Marco Beasley, Constantinople, Kiya Tabassian - La Porta d'Oriente: the Manuscript of Ali Ufki (2020)

Tracklist

01. Nuove musiche e nuova maniera di scriverle: No. 35, Dalla porta d'oriente
02. Zarb-e fath
03. Le seconde musiche, No. 8, Quest'amore, quest'arsura
04. Che si può fare?
05. Uyan ey gözlerim
06. Prologo alla notte
07. Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, SV 153 (Arr. for Chamber Ensemble): Notte, che nel profondo
08. Fath-e bâb
09. Fronni d'alia-Ey Sareban
10. Versi
11. Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, SV 153 (Arr. for Chamber Ensemble): Così tacendo e rimirando
12. La canella
13. La campana sona!
14. Samai frenci
15. Samai nishaburak
16. Como sencza la vita
17. Kürdi pishrow
18. Compendium tarantulae
19. Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, SV 153 (Arr. for Chamber Ensemble): Ma ecco omai l'ora fatale è giunta

A 17th Century manuscript that was compiled but Albert Bobowski, a Polish musician and orientalist, contains songs of the Italian Renaissance and the Ottoman court. Bobowski, alias Ali Ufki, was born around 1610 in Poland and worked in Constantinople at the Ottoman court where he was involved with many diplomats,clerics and travellers as translator, language teacher, mediator and adviser. Thanks to his diverse skills and profound knowledge of the Islamic-Ottoman and Christian-European cultures, he became a valued mediator between the two worlds during his lifetime. In this collection of European and Ottoman vocal and instrumental, sacred and secular, court and popular music, Ali Ufki switches between languages and music genres with a fantastic ease and naturalness. Together with the Italian tenor Marco Beasley, the ensemble Constantinople makes this collection accessible again with that very same ease and naturalness. The musicians brilliantly succeed in congenially bridging the gap between the cultures if Europe and the Orient, just as Ali Ufki did centuries ago.

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