"What is the Mehter Marsi about?" Topic

I posted this on the Music board, with a very ambiguous title:
link

However, the more I listen to it, the more groovy it sounds.
I know that Mehter is by a broad definition, Janissary music.
I also assume that Marsi is a march. (Much like the Finnish Jakaari Marsi.)

I Googled it but all the sites are in Turkish.
So, what is it about?

The Kara Kuvvetleri is the Turkish army innit?

link

…and if 'ile' is a conjunctive, as it appears to be, then a rough translation is 'Army and janissary march (or anthem)'

Probably

Dang, and here I thought it must be a Mughlai recipe for peas mixed with something else…

Allen

What's the mattar Allen?

There is a certain music from Serbia,performed by annsambles called 'trubachi'(trumpet players).Drums and lot of trumpets;fast and wild music of a hell raising kind.One can sense the shared roots and influences of the musics.You can sample it here;
link

Hullo, John,
I have a CD with the Mehter Marsi on it. The CD is called Mehter, Old Janissary Band Concert. The notes include the words, in Turkish; unfortunately I don't speak Turkish.
In case somebody else does, here are the lines, without the various marks over and under the letters.

Gafil ne bilir nes' ve-i pur-sevk-i vegayi
Meydan-i celadetteki envar-sefayi
Merdan-i gaza ask ile tekbirler alinca
Titretti yine, re-yi zemin ars-i semayi.

Allah yoluna cenk edelim san alalim san
Kur'an'da zafer vaadediyor Hazret'i Yezdan.

I think I got that right, but I'll be happy to answer queries from aspiring translators.

Grelber

Gâfil ne bilir neş've-i pür-şevk-i vegâyı
Meydân-ı celâdetteki envar-ı sefâyı
Merdân-ı gazâ aşk ile tekbir tekbirler alınca
Titretti yine, rû-yı zemin arş-ı semâyı.

Allah yolunda cenk edelim şân alalım şan
Kur'an'da vaadediyor Hazret'i Yezdan.

Farzeyledi Hallak-ı Cihan, harb-ü cihadı,
Hep cenk ile yükselmede ecdadımın adı…
Dünyaları feth eyleyen ecdadımız EL HAK,
Adil idi, hıfzeyler idi, Hak-kı ibadı…

Allah yolunda cenk edelim şân alalım şan
Kur'an'da vaadediyor Hazret'i Yezdan.

The only Turkish word that I have even a 50% confidence level in is "kara". I THINK it means "Black".
And I only got that from context from WRG tomes.
Kara George was Black George.
Kara Ghulams are black slave troops.

I could be wrong.

I can also probably guess that they are off to do some serious avenging of some ancient wrong.

Kara means black,indeed.

That would explain why Kara Knightley was so dirty in "King Arthur". Ah, what a fine film that was. If you've been drinking. A lot.

Allen

A friend of mine who was on that set says he was in charge of scrubbing her down after they shut down filming for the day.
Says she swore like a sailor when shavin' her legs.

This video has some great 17th century Ottoman army music on it …

link

I used to have a great cassette of "Mehter Marslari" I bought in Turkey. Janissary marching music that went well with my 25mm Renaissance Turkish army. Then some "bleep" stole it from my car along with a lot of other cassettes.
I'd really like to find something in the vein again (without the expense of flying to Istanbul!).

Much like the Finnish Jakaari Marsi.

Which is actually written "Jääkäri-marssi".

And is also much younger than Janissary music.

Griefbringer

I saw the Janissary/Ottoman band perform at the Instanbul Military Museum many years ago. Excellent fun to watch, and a very good museum as well. Not sure if this helps?

link

link

link

Found this John;

"Turkish marches

The modern Turkiye/Turkey's march is İstiklal Marşı. It has power and anger with aggressive tune. But generally old Turkish marches at the times of Ottoman empire are aggressive in the words but more confident in the tunes but still frightful to enemy. Ex. Mehter Marşı."

Griefbringer, re: "Jääkäri-marssi".
I don't know how to do umlauts without cut and paste…
I was merely commenting on how both languages seemed to have the same word for "march"
I understand that Sibelius wrote yours around 1918 or so?

"I was merely commenting on how both languages seemed to have the same word for "march""

Possibly due to both languages being Turkic in origin? That is not intended to be an authoritative statement, rather a vague recollection about Finno-ugrian and central Asian migrations.

But would they get the word from a common root?
It SEEMS that our English word "march" for military music comes from the fact that soldiers "marched" to them.

So, how did Finnish and Turkish come to use a similar sounding word for the same thing?
I realize that too much has been made in the past of similar sounding words.

Of course, consulting the all-knowing Wikipedia:
link

Perhaps, English derives "march" from the Turkish "marsi", since the European music is derived from the Turkish…

Would someone who knows something please chime in and clear this up?

Also, could someone please answer the question in the title?

John,

Many thanks for bringing this one up. Loads of stuff on the 'net. Seems that the top band is 'Mehter Takimi' who have performed in USA, Russia and France (probably elsewhere too). The more I listen to the music the more I'm getting into it. Next step is track down a CD!

Cameronian

Hi,

I wanted to get into the discussion. For the origins of word Mehter you can look at the definition in Wikipedia here:

link

After reading this brief info lets come to the march you're discussing here. The name of the march is "Fetih Marsi" literally "March of Conquest". Though I was born and raised in Turkey I must admit that the lyrics does not tell so much to me or any native modern Turkish. Because it is set in Old Turkish (=Ottoman). Ottoman was a higher language spoken by state elite at the time. You can compare it to Latin spoken by statesmen versus the vernacular spoken by the people at the old Roman Empire.

Ottoman was a combination of Turkish, Arabic and Persian so it has so little common with modern Turkish. To make it clear for English speakers. For us modern Turks it is a comparable experience trying to read and understand unabriged version of "Canterbury Tales" by a modern English speaker only with more foreign words :)

I'll try to translate for you guys. Since I can hardly understand much words I've used a Dictionary of Ottoman – Turkish. Also there are words referencing to Muslim belief and I preferred to explain them in plain English. An example is "tekbir" = "The God is great":

Gâfil ne bilir neş've-i pür-şevk-i vegâyı
(How would unwary know the joy of fighting a war in vigor)
Meydân-ı celâdetteki envar-ı sefâyı
(Light of purity emanating from the battlefield of heroism)
Merdân-ı gazâ aşk ile tekbirler alınca
(When the men of war started to scream "the god is great" in over excitement)
Titretti yine, rû-yı zemin arş-ı semâyı.
(The surface of the earth shooked again the vault of heaven )

Allah yolunda cenk edelim şân alalım şan
(Let's fight in name of the god and have all the glory )
Kur'an'da vaadediyor Hazret'i Yezdan.
(which the god is promising in Quran)

Farzeyledi Hallak-ı Cihan, harb-ü cihadı,
(Creator of the universe, made the holy war (Jihad) our religious duty)
Hep cenk ile yükselmede ecdadımın adı…
(Names of my ancestors have always been ascended through war)

Dünyaları feth eyleyen ecdadımız EL HAK,
(Our ancestor who conqured the world, for the name of god)
Adil idi, hıfzeyler idi, Hak-kı ibadı…
(were just and protective of rights of people)

Allah yolunda cenk edelim şân alalım şan
(Let's fight in name of the god and have all the glory )
Kur'an'da vaadediyor Hazret'i Yezdan.
(Which the god is promising in Quran)

All errors and ommisions belong to me:)

I hope I could be of help.

Cheers,
Kerem ERSOY

About the "kara": "Kara" means black when used as adjective like "kara ada" (black island).

But it is also a noun and it means "earth, land, ground". So the name "Türk Kara Kuvvetleri" means Turkish Land Forces.

Turkish is from a different family of languages than English so Mars means Mars but Marsi means "Mars of" in this care Mars of Mehteran. Mehter is of from the Persian origin and means "Musician" while Mehteran is the Arabic way of making Musician plural literally meaning Musicians. "Mehteran Takimi" literally means "Team of Musicians" or "Band of Musicians".

As you see Mehteran Takimi is a mix of Persian (mehter) and then made plural by Arabic (mehteran) grammar and added with Turkish word (Takim).

While you should be careful that in Turkish we have both i with and without dot and takim actually is written without a dot. While takim (i with dot) is another different word. :)

I hope this mind twisting explanaiton helps you while reading :)

Cheers,
Kerem ERSOY

Gâfil ne bilir neþ've-i pür-þevk-i vegâyý
Meydân-ý celâdetteki envar-ý sefâyý
Merdân-ý gazâ aþk ile tekbir tekbirler alýnca
Titretti yine, rû-yý zemin arþ-ý semâyý….

Allah yolunda cenk edelim þân alalým þan
Kur'an'da vaadediyor Hazret'i Yezdan…

Easy for you to say.

:) I guess

CD available on e-bay, all the way from Turkey at a good price!

A mp3 file is here:
A different interpretation with subtitles is here: YouTube link

The composition belongs to the Ismail Hakki Bey: link

The march itself is not very old. It must date back to 1980's or something like that.

The Ottoman Musical Band itself was established by Donizetti Pasha (The older brother of the well-known composer Gaetano Donizetti) He was invited to Istanbul by the sultan (II. Mahmud) and made a General (pasha) by him.

Guiseppe Donizetti (Pasha) info:
link

The tradition of Western music started then in the Ottomans. Ismail Hakki Pasha was belong to the same tradition and he later established the first Ottoman Conservatory.

In fact the whole Ottoman history is not a separate entity from Europe since the very beginning : )

Oops sorry here's the mp3 link: link

oops there was a mistake with the date it should read 1890 not 1980.

Thanks for all that, KeremE. Interesting. :-)

David
nba-sywtemplates.blogspot.com