Ali Rifat Çağatay and The Lyrics Of His Compositions

As the Istanbul Technical University State Conservatory Ottoman Music Research Team, our study over some scripts from Ali Rıfat Cagatay’s (1869-1935) special archives resulted an enormous inventory. In this study, a lot of musical compositions of his contemporary compositors are determined. There are about sixty of his compositions among them. Texting, rhythm and explanations of the compositions fell to my share. The masters of our classical music mostly adapted their compositions from the poems which form rhythm and music with their euphony, rhyme and repeated voices. In this regard, the lyrics and songs are also very important literary subjects to speak of. The below subjects are mentioned in this article: The poets of the poems which Ali Rifat Cagatay used as lyrics for his compositions, the rhythms of the lyrics, the tunes (maqams) and rytmical patterns (usul) used with the rhythm in harmony.The maqams and rytmical patterns were compared to Cinucen Tanrıkorur’s studies which were done before and the differences between them are determined. The poets of lyrics were studied and their birthdate and date of deaths were written. They were classified acording to period of literary movements and the ones which doesn’t to blong to any literary movements were indicated spesifically. The period of Ali Rifat’s compasition is divided into two parts; classical and modern. In the first period, he preferred poems from Fuzuli, Neyli, Mihri Şeyhulislam Yahya and etc. In the second period he studied social and actual subjects and he preferred poems from Mehmet Akif, Süleyman Nazif, Orhan Seyfi, Nazım Hikmet etc. As it’s known the meaning of the lyrics is also very important for performer and listener. The below songs which were composed by Ali Rifat Çagatay are explained: a) Kıl sabâ gönlüm perîşân olduğum cânana arz (Fuzulî) b) Anlayan yok nâr-ı aşkın şiddet-i buhrânını (Samih Rifat) c) Daussıla (Süleyman Nazif) d) Ordunun duası (Mehmet Akif) e) Zâr oludu gönül nazra-i suziş eserinden (Ali Rıfat Çağatay) f) Gördüm yine bir âfet-i nâdîde edâyı (Enderunlu Vasıf) g) Bana bak hey avanak (Nazım Hikmet).Unlike his contemporary compositors, Çagatay had some modern innovations like composing long poems such as “Bülbül and Daüssıla”; marchs, an operatte named “Köse İmam”, oud’s trio. Çagatay gave special names to his some songs and compositions like “Bülbül, Daussıla, Kagıthane Havası, Ana Türküsü, Kız Türküsü, Yadigar . This was his another innovation which he was inspired from European composers.