COMPOSERS AND PERFORMERS

ALİ UFKİ

(1610?-1685)

A composer and music researcher of Polish origin, Ali Ufkî was born in Podolya and died in Krakow. He entered the Ottoman palace during the reign of Mehmet IV (1648-1687) and sang in the Palace orchestra for 18 years. After leaving his Ottoman service, he worked at the Istanbul Embassy in England. He wrote many books in Latin on music and history. He also noted many works of Turkish music in western notation, and compiled these in his book, Mecmûa-i Saz-ü Söz (1650), which contains a large number of compositions from the 15th-17th centuries. The book also includes much folk music. The original is in the British Museum in London, and a 1665 copy of it is in the Paris National Library. He also published a grammar of the Turkish language, in Latin, which is in the Oxford Bodleian Library. His book, “Serai Enderun,” was published in Italian in 1679, and his “Kitab-ı Mukaddes, in Turkish, was published in 1814. In addition to music, he was also interested in folk poetry, painting and the art of miniatures.