The Arabic word fasıl literally means "division" or "section". It denoted a section of a collection of lyrics or notations arranged according to makams, or performance of secular compositions in one makam. Songs composed in the same makam but in different compositional genres consitute a fasıl program in concerts. The classical Ottoman fasil in its most matured structure included the following compositions: taksim (instrumental improvisation), peşrev (instrumental, prelude), kâr (vocal composition having a rather free structure), murabba beste (vocal composition whose song-text is based on four lines), ağır semai (vocal form in 10/8), şarkıs (light vocal pieces in various rhythmic patterns), yürük semai (vocal form in 6/8, performed in faster tempo), saz semaisi (an instrumental piece in 10/8. a postlude).
Excluding the şarkı, this sequence was probably established in the second half of the eighteenth century. The şarkıs began to be included in the fasıl concerts at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
In the pro-Ottoman Islamic music there was a musical genre called naubat almurattaba or nawba. The great theorist of Islamic music Abd al-Qadir Maraghi (1360-1435) describes the pattern of this concert music. The nawba was divided into five sections called qawl, ghazal, tarane, firudasht and mustazad. This musical genre was introduced into Ottoman music by Maraghi's son, Abdulaziz, and grandson, Mahmud, However, the nawba ceased to exist by the mid sixteenth century. The genre was rearranged by the Ottoman musicians according to local traditions. We find the earliest description of the Ottoman fasil in Cantemir's treatise which was written around 1700. Cantemir writes as follows:
"When there is a concert gathering the vocalist sits in the middle. The ney player is below the vocalist; the tanbur player is below the ney player. Below the tanbur player the places of the other instrumentalists are not specified. First the instrumentalists begin with a taksim. After the taksim they play one or two peşrevs, then they are silent. Then the vocalist begins with a taksim. After the taksim he sings a beste, a nakış a kâr and a semai; then he is silent. The instrumentalists begin a semai. After finishing the sema/they are silent, but they hold the drone notes and after the vocalist sings another taksim they bring the fasil to an end."
(translated by Walter Feldman)
The Ottoman term kâr, a vocal composition based on a poem written in Persian, was the new name of the 'amal, which also used a Persian song text. Nakiş later ceased to exist as an independent composition and began to merge with other genres, beste, ağır semai and yürük semai, Beste, semai and şarkı are completely Ottoman genres. The present CD includes all the elements of the Ottoman fasil concert. Mustafa Doğan Dikmen, the singer of the fasil in makam uşak, is a talented musician of the new generation. He was born in 1958 in Ankara. He studied music at the Istanbul Conservatory and is now singing for Radio Istanbul. Dikmen is accompanied by the following instrumentalists: Vahit Anadolu (daire), Salih Bilgin (ney), Taner Sayacıoğlu (kanun), Derya Türkan (kemençe), Murat Aydemir (tanbur).
Bülent Aksoy
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