Additional information: belly dance

From makams of royal ships in the melody of royal harems , the type of dance music found that differed from OYUN Havasi of fazil music. In the Ottoman Empire the harem was that part of the house reserved for the women of that family. It was a place where non-family men were not allowed. Eunuchs guarded the sultan’s harems, which were quite large, including several hundred women who were wives and concubines. There dancers and musicians entertained the women living in the harem. A belly dance was performed by women for women. This dancer, known as rakkas , almost never appeared in public.

Modern oriental dance in Turkey is derived from this tradition of Ottoman rock. Some mistakenly believe that Turkish oriental dance is known as iftetelli due to the fact that this style of music was incorporated into oriental dance by the Greeks , as evidenced by the fact that Greek belly dance is sometimes mistakenly called Citadel . However, iftetelli is now a form of folk music with song titles that describe their local origins, whereas rock, as the name implies, may have a more Middle Eastern origin. Dancers are also known for their skillful use of finger cymbals as instruments, also known as zol.

Western Influence on Turkish Classical Music

While 18th-century European military orchestras introduced the percussion instruments of Ottoman janissary orchestras, a mutual influence emerged in the 19th century in the form of the Europeanization of the Ottoman army orchestra. In 1827 Giuseppe Donizetti, the elder brother of the famous Italian opera composer Gaetano Donizetti, was invited as Master of Music to Sultan Mahmud II. Donizetti’s successor was the German musician Paul Lange, who had previously taught music at the American Girls’ College and at the German High School, and who took up the post of Master of Music for the Sultan after the Young Turk revolution in 1908 and retained it until his death in 1920. Paul Lange’s son was the American conductor Hans Lange, born in Istanbul . The Ottoman composer Leila Saz (1850-1936) recounts her musical training at the Imperial Palace in her memoirs. As the daughter of a palace surgeon, she grew up in the Imperial Harem, where girls were also given music lessons in both Turkish and Western styles.

After the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the Turkish Republic, the former Imperial Orchestra or Mızıka-ı Hümayun moved from Istanbul to the new state capital of Ankara and renamed it the Orchestra under the President of the Republic. The “Riyaset-i Cumhur Orkestrası” marked the westernization of Turkish music. The name was later changed to the Presidential Symphony Orchestra or Cumhurbaşkanlığı Senfoni Orkestrası.