It’s not every day locals and tourists have the opportunity to catch music from a Turkish military band. Next week we’ll have three opportunities. Here’s the press release:
San Antonio Raindrop Turk Evi Host Inegol Ottoman Mehter Band
Bursa Inegol Ottoman Mehter band will perform in Dallas, San Antonio, Austin and Houston. Ottoman military bands are thought to be the oldest variety of military marching band in the world. Though they are often known by the mahtar; mehter in Ottoman Turkish in the West, that word, properly speaking, refers only to a single musician in the band. In Ottoman, the band was generally known as mehterân, though those bands used in the retinue of a vizier or prince were generally known as mehterhane, meaning roughly, “a gathering of mehters”, In modern Turkish, the band as a whole is often termed mehter tak?m? (“group of mehters”).
San Antonio September 2nd, 2007, Sunday
4.00 pm – 7.00pm The Alamo Plaza Gazebo
San Antonio September 3rd, Monday
1.00pm – 3.30pm The Alamo Plaza Gazebo
4.00 – 6.00 pm Arneson River Theatre
It is believed that the first “mehter” was sent to Osman Gazi by the Seljuk Sultan Alaeddin III as a present along with a letter that salutes the newly formed state. From then on every day after the afternoon prayer; “mehter” played for the Ottoman ruler. The notion of a military marching band, such as those in use even today, began to be borrowed from the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. The sound associated with the mehterân also exercised an influence on European classical music, with composers such as Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven all writing compositions inspired by or designed to imitate the music of the mehters.
The standard instruments employed by a mehterân are the k”s (a large bass drum resembling the timpani), the nakare (a small kettledrum), the davul (a frame drum), the zil (cymbals), the kaba zurna (a bass variety of the zurna), the boru (a kind of trumpet), and the cevgen (a kind of stick bearing small concealed bells). The different varieties of bands are classed according to the number of instruments and musicians employed: either six-layered (alt? katl?), seven-layered (yedi katl?), or nine-layered (dokuz katl?).
The costumes worn by the mehterân, despite wide variance in color and style, are always very colorful, often including high ribbed hats which are flared at the top and long robes wrapped in colorful silks.
Today, the music of the mehters is largely ceremonial and considered by many Turks as a stirring example of heroism and a reminder of Turkey’s imperial past.
Today, Mehter Troop (Mehter Bâlügü) is a band of the Turkish Armed Forces and it performs at the Military Museum (Askeri Müze) in Istanbul