Ahmet Adnan Saygun

Ahmet Adnan Saygun was a Turkish composer, <a href="/facts/Musicologist/jaapApYh">musicologist</a> and writer on music.
One of a group of composers known as the <a href="/facts/The_Turkish_Five/feP8pHIP">Turkish Five</a> who pioneered <a href="/facts/Music_of_Turkey/xATzxSQj">western classical music in Turkey</a>, his works show a mastery of Western musical practice, while also incorporating traditional <a href="/facts/Turkish_music/xATzxSQj">Turkish folk songs</a> and culture. When alluding to folk elements he tends to spotlight one note of the scale and weave a melody around it, based on a <a href="/facts/Turkish_makam/RpydUEBx">Turkish mode</a>. His extensive output includes five symphonies, five operas, two piano concertos, concertos for violin, viola and cello, and a wide range of chamber and choral works.
<a href="/facts/The_Times/5BwkodnX">The Times</a> called him "the grand old man of Turkish music, who was to his country what <a href="/facts/Jean_Sibelius/XucKe66L">Jean Sibelius</a> is to Finland, what <a href="/facts/Manuel_de_Falla/HkJz4nLN">Manuel de Falla</a> is to Spain, and what <a href="/facts/B%C3%A9la_Bart%C3%B3k/C1DQu47U">Béla Bartók</a> is to Hungary". Saygun was growing up in Turkey when he witnessed radical changes in his country's politics and culture as the <a href="/facts/Atat%C3%BCrk%27s_Reforms/kR518f4R">reforms</a> of <a href="/facts/Mustafa_Kemal_Atat%C3%BCrk/RYKRRRst">Mustafa Kemal Atatürk</a> had replaced the <a href="/facts/Ottoman_Empire/6QvfTRsg">Ottoman Empire</a>—which had ruled for nearly 600 years—with a new secular republic based on Western models and traditions. As Atatürk had created a new cultural identity for his people and newly founded nation, Saygun found his role in developing what Atatürk had begun.

Ahmet Adnan Saygun open-in-new

Ahmet Adnan Saygun