Music History Education in Turkish Universities and Conservatories

The layout of music history courses in Turkey follows a broadly chronological plan that matches standard periodisation found in widely used music history literature. However, the number of semesters, the content covered, and whether a course is compulsory or elective all depend on the institution's orientation — Western music or traditional Turkish music — and on the specific department, such as musicology, composition, or performance. Because of this variety, a single survey covering all institutions is not feasible. This overview draws on official syllabi available online and statements from various lecturers.

The Yıldız Technical University model

At the Yıldız Technical University Faculty of Music and Performing Arts, the music history course in the aural arts design programme is compulsory and runs for seven semesters. The first semester covers the period from early music up to the Renaissance. The second, third, and fourth semesters are devoted to the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods respectively. The fifth and sixth semesters address twentieth-century music: the fifth focuses on the years 1900 to 1950, and the sixth concentrates on music after 1950. The first half of the century is studied through the lens of individual composers, while the music after 1950 is examined mainly through movements. The seventh and final semester is titled “national,” starting with Al-Farabi (870–950) and tracking Turkish music culture — both practice and theory — across the centuries up to the present day.

The Dokuz Eylül University approach

The bachelor’s programme at the Dokuz Eylül University State Conservatory presents a different picture. Here, music history courses are elective, not essential to the programme, unlike the musicology programme under the same institution’s Department of Musical Sciences. In the musicology path, two semesters of music history are compulsory. Moreover, the duration of the elective course depends on the department: instrumental studies students take music history for only two semesters, while composition students can take it for six. No course prerequisites exist, so a student can enroll in any semester without having completed previous ones. For instrumental studies, the course focuses entirely on twentieth-century art and music movements. For composition students, the first four semesters cover the usual periods — ancient civilizations, medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, and Romantic — and the topics of the twentieth century are taken up in the fifth and sixth semesters. This institution is entirely Western-oriented, so traditional Turkish music does not appear in the curriculum. In the lectures, the first part of the twentieth century is taught by movement: impressionism, expressionism, neoclassicism, electronic music, and jazz. The post-1945 period is taught by country: USA, Italy, Germany, France, other countries, and Turkey (specifically Western-oriented music).

Istanbul Technical University Turkish Music State Conservatory

At the Istanbul Technical University Turkish Music State Conservatory, one of the most significant institutions in Turkey offering both traditional Turkish and Western music education under one roof, the music history course in the musicology programme is compulsory and lasts eight semesters. Owing to the institution’s dual orientation, the structure differs markedly from purely Western-focused conservatories.

In the first semester, an overview of ancient civilizations — Chinese, Indian, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Anatolian, and Greek — draws on archeomusicology, organology, iconography, and paleography alongside general history. The second semester surveys Western music during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, while the third semester covers music in Turkish civilizations from around the same period. Similarly, the fourth and fifth semesters examine Western music from the Baroque to the Romantic period, and the sixth semester surveys music in the Ottoman Empire from the same centuries. The seventh semester is devoted to twentieth-century Western music, split into two halves. The first half covers Western music in Europe and the USA, including impressionism, expressionism, modernism, dodecaphony, neoclassicism, the avant-garde, electronic music, minimalism, and post-minimalism. The second half explores the reflections of twentieth-century Western music in modern Turkey, covering movements and composers from the early Republic era (1920s–1950s) through the late twentieth century. Composers discussed include Cemal Reşit Rey, Ulvi Cemal Erkin, Hasan Ferit Alnar, Ahmed Adnan Saygun, Necil Kazım Akses, Bülent Arel, İlhan Usmanbaş, Ferit Tüzün, İlhan Mimaroğlu, Yalçın Tura, Ali Darmar, Betin Güneş, Kamran İnce, and Aydın Esen. The eighth and final semester concentrates on traditional Turkish music during the Republican period.

Place of jazz and popular music

Courses at Western-oriented institutions mostly stay within the boundaries of Western art music. Other genres, such as jazz and popular music, rarely find a place in required curricula and are usually treated as electives. For example, the Musicology Department of the Istanbul Technical University Turkish Music State Conservatory offers “History of jazz music” and “Introduction to popular music” as electives. Similarly, the Baskent University State Conservatory makes “Popular music culture,” “Jazz,” and “Jazz harmony” available to all departments as elective courses.

A notable counter-example appears in the Department of Musical Sciences at the Dokuz Eylül University Fine Arts Faculty. There, “History of popular music” and “History of Turkish popular music” are compulsory courses, each lasting two semesters. The same institution also offers the elective “Popular music analysis” for two semesters, and “Movements and genres in jazz” for one semester.

Twentieth- and twenty-first-century focus in composition and conducting

Music from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries holds a particularly important place in composition and conducting programmes. Composition courses often include stylistic exercises that help students master the technical aspects of this repertoire. Some institutions add extra compulsory courses to support this aim. The Baskent University State Conservatory, for instance, offers “Twentieth-century composition techniques” as a compulsory course.

Variable-structure courses also appear. At the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University State Conservatory, a weekly “Composers’ forum” is compulsory for composition and conducting students. It involves discussion and analysis of recent works, and composers are frequently invited to lecture on their own music. The forum also welcomes performers who specialise in new music. Most institutions place value on organising workshops, seminars, and discussions focused on current music, even if these events cannot be held regularly.

Literature and textbooks

Western music history books written in Turkish follow a standardised format. They begin with primeval times, proceed through the usual chronological sequence, and near the end include chapters devoted to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with an additional chapter on Western music in Turkey covering the period after the Republican revolution.

Five Turkish-language books still in print are prominent among recommended literature for the entire history of music:

• Evin İlyasoğlu: Zaman İçinde Müzik (“Music Throughout Time”), various editions from 1994 through 2013.
• Ahmet Say: Müzik Tarihi (“Music History”), from 1994 through 2006.
• Cavidan Selanik: Müzik Sanatının Tarihsel Serüveni (“Historical Journey of the Art of Music”), from 1996 through 2010.
• İlke Boran and Kıvılcım Yıldız Şenürkmez: Kültürel Tarih Işığında Çoksesli Batı Müziği (“Western Music in the Light of Cultural History”), from 2007 through 2018.
• İlhan Mimaroğlu: Müzik Tarihi (“Music History”), Varlık Yayınları, 1995.

İlyasoğlu’s Zaman İçinde Müzik is especially valued for its visual materials and ten audio CDs. The most common and dominant source underlying current Turkish textbooks is Donald Jay Grout’s A History of Western Music (1973) and its later editions (including Grout and Palisca, and later Burkholder, Grout, and Palisca). Principal foreign-language references include:

• Paul Griffiths: A Concise History of Western Music, Cambridge University Press, 2006.
• J. Peter Burkholder, Donald Jay Grout, and Claude V. Palisca: A History of Western Music, 9th edition, W. W. Norton & Company, 2014.
• Barbara Russano Hanning: Concise History of Western Music, 4th edition, W. W. Norton & Company, 2010.
• Kristine Forney, Andrew Dell’Antonio, and Joseph Machlis: The Enjoyment of Music: An Introduction to Perceptive Listening, 13th edition, W. W. Norton & Company, 2018.
• Vivian Kerman, Joseph Kerman, and Gary Tomlinson: Listen, 8th edition, W. W. Norton & Company, 2016.

Resources in Turkish devoted solely to twentieth- and twenty-first-century music are almost nonexistent, apart from a few publications that examine subjects from a technical angle. Recommended foreign resources in this area include:

• Eric Salzman: Twentieth-Century Music: An Introduction, 4th edition, Pearson, 2001.
• Paul Griffiths: Modern Music and After, 3rd edition, Oxford University Press, 2011.
• David Cope: New Directions in Music, 7th edition, Waveland Press, 2000.
• Christoph Cox and Daniel Warner (eds.): Audio Culture; Revised Edition: Readings in Modern Music, 2nd edition, Bloomsbury Academic, 2017.
• Vincent Persichetti: Twentieth-Century Harmony: Creative Aspects and Practice, 4th edition, W. W. Norton & Company, 1961.
• Stefan Kostka: Materials and Techniques of 20th Century Music, 3rd edition, Prentice Hall, 2005.
• Robert P. Morgan: Twentieth-Century Music: A History of Musical Style in Modern Europe and America, Norton, 1991.

Context: Westernisation and its impact on syllabi

The modernisation movement that began with the Ottoman Tanzimat reforms in the nineteenth century and accelerated after the Turkish revolution in the first half of the twentieth century has provoked varied reactions throughout Turkey’s history. Some scholars label this movement “Westernisation,” with good reason. Common examples include abandoning traditional Turkish instruments in favour of Western ones, supporting Western classical music while discouraging traditional Turkish music, and sometimes trying to “modernise” traditional Turkish music by adding contrapuntal textures or harmonies. Those who support and those who object to this movement have both profoundly shaped the syllabi of educational institutions and attitudes toward contemporary music.

While the overall structure of music history courses follows a similar chronological order across institutions, the specific choices — which periods are covered, how many semesters are devoted to them, and whether twentieth- and twenty-first-century music receives dedicated attention — vary based on each institution’s orientation, department, and the influence of the broader cultural debate on modernisation.

A more periodised alignment with the commonly referenced music history literature is found, yet there are significant institutional differences regarding the inclusion of traditional Turkish music in courses. Strikingly, some institutions that exclude traditional Turkish music from their curricula also omit other genres beyond classical music, such as jazz and popular music, from their syllabi. Conversely, institutions that devote more space to traditional Turkish music tend to feature a broader diversity of musical styles. For certain perspectives, contemporary, modern, and Western music are all considered equally “other”.

Notes on Contributors

Ozan Baysal (PhD), associate professor of musicology, Istanbul Technical University, Turkish Music State Conservatory. Contact: ozanbaysal@yahoo.com

José L. Besada (PhD), postdoc researcher at the University of Strasbourg Institute of Advanced Study, France. Associate researcher at the Analysis of Musical Practices Team at IRCAM in Paris, France. Contact: besadajl@gmail.com

David Blake (PhD), independent scholar, lives in Burlington, Vermont, USA. Contact: david.kenneth.blake@gmail.com

Megan Burslem (PhD), Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Also a presenter on Australia’s national classical music radio station, ABC Classic. Contact: megan.burslem@monash.edu

María Paula Cannova (PhD), professor of music history in the Music Department of the Fine Arts School, National University of La Plata (FBA/UNLP), Argentina. Research member of the Research Institute of Argentine and Latin-American Art Production and Teaching (IPEAL/FBA, UNLP). Contact: pcannova@fba.unlp.edu.ar

Belén Pérez Castillo (PhD), full-time lecturer in the Musicology Department at Complutense University in Madrid, Spain. Contact: bperezca@ghis.ucm.es

Carmen Chelaru (Univ. Prof. Dr. habil.), lecturer at the University of Arts Iași, Romania, and former musical coordinator of the State Philharmonic in Iași. Contact: carmen.chelaru@gmail.com

Pablo Cuevas, PhD student, Musicological Institute, University of Cologne, Germany. Contact: cuevas.arg@gmail.com

Anna Dalos (PhD), senior researcher, head of the ‘Lendület’ Archives and Research Group for 20th-21st Century Hungarian Music, Institute for Musicology, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Contact: dalos.anna@btk.mta.hu

Hong, Ding (PhD), associate professor in music, Shanghai University School of Music, Shanghai, China. Contact: hongding@foxmail.com

Michael Fjeldsøe (PhD), professor of musicology at the Department for Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Contact: fjeldsoe@hum.ku.dk

Juri Giannini (PhD), senior scientist, Department of Musicology and Performance Studies, University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Austria. Contact: giannini@mdw.ac.at; https://www.mdw.ac.at/imi/juri_giannini

Thomas Glaser (M. A., PhD), senior scientist, FWF-Project Performing, Experiencing and Theorizing Augmented Listening (PETAL), University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, Austria. Contact: thomas.glaser@kug.ac.at

Þorbjörg Daphne Hall (PhD), associate professor, programme director of musicology, Department of Music, Iceland University of the Arts. Contact: thorbjorghall@lhi.is

Julia Heimerdinger (PhD), senior scientist, Department of Musicology and Performance Studies, University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Austria. Contact: heimerdinger@mdw.ac.at

Frank Hentschel (PhD), full professor for musicology, Musicological Institute, University of Cologne, Germany. Contact: fhentsch@uni-koeln.de

Andreas Holzer (PhD), contractual lecturer at the Department of Musicology and Performance Studies, University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Austria. Contact: holzer@mdw.ac.at

Cat Hope (PhD), professor of music and head of Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Adjunct professor at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Edith Cowan University. Contact: cat.hope@monash.edu

Priscille Lachat-Sarrete (PhD), lecturer in music analysis, University Paris-Sorbonne, France. Violin teacher, Chartres Conservatoire, and research fellow, Iremus, France. Contact: priscille01@yahoo.fr

Heekyung Lee (PhD), lecturer in arts and liberal studies, Korea National University of Arts and in College of Music, Seoul National University, Republic of Korea. Contact: hkleemuwi@gmail.com

Iwona Lindstedt (PhD habil.), assistant professor at the University of Warsaw, Institute of Musicology, Poland. Contact: i.lindstedt@uw.edu.pl

Wolfgang Marx (PhD), associate professor in musicology at the School of Music, University College Dublin, Ireland. Contact: wolfgang.marx@ucd.ie

Philippe Poisson (PhD), professeur agrégé, director of student education, University of Lille – CFMI, France. Contact: philippe.poisson@univ-lille.fr

Florinela Popa (PhD), lecturer at the National Music University Bucharest and former researcher at the National “George Enescu” Museum Bucharest, Romania. Contact: florinelapopa@gmail.com

Ingrid Pustijanac (PhD), associate professor at the University of Pavia, Department of Musicology and Cultural Heritage, Italy. Contact: ingrid.pustijanac@unipv.it

Matej Santi (PhD), lecturer, postdoc researcher in the project Telling Sounds, Department of Musicology and Performance Studies, University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Austria. Contact: santi@mdw.ac.at

Mike Searby (PhD), former principal lecturer in music and course leader of MA Music Courses in the Music Department, Kingston University, UK. Contact: searbymike@gmail.com

Assaf Shelleg (PhD), senior lecturer in the musicology department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Contact: shelleg.assaf@mail.huji.ac.il

Elena Maria Șorban (Univ. Prof. Dr. habil.), lecturer at the Music Academy in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and collaborating teacher at the “Babeș-Bolyai” University in Cluj. Contact: emsorban@yahoo.fr

Danae Stefanou (PhD), associate professor in historical musicology, School of Music Studies, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. Contact: dstefano@mus.auth.gr

Mareli Stolp (PhD), postdoctoral fellow, Wits School of Arts (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg). Former postdoctoral fellow University of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa; research interests include South African music history and politics, artistic research, performance studies. Contact: marelistolp@hotmail.com

Oğuz Usman (PhD), associate professor of music, Istanbul Bilgi University, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Turkey. Contact: oguzusman@gmail.com

Elizaveta Willert, BA, master student and study assistant at the Department of Musicology and Media Studies, Humboldt University Berlin, Germany. Contact: elizaveta.gutkevich@hu-berlin.de