KLASİK TÜRK MÜZİĞİNİN USTASI: ITRÎ

By the 300th anniversary of musician Buhurizade Mustafa Itri's death, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has declared 2012 the "International Itri Year". His real name was Mustafa, and he was sometimes referred to as Buhurizade Mustafa Efendi. Itri wa s a major exponent of Turkish classical music. He was born and grown up in İstanbul in the 17th century. He is believed to have been a Mevlevi, and composed religious music for this order. He lived through the times of five Ottoman Sultans. He became well known during the time of Mehmet IV. His compositions always won approval of the Sultans and he was usually the guest of the palace to perform his compositions. As with most composers of his day, Itri was also a poet. He used poetic forms based on the classical Ottoman school of poetry (Divan), as well as those based on syllabic meters identified with folk music and poetry. Unfortunately most of his poetry has not survived to this day. It is believed that his name Itri comes from the word itir, which means pelargonium.He was a very prolific composer with more than a thousand works. However, only about 40 of these survived to this day. With this paper featuring the works of Buhurizade Mustafa Itri and his place in his era, his genius will be highlighted once more.