Muhayyer Saz Semâî - Tanburi Cemil Bey (with notes)

"Muhayyer Saz Semâî" is composed by Turkish composer Tanburi Cemil Bey (1873-1916) and is played by Yorgo Bacanos (1900-1977) on oud.

Transcribed by Yücel (http://www.neyzen.com/nota_arsivi/02_....


Yorgo Bacanos' biography:

Yorgo Bacanos (born in Silivri, Turkey in 1900, died in Istanbul in 1977; Γιώργος Μπατζανός in Greek) was a master oud player and improvisational composer of Ottoman classical music. His father Haralambos was of Greek gypsy descent, and a legendary oud improviser, and several in his family were kemençe artists. He was largely responsible for introducing the young Yorgo to music, presenting him with his first oud at the age of five. Yorgo soon left school (the Saint Benoit High School) to concentrate on music full-time--he had made his first public appearance in the Eftalofos Club in Taksim at the age of twelve. Rapidly achieving fame, he started performing on Turkish Radio in 1927, and went on performing there for 51 years, until his death. In 1928, he visited Berlin with his brother Aleko, and Kanuni Ahmet Yatman and performed in records of Hafiz Kemal and Hafiz Sadettin Kaynak; in the next year, he performed in Paris, with the violinist Sadi Işılay, and Deniz Kızı Eftalya; he further went on to Cairo with the same band.

He played with the other masters of his era, including Münir Nurettin Selçuk and Zeki Müren in Turkey, and Umm Kulthum and Munir Bashir in the Arab world. Yorgo Bacanos also gave concerts in many European countries, and became one of the finest and renowned oud players of his time (alongside Udi Hrant Kenkulian). His technique and musicality proved influential, and his distinctive variations are still being performed at present.


Cemil Bey's biography:

Cemil Bey was born in Istanbul, Ottoman Empire, in 1871 or 1873; his birth date is uncertain. He took his first lessons in music from Kanuni Ahmet Bey and the violin player Kemani Aleksan, his first instruments thus being the violin and the kanun. After completing middle school, he continued in a school for civil servants (Mülkiye), but then devoted himself to music and abandoned his education. He began to play the tanbur quite early in his youth and by the age of 20, his renown had already spread among the tamburis of Istanbul. Reforming the traditional playing technique of the tambur, he developed an energetic technique based on a rich and agile picking style, lightening to a great extent the sonority of this instrument. Later on, he set about playing the Turkish classical kemençe and attained an astonishingly high level of technique, so much so that the virtuosity level of the Ottoman kemençevi of Greek-Gyspy origin Vassilis (1845–1907), considered as then as "the reference", came to be thought of by certain amateurs to be outmatched... He was also the inventor of the Yaylı tambur.

This musician was able to play any instrument he picked up: he played lavta, cello, yaylı tanbur, zurna and several other instruments with equal virtuosity. His taksims and instrumental works he recorded on 78rpms with tanbur, kemençe, lavta, cello and yaylı tanbur had considerable impact on generations of musicians following him. The peşrevs and sazsemais he composed are pieces of great taste, requiring a developed performance technique.

If we are to lay confidence in his close friend Mahmut Demirhan's words:

“He bowed his way [on the kemençe] with unheard-of confidence, ease and serenity; from the very dense and close-together notes of high gerdaniye, high muhayyer, and even high çargah, playing melodies clearly and crisply, without falling the least out of tune nor making a faux-pas in fingering; and all of this without the slightest sign of discomfort on his face.”

He was a very sensitive and nervous person, who eventually suffered from alcoholism. Most of his compositions have been preserved in his recordings, but some of his work were incomplete when he died.