First, the CRR Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Gürer Aykal, pictured top) will play Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s 5-movement Capriccio Espagnol. Then French-Canadian saxophonist Daniel Gauthier, who founded the Quatuor Alliage in Stuttgart and since 2003 has been Professor of Saxophone at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne, will be accompanied by the orchestra in Alexander Glazunov’s 1934 Saxophone Concerto in E flat major. The last work to be played will be Turkish composer Ulvi Cemal Erkin’s Symphony No 1.
This concert, entitled Cumhuriyet’in Senfonik Yolculuğunun 100. Yılı (‘The 100th Anniversary of the Republic’s Symphonic Journey’), celebrates the centenary of an event that took place on 6th April 1924, when the Riyaseticumhur Musiki Heyeti (‘Presidential Musical Ensemble’), later renamed the Riyaset-i Cumhur Orkestrası, was officially brought into being by Mustafa Kemal after a highly successful concert of Western classical music had been organised in Ankara on March 11 that year. One of the works played at the concert was Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol – thus the inclusion of this work in the concert on April 13, 2024.
Ulvi Cemal Erkin (1906–72) was one of the first Turkish composers to write music in the Western style. In 1925 he was sent to France by the Turkish Ministry of Education to receive training in piano, harmony and counterpoint at the Paris Conservatoire. Following this, he was taught composition – by Jean Galon and the legendary pedagogue Nadia Boulanger – at the École Normale de Musique. Following his return to Turkey in 1930, he taught piano at the Ankara State Conservatoire. Erkin’s Symphony No 1 was written between 1944 and 1946.
Issue 66, December 2023
Turkey’s Centenary Issue
