron of the arts and a man
\npassionate about culture in general. It’s a work many specialists
\ndescribe as more political than cultural. In the 17th
\ncentury, Cantemir was asked to demonstrate that there was such as
\nthing as an identifiable Turkish music. Around 1700, there was a
\nheated debate in the Ottoman Empire, as many Turkish thinkers argued
\nthere was no Turkish culture as such, but that this was in fact a
\nlower form of Persian culture. This book appeared around 1700 in
\nIstanbul, which at the time was a very cosmopolitan city and home not
\nonly to Muslim thinkers and philosophers, but also the wisest and
\nmost widely read Orthodox Greeks, with whom Cantemir had excellent
\nties, as he never renounced his Orthodox faith. So, there were voices
\nin Istanbul saying there was no such thing as Turkish culture and
\nthat Ottoman culture was the sum of a number of ancient cultures, of
\nwhich the noblest and highest was that of the Persians. Naturally,
\nsultan Ahmed wanted the brilliant young man to demonstrate that this
\nwas not so. In the forward, the author makes a diachronic historical
\nanalysis of music genres, after which he embarks on the treatise
\nitself and the musical scores. At the end, which is the most
\ninteresting part for us, he included some original compositions,
\ndrawing on Sephardic sounds from North Africa and even a series of
\nsuites he calls ‘Moldavian’. Of course, listening to the latter
\ntoday they sound as if they are entirely from Istanbul. No Romanian
\ntoday will say they recognise anything of what we today call
\ntraditional music, but if we travel to the north of Moldavia, to
\nBoto\u0219ani, the Tartar Bugeac, the
\ncentre of what is today the Republic of Moldova and if we listen to
\ncertain kobza tunes we understand that Oriental music influenced the
\nmusic on the outskirts of towns and later even village music,
\nfollowing the abolition of Roma slavery.<\/p>\n
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As
\nsomeone who knew the Ottoman Empire well, having also written a work
\nentitled The Rise and Fall of the Ottoman Porte, Dimitrie Cantemir
\ntried to free Moldavia from under the sovereignty of the Sublime
\nPorte, joining forces with Peter the Great against it. His plan,
\nhowever, failed following the defeat at St\u0103nile\u0219ti in 1711. Forced
\nto flee to Russia, he would spend the rest of his life as an advisor
\nat the court of Peter the Great. His remains were brought back to
\nRomania in 1935 and were buried at the Three Hierarchs’ Church in
\nIa\u0219i.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A talks with musician Bogdan Simion about Dimitrie Cantemir’s legacy in the field of music.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":123226,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45210],"tags":[48378],"coauthors":[115854],"class_list":["post-621919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rri-encyclopaedia","tag-dimitrie-cantemir"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n