The Facts of Mahur Maqam With Respect to Musical Creations of Abdulbaki Nasir Dede, Hasim Bey and Huseyin Sadettin Arel; Intellectual and Historical Projections

Abstract

The Mahur sound which is one of the determinative colors of today’s Turkish music has been an aesthetic fact, towards which musical composers, who lived in different societies and periods, approached with their own specific manners. The motives forming the shape of this aesthetics are individual existences establishing relationships with the said social-periodical facts. Abdülbâkî Nâsır Dede (1765-1821), Hâşim Bey (1815-1868) and Hüseyin Sadettin Arel (1880-1955) who proved their existence with their musical creations and thus, could make visionary moves, defined the Mahur maqam with their unique nuances. Nâsır Dede approached to the Mahur maqam in the mysterious world of lahn (errors of speech) which belongs to the world of meanings of Yenikapı Mevlevihane and in this context, arranged the relationships of musical intervals according to the features of tune structures determined by masters of music. Haşim Bey approached to the Mahur maqam within the musical expression style of Western culture which was began to be understood and compared by the individuals of Tanzimat Reform Era. Accordingly, the Mahur maqam corresponds to the sol major in the European style in a sense. In this context, according to Hüseyin Sadettin Arel, the Mahur maqam is similar to major, but as different from major it is a structure dominated by Çargah tunes containing T-T-B-T intervals. For Arel, the said intervals are musical materials which can adapt to modern mind and emotion definitions of nation-state citizens of the Republic. In this respect, the Mahur maqam constitutes a structure having different effects other than the effect area of major. Arel, thus, claims that Turkish music has its own national materilals which are candidate for universality such as Çargah, Buselik, Kurdi, Rast, Uşşak, Hicaz obtained from the nature against the major-minor of the West. Through the article study, the Mahur maqam is questioned intellectually interacted with the perspectives where historicity begins to form which includes society and individual facts in the the triangle of said people’s creations.

Keywords: Abdülbâkî Nâsır Dede, Hâşim Bey, Hüseyin Sadettin Arel, Mâhur, Musical Creation, Intellectuality, Historical, Community, Individuality.

DOI: 10.7176/JSTR/5-5-08