2016 Şaban Oğlu Selim ile Kitabından Üç Parça, 15`, for large orchestra

This music is based on Nazım Hikmet’s poem Şaban oğlu Selim ile Kitabı[Selim son of Şaban and his book] from the poem cycle Dört Hapishaneden Şiirler[Poems from Four Prisons], publised post- humously in 1966. This poem of nine sections narrates a period from the life of the factory worker Selim, who rebels against unjustice in an environment of violence and fear, falls in love with a woman and eventually gets arrested and hanged. The narration has an indirect way of telling the story, drawing attention on thoughfully selected details and leaving the rest to imagination: The course of events thet lead to his execution are left completely uncertain, and nothing is mentioned about his relationship with the young woman who has an important part in the poem. 

I have found the second, third and fourth sections of the poem particularly significant in that they describe the stimulation of powerful emotions in Selim, whereas he reacts in the later sections. The three sections of my piece correspond to these sections of the poem respectively and share their titles. 

The music exlcudes the poems first section but it is nevertheless conditioned by it in retrospect, so it should better be mentioned here: In the first section of the poem a drunk prison registrar adresses the reader directly from a tavern in the old city of İstanbul at late night. The things he witnesses and to which he participates doing his work has made him sick and weary, and a little numb, but not enough and he speaks in an unrestful, at times rebelling manner, changing subjects rapidly and interrupting his speech with many rakı shots: This section would make a violent, ambivalent introduction, a barely coherent music full with conflict. A little later in his speech he is reminded of a man who will be hanged the following day at the prison; the man will get wet under the rain. He gets another rakı and suddenly starts an impressive cry to the divan poets Fuzuli, Nedim and Galip Dede, reciting their lines praising İstanbul, and the first section of the poem ends. At the second section of the poem(Şaban oğlu Selim[Selim son of Şaban]) the narrator takes over and goes back to a day some short time before at the glass factory (Beykoz’un cam fabrikası/moderen fabrikadır[The glass factory of Beykoz/ is a pretty modern factory]. The music starts here. The repetitive stillness in the first pages of the score, metallic sounds, and a characteristic gesture recalling Giacionto Scelsi’s Okanagon are associated with the peaceful ecstasy and torment of a hard-working man. As the narration carries on to introduce Selim and his passions(Ustabaşı değildi Selim/büyük ustaların hünerini almıştı ama[Selim was no workmaster there/but he had the skill of great masters] the music grows and achieves a climax. From then on the metallic resonance of cymbals and the tam-tam dominate and transform to the flutes, first merging into wind sounds(ve gayet nefis yapardı gül reçelini/pansiyoncu madam/ve kızı Raşel…[and she prepared marvellous rose jelly/the housekeeper lady/and her daughter Raşel…]. In the second section of the music(Kuzguncuk) the flute gains huge importance, and the four flutes of the orchestra are written in seperate staves throughout. It corresponds to the third section of the poem, which describes the guest house room Selim rents in the beautiful district of Kuzguncuk. The poem mentions nothing about the housekeepers daughter Raşel but her name and goes on to describe daily matters from the house and around, but from that point on one gets the feeling that all the rest of this section is perceiving the world from the eyes of a man in love. Eventually the flutes in the music disappear and a crescendo on a pedal of the strings takes place to anticipate the sudden entrance of the brass section(Kitap rüzgar olmalı, perdeyi kaldırmalıdır/kitap, kanber tayı olmalı Şah İsmail’in/seni sırtına alıp/devlerin üstüne saldırmalıdır.[The book must be wind and lift the curtain/ the book, must be the kanber steed of Shah Ismail/ get you on its back/charge on to the giants]) This corresponds to the fourth section of the poem, Kitap[The Book], which is a quotation from a strange book Selim comes across: Sustained brass chords move slowly over double reed multiphonics and unnerving wood blocks and bongos as Selim receives huge courage from his reading of the book. The narrator returns, again in an indifferent tone, to end this section of the poem: Böyle bir kitap buldu Selim/Kara kara yazılar/beyaz kaat üstünde/büyücek bir el kadar/kırk yapraklı bir kitap.[Such a book found Selim/some black inscriptions/on white paper/roughly the size of a hand/a book of fourty pages.] The music recalls the texture of the passages where Selim was first introduced and sets on a state of suspension. By the end of this fourth section of the poem, Selim is completed with love and a cause to fight.