As I write this article, I feel a bit like a kitten taking its first steps. First of all, for addressing you, my readers, for the first time. But I'm a little excited, not just because it's the first time I'm addressing you, but because it's the first time I've run my fingers over the keyboard as a music critic. There is also this: although my name and half of my family are Turkish, my mother tongue is not Turkish, I learned Turkish later. So, I am starting this article as an innovation, an experimental study in a few ways.

 

Fortunately, such an approach suits the new album Ulucan, Trio "Piano Trios" which I will cover in this article. Although this album is Ulucan Trio's first album, it is intertwined with innovation in almost every aspect. There are four piano trios in the album: three of them are works composed in the last twenty years by composers Özkan Manav, Özcan Sönmez and Berkant Gençkal, who are quite young working in Turkey. The fourth trio is by French composer Maurice Ravel, who I don't know if it's because of his brilliant orchestration ability or because of their refined melodies, but it always has a certain freshness in my mind. In other words, Ulucan Trio musicians display their skills by dealing with various musical materials by placing an existing but still harmonious piece next to three fairly new works, and presenting a new album that is variable but unified at the same time.

 

While I was spending time with the Piano Trios album, I was accidentally reading a book on aesthetic theories by the twentieth century German philosopher, sociologist, and musicologist Theodor Adorno. As it is known, Adorno considers dealing with objective forms within the framework of aesthetic autonomy as a source of resistance and innovation that can be applied against the capitalist "culture industry" that is gradually conquering all parts of the world. I can say that I have shaped this article with an almost telescopic approach, inspired by Adorno, but without going too far into Adorno's rather complex ideas and starting from the layout of the album.

 

In the first part of the article, I focus on the works themselves rather than the performance quality, because Ulucan Trio offers us the opportunity to compare three different approaches to aesthetic objects by composers by putting three contemporary works side by side. By adding Ravel's trio, which is a well-known work, to the album, he demonstrates his own interpretation skills. Therefore, in the second part of the article, I expand the perspective a little and look at how they deal with the Ravel trio rather than the piece.

 

In this article, the perspectives of composers and performers are of course also filtered through me, dealing with both the works and their interpretations, as well as their objective form, which I have not dealt with before by taking a new style of writing in a language I am learning as an adult (I have not yet determined whether I have taken a step against the culture industry). In all of these, my aim is to create a deeper and more tiring experience for the audience by sharing some of my ideas and impressions about this extremely enjoyable album, rather than judging like an expert by saying this is good and this is bad.

​

Perspective 1:

Three Different Views of Contemporary Turkish Chamber Music and Objective Form

​

In this album, it's like a small tour of contemporary Turkish chamber music. The enjoyment of the album can be deduced by comparing three different approaches to the materials by three different composers on the album. If we evaluate the body of Özkan Manav's one-part work called Laçin as a folk song named Laçin, which is fragmented and embellished and put in a new frame, then the “pastiche” approach of Özcan Sönmez's three-part work, including a folk song, is included in the neoclassical framework. We can see that it consists of various elements such as Russian melody understanding, impressionist French harmony approach, sonata form. Berkant Gençkal's “Earrings and Child” is inspired by the 19th century German writer Karl Georg Büchner's play “Wozzeck” and tries to draw an original picture in two very different parts with notes. In short, we can evaluate the three different approaches in these three works as “integrity,” “pastiche,” and “reflection”.

 

When I first listened to the album, the piece that I liked the most was definitely Sönmez's trio. Sönmez presents a very attractive music by putting various elements into plain classical forms in the form of pastiche. For example, he satisfactorily distributes the energetic, chirpy, but slightly allusive melody of the first theme of the first movement, which immediately reminds us of 20th-century Russian composers, among three instruments in sequence. In repetition, he subtly changes this theme, keeping the listener's attention. The more chromatic harmony language in the third part also breathes new life into it. Yavaş creates a completely different atmosphere by taking the theme of the second part from a folk song, but still exhibits an approach suitable for the piece with its thematic economy. In fact, the piece has a bit of a savings: the three parts of the piece take about eight minutes in total. Couldn't Sönmez have used the satisfying themes and potential classical forms a little more efficiently?

 

While Sönmez uses various elements in a simple and sequential manner, Manav creates a rich and intertwined unity from a single folk song. After listening to a few more traditional versions of the Azeri folk song called Laçin on Youtube, I understood Manav's approach to his object better. Manav actually creates a new wholeness by putting an “atmosphere” consisting of the sounds of celestial, down-sliding string instruments on the enigmatic piano chords at the beginning and end of the piece. In other words, Laçin takes the folk song as an object and puts it in a framework he has created. Within that framework, he opens the traditional theme like Picasso by stretching and distributing the Laçin theme, and with an almost pointistic technique, providing new perspectives and creating a new integrity.

​

If I had to talk about one of my less favorite works in the album, I would probably choose Gençkal's “Earrings and Child”. At first glance, it caught my attention that Büchner was inspired by the play “Wozzeck” full of deception and death, but Gençkal's claim that it has nothing to do with Alban Berg's opera of the same name, which is one of the important works of the twentieth century and which is included in the serial techniques movement, seems to make him angry. pushing into dangerous waters. In summary, Gençkal's version seems a bit banal.

​

Gençkal says in the CD booklet that he tries to create a contrast by dividing the work into two very different parts. On the one hand, he excels at this: in the first section he hovers over the sinuous, enigmatic long melodies performed unisono by the violin and the cello, the slightly chromatic, piano-played harmonies arranged in arpeggio, while in the second section, repetitive, percussive melodies are used with faltering rhythms to show the “child” in the title. Certainly, the long melodies in the first part and the rhythms in the second part have their joys, but I sensed a directionlessness, a purposelessness in both parts of the piece—as if the Wozzeck story, whose events were so clear, was filtered through a clear glass.

​

Perspective 2:

Ravel Interpretation of Ulucan Trio

and Reflections from Other Worlds

​

In the first part, the three contemporary Turkish works in the album

are used. We compared three different approaches. Now, let's take

some perspective expanding your attention to the interpretation of the

fourth piece on the album. I want to draw. Ulucan Trio's Maurice Ravel's

A MinorWhen we look at the trio interpretation, the musicians are

seriously confused. It is quite obvious that he is tired. Ulucan Trio

musicians with their diversity by analyzing this music of Ravel, which

exhibits almost a pastiche and by interpreting, to create integrity both

in terms of form. He succeeded in making different images very refined

by focusing on the details somehow reflected.

 

For example, to understand how Ulucan Trio creates unity in Ravel, we can turn to the third part of the work. This slow episode is a passacaglia: that is, the whole episode is built on a single recurring theme (in this sense, a link can be made with the second part of Sönmez's trio, which uses the folk song). After a piano introduction, cellist Ozan Evrim Tunca presents the theme with a velvety, soft voice. Next, this theme is shared between violin and piano. What I want to describe is that they control the musical tension and create a great architecture. For example, from around 3:30 on the recording, a crescendo with a sudden piano dynamic begins and continues until the climax of the section. Because they control the dynamic and tension in this way, they allow the listener to perceive the episode as an arc, and the climax of the episode is so dramatic. I passed out while listening.

 

But the finer details can also be ecstatic. In order to return from form and integrity to detail and image, let's turn our perspective to the first part. In the hands of Ulucan Trio, the first theme of this episode projects an image of graceful but slightly hesitant. This is due to dividing the melody into one-measure pieces and controlling the dynamics, making them into small arc-shaped chants and exhaling lightly before the final note of these short chants. For some reason, while listening to the Ulucan Trio interpretation of this theme, an image of a ballerina dancing alone in a baroque style decorated hall comes to my mind. However, with the exciting transition that comes after the first theme, this image is erased, the tempo slows down as we approach the second theme with extraordinary detail, a great, deep breath is taken before the second theme comes out at around 2:05. The musicians allow this breath to be given by paying attention to ritardando in such a way that when the second theme started with Özcan Ulucan's refined violin voice, I felt as if I had opened my eyes again to a different world, maybe a garden in the middle of a slightly misty forest. Culture industry aside, details like this are important during this pandemic.

 

When we say garden, of course, everything is not rosy. For example, in the second part, the spiccato technique of the violin seemed a bit exaggerated and pointed to me. Or, in the coda part that comes at the end of the fourth part, which already creates a heavier, orchestra-like atmosphere, it seems like there could have been a lighter, more suitable result with a slightly quicker tempo. But such things cannot be called "flaws", they are also subjects that can be discussed over a carefully prepared performance.

​

Perspective 3:

Towards New Horizons…

 

It can and should be discussed. Although briefly, in this article, I shared some of my thoughts on Ulucan Trio's debut album. I also dealt with how contemporary Turkish composers approached various objective forms and produced new works, how Ulucan Trio revived the forms created by Ravel, and I shaped my first article in Sanatdan Reflections by dealing with those various forms. Dealing with these forms was eye-opening for me. Now you're in the telescopic line. I leave the object I have shaped to you, my readers. I hope you will also deal with the form I created here, listen to Ulucan Trio's new album and share your ideas with me and your friends. Let's listen to new horizons with new perspectives together.