FROM THE COURT TO SUFI CENTRES

Spiritual, scholarly and secular music in the Ottoman region

by Giovanni de Zorzi

Constantinople's fall in 1453 brought about the fall of Byzantine culture and the development of music adapted from the Islamic context of the capital. This rebirth took place thanks to the experts of the region and in particular the dervishes, for whom music was conceived as a spiritual practice (especially for the sema ritual). Most of the composers and Ottoman musicians obtained their training in Sufi centres.

Giovanni de Zorzi is a professor of ethnomusicology