Birds of Passage is a unique and unexpected fusion of classical chamber music and traditional Turkish music complete with mournful Turkish lyrics. It’s an incredible work, like nothing you’ve heard before with Turkish artist Taner Akyol playing his signature instrument, the baglama, an oriental long necked lute (also known as the saz or tanbur), and providing vocals. Whilst the music shares the stately nature that we’ve come to expect from chamber music, the Turkish influence takes everything in a completely new direction. Akyol is renowned as a baglama soloist and his playing here is incredibly evocative, offering a distinctive middle eastern feel. Yet it’s his vocals, the lyrics drawn from Sufi masters, dervish leaders, many anonymous in origin drawn from hundreds of years of Turkish poetry, draped over a series of musical gestures, that are incredibly compelling. The music has a stop start quality, often incredibly sparse, the ensemble ranging from two to 16 players. It is music of astounding stillness and beauty, gentle but filled with immense power. It’s emphasised by the incredible photography of the Turkish countryside, in a booklet that also contains translations of his lyrics.
Bob Baker Fish
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