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Review by beardawgs February 21, 2005 (6 of 6 found this review helpful)
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This is a very interesting ‘east meets west’ concept disc, juxtaposition of authentic Turkish music and late 18th Century Central European popular belief of what that music might sound like incorporated in the Western musical tradition. Most famous example is Mozart’s “The Abduction from the Seraglio”, which overture opens the programme, Concerto Cöln beefed up with the percussion group from the Sarband, Turkish authentic musical group. I personally never cared much about the Oriental elements in Mozart’s music (known as “Janissaries music”), and this performance underlines popular misconception of the era that Oriental music can represent only war-like music (Mozart’s opera being written to mark the lifting of the Siege of Vienna by the Turks a century earlier). Gluck’s overture to “The Unexpected Meeting” has the same feel, and the two are separated with a traditional “Concerto Turco”, a true gem of what we’d call today ‘world music’.
The rest of the programme is concentrated on ballet music from “Soliman II” by Mozart’s contemporary Joseph Martin Kraus. Series of short ballet numbers (most famous in its own right is “Elmire’s dance”) are again separated with some authentic traditional Turkish music with same or similar titles, full of unusual sonorities and strange harmonic structure. From a very informative essay by Sarband’s artistic director, Vladimir Ivanoff, we learn that the aim is to show to modern listener how far fetched were the ideas of the 18th Century Vienna, and how the authentic Turkish music is much more than just a few added drums and cymbals. The last item on the disc is “Sinfonia Turchesca” by Mozart’s famous pupil Süssmayr, similarly full of exotic Oriental flavours.
This is a rather shy attempt from DG to test the waters of the World music under their main stream, but this programme is apparently very popular among the concert going audiences. I had much more interest in authentic traditional Turkish music, and there are some treasures here, half buried under Mozart and Kraus. The performances are good as they can be, Western music sounding more percussive and with more rattles than usual, while the traditional items have the oomph and rhythmic vitality of a true specialist band. The recording (48/24) is detailed and spacious, underlining the percussive quality, while some strange sounding traditional instruments float around in MC to a great effect. Highly recommended for the ‘world music’ bits, and if you like your Mozart with a strong exotic oriental flavour, even better.
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