art essay

11Introduction

other minority composers infused such developments into their own religious music. Ottoman innovations included new instrumentation, complex or new makams and usuls, development of the vocal and in- strumental taksim (improvisation), and changes in fasıl genres, such as the nineteenth-century light classical şarkı (literally, “song”) that popu- larized the fasıl cycle in the twentieth century.18 European genres and instruments, as well as notational systems, presented further musical choices to Ottoman composers, especially by the nineteenth century; however, oral transmission and performance dominated the musical scene through the early twentieth century. With the advent of records and growth of gazinos (nightclubs) at the turn of the century, fasıl music found a popular, commercial stage—an early entertainment industry often owned and operated by minorities, including Jews, and showcas- ing vocalists who may have also sung religious songs in synagogues. Maftirim music shared in such musical crosscurrents of the time, and by the early Republic boasted big audiences and a repertoire that included contemporary composers and topical subjects. In the 1920s, as Turk- ish Jews from the provinces increasingly congregated in Istanbul, local Maftirim singers joined Edirne émigrés to perform at numerous syna- gogues in the city, providing a popular, weekly venue to hear Ottoman court music forms in an era of political and cultural reform.

In the course of the twentieth century, as Jews gradually vacated their neighborhoods in Istanbul, whether through emigration or up- ward mobility, the historical practice of Maftirim gatherings on Shab- bat diminished into today’s single secured session, together with one public performance group. By the 1990s, three male vocalists were considered the last remaining masters of the genre in Istanbul: David Behar, İsak Maçoro, and David Sevi. Recently, the Ottoman- Turkish Sephardic Culture Research Center completed a major proj- ect remastering their recordings together with notation and historical background of extant Maftirim compositions. Taken as a whole, the evidence of the century appears to match a story of increasing cul- tural reduction, isolation and, ultimately, preservation. As we shall see, however, behind this apparent decline lies a more complex history of music-making across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, as Jew- ish and non-Jewish musicians continued to network together to pro- tect endangered Ottoman musical forms in a republican era of cultural