The role of the piano in the westernization process in Turkey

Although there are independent studies on the different dimensions of the modernization/Westernization process in Turkey in the field of music, it is possible to say that what is known about the developments around the piano and piano music in this process is still quite limited. This study focuses on the spread of Western music in Turkey, its place among the dominant symbols, and the educational, intellectual, commercial, political, and cultural dimensions of the process, through the piano and piano music, which is also a symbol instrument in terms of Westernization. The discursive connections established between the piano and modernization and its critique in line with the intellectual foundations of the educators, musicians, thinkers, and writers who played a role in the process will be the main areas of focus of the study. The piano trade and the process of popularization of the culture around it in Turkey is grounded in a system shaped within the hegemony-competition relationship. The idea that the bourgeoisie thinks of itself as a national class and in order to support this claim, it develops a national sentiment that gives a cultural sensibility to this claim is the summary of the basic intellectual basis of our study. As the field of application of this basic idea, the ever-expanding European trade and "markets" are shown. Thus, it is emphasized that evaluation of cultural and musical activities in isolation from these components would be incomplete. In the section on the spread and symbolic position of the piano, as a commodity and instrument in Europe, the piano is defined as the instrument of the musical revolution of the period. The invention of the piano took place at a time when private property and patent agreements were just beginning to appear, and its design is shown to be based on an intellectual property proposition. The instrument, which bears the economic and political effects of the period in which it was invented from the firs moment, is supported by the new musical discourse of the period. In the rest of the chapter, the strategy used in the public offering of the piano, marketing techniques, the intersection of production, concert, publishing activities and educational activities, the writing techniques used in everyday piano music, the culture and music around the piano that developed within the framework of producer-virtuoso collaborations are explained, and production-financing relations are emphasized. In the light of this framework, the search for new markets in the face of saturated markets led European piano manufacturers to the neighboring geographies. The Ottoman Empire, which is considered to have completed the process of participation in the world economy, constitutes a new market for producers. Following the liberalization of trade in the 19th century, pianos, electric bells, refrigerators, etc. entered Ottoman markets, which were flooded with foreign mass-produced goods, together with technological products and brands. In the 19th century, the instruments for the spread of pianos and piano music, which became widespread in anad aroun the palace, are analyzed. The social, cultural and economic dimensions of these instruments are shown, and the relationship between piano literature and the possibilities of the existing market of the period is emphasized. In 19th century Ottoman Society, it is possible to say that the results of the meeting of piano and Turkish Music™ were in favor of the widespread use of pianos and a music suitable for this widespread use. The last chapter, "National music, pianism and piano music in early Republican Turkey", which is a short introduction, relates the factors that prepared the social production in Republican Turkey and the formations of the Republic within the framework of nationalism to the practices followed in the field of culture and music in line with the institutionalization and modernization programs in music, with the piano at the center. In this context, the phenomena of representation and competition in the international arena with the West, rather than the problem of national music to be achieved through folk music to be performed widely. In the chapter, the prominent piano works of Cemal Reşit Rey, Ulvi Cemal Erkin, and Ahmed Adnan Saygun are evaluated in terms of their musical language and techniques. Attention is drawn to the representational and competitive qualities of these works, as they were present in European art centers until the 1940s, together with their influential contemporaries, within the important music market and companies of the period. The chapter also includes Mithat Fenmen and Ferhunde Erkin under separate subheadings due to their influence on the institutionalization of piano music. As a result of the data and findings, it is thought that the piano, as a social image and a commodity, with all the relations shown, had a significant and effective role in the spread of Western music in Turkey from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic.