Harem: Les fetes du seraïlles, a collaboration between the German ensemble L'Arte del Mondo and the Istanbul-based Pera-Ensemble, sets before itself the daunting task of examining the interaction between Austro-German and Turkish music, particularly during the Classical period (although some of the Turkish music was written much earlier). The album takes its title from a ballet by Mannheim composer Christian Cannabich and includes six excerpts from it. It also includes four vocal selections from Mozart's unfinished opera ...
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Harem: Les fetes du seraïlles, a collaboration between the German ensemble L'Arte del Mondo and the Istanbul-based Pera-Ensemble, sets before itself the daunting task of examining the interaction between Austro-German and Turkish music, particularly during the Classical period (although some of the Turkish music was written much earlier). The album takes its title from a ballet by Mannheim composer Christian Cannabich and includes six excerpts from it. It also includes four vocal selections from Mozart's unfinished opera set in a harem, Zaïde. The remainder of the album is made up of music by Turkish composers from the fifteenth through the nineteenth centuries, as well as pieces from folk traditions and solo improvisations. It's easier for a Westerner to detect the Eastern influences on Cannabich and Mozart than vice versa. The Cannabich, in particular, uses Eastern modal harmonies, and his exploitation of the possibilities of winds and a variety of "exotic" percussion instruments is evidence of the...
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