As Performed in the Vakıf: A Study on Cüneyt Kosal's Annotations in his Religious Music Notes

Abstract

Qanun player and composer Cü neyt Kosal (1931-2018) collected a large number of sheet music during his long and prolific career, creating one of the largest archives of Turkish music. He wrote a large number of scores, either through compilation or by editing from old scores. In addition to the standard data such as maqam, rhythm, form, composer and lyricist, he recorded information such as the date and place where the notation was written, the date of composition of the work, the person from whom the work was compiled, the origin of the work if it was transferred from recorded material such as tapes or cassettes, the written sources used for the composition or lyrics, the corrections to the melody, lyrics or rhythm, the person to whom the composition was dedicated and various anecdotes about the work. In this study, Cü neyt Kosal's annotations on his religious music notes, which usually contain various explanations recorded at the end of the piece, will be evaluated quantitatively and qualitatively. In this context, the accessible versions of nearly four thousand works in various forms of religious music repertoire were scanned and 842 notes written by Kosal were identified. The dates and explanatory notes on these scores are listed. Kosal recorded the date of notation in the form of day/month/year in 792 of his notes (94%) and a short or extensive explanatory note in 753 of them (89%). Classified by year, the notes are concentrated in the periods 1984-86 and 1989-93. In Kosal's notes, there are frequent references to the sources from which he took or compiled the work and the sources he used for the lyrics. According to what he recorded, he compiled a total of nearly forty different performers' readings or recordings. He used the notes written by nearly fifty notists and in about twenty-five different publications as sources. In order to find or correct the lyrics, he used about forty publications such as divan and anthologies. In his notes, several of these various sources are often mentioned together. The most common reference Kosal uses in his notes is as performed in the Vakı f. There are many other names and keywords that he does not use, but which are also connected to the foundations ( Vakı f ). The foundation referred to is the Karagü mrü k Jarrahi Lodge, whose official name is the Turkish Sufi Music and Folklore Research and Sustenance Foundation. This was the most important factor in the emergence of Kosal's religious music scores and the main venue where they were primarily used. Although not always explicitly stated in the notes, Kosal's aims in writing notes can be listed as preventing loss, recording, making them clean and legible, reproducing them, reviewing the works and correcting them when necessary. When the notes are subjected to content analysis for the qualitative dimension, various inferences can be made. In general, it is seen that Kosal was sensitive about the lyrics and used multiple and comparative sources to obtain the complete and correct lyrics. It has been determined that most of the sources he used for the compositional aspects of the works were existing scores, even if they were old or problematic. Therefore, most of what he wrote are the notes he rewrote by making various checks for the lyrics and composition. In his notes, the phrases rewritten and similar expressions appear frequently. In addition, as seen in his notes, Kosal included in his explanations the conflicting situations regarding the owners of compositions and lyrics that he encountered in the sources. Among Kosal's notes, he mentions the work he wrote or its relation to the work. Among Kosal's notes, anecdotes in which he mentions the work he wrote, or the people associated with it are relatively few. In the notes of his own compositions, he noted the dates of composition and, for some of them, information about the composition process. Another important result of the study is that Kosal did not notate a different version for any of the works analyzed. This attitude indicates that Kosal tended to standardize his notation. Again, Kosal recorded in his notes that he intervened in many aspects of the works such as lyrics, prosody, rhythm, maqam and melodic progression. However, his interventions were generally aimed at solving technical problems in his sources, which were already quite problematic. It is understood that he did not have the ideal of transforming the works into his own taste and understanding.