The Musical Recollections of Giuseppe Donizetti
The date was 3 July 2018. The stifling heat of the Istanbul summer had at last begun to make itself felt. That same day, the weather in Florence was equally sultry and humid. In the Boboli Gardens, which crown a hill overlooking the city, the flowers were in bloom with the vivid hues of an old picture postcard.
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| "In the Boboli Gardens the flowers were in bloom with the vivid hues of an old picture postcard" |
At the Gonnelli Bookshop—having only that February left its historic premises on Via Ricasoli, after 140 years, to take up residence in a nineteenth-century villa on Piazza Massimo D’Azeglio—preparations were underway for the second day of a three-day auction of rare books and manuscripts. Founded in Florence in 1875 by Luigi Gonnelli and run by the same family for four generations, the bookshop has long specialised in antiquarian and modern prints, maps, and books, and earned renown not only for its scholarly focus but also for its cultural pedigree: in earlier times, it had often been frequented by figures such as Gabriele D’Annunzio and Benedetto Croce. On Tuesday, 3 July 2018, during the 25th auction held at Gonnelli, Lot 488 particularly caught my attention—a singular and most intriguing bound manuscript.
Bearing the title Memorie Musicali di Giuseppe Donizetti — “The Musical Recollections of Giuseppe Donizetti” — this 286-page manuscript comprised what appeared to be the musical diary of Donizetti Pasha. Yet it was no memoir in the conventional sense. Rather, in a manner most becoming of a musician, it took the form of a musical journal—consisting of original compositions, unfinished sketches, ceremonial marches arranged for piano, and assorted notational fragments.
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| Memorie Musicali di Giuseppe Donizetti (© Erol Makzume) |
The Gonnelli catalogue, which I studied in detail that day, summarised the work in the following terms: “Compiled by Giuseppe Donizetti during his years in Constantinople, this manuscript contains over one hundred compositions for orchestra, voice and piano, solo piano, and solo instruments. The first 87 pieces are numbered sequentially. Each bears a title, and in some cases, notes by Donizetti himself are included. For example: ‘A hymn sung by the Turks whilst bearing the body of an Emir to the grave. I transcribed this melody after hearing it sung by the Turks as they passed beneath my window. G. Donizetti.’ A substantial number of these pieces belong to the ethnic musical repertoire—Turkish, Albanian, Greek (such as sirto, peşrev, and şarkı). Others are marches, such as the Sultan Abdülmecid March. Still others belong to the European tradition: romances, cantatas, and waltzes. Giuseppe Donizetti, elder brother of the more celebrated Gaetano Donizetti, was a significant figure in the history of Istanbul and of Turkey, arriving in 1828 and remaining there until his death in 1856. He served as instructor of military music to the Sultans and Caliphs, and was granted the rank of Pasha.”
In fact, I had learnt of this auction several weeks in advance and had written to inform the Donizetti Foundation in Italy. Regrettably, I received no reply. On the day of the sale, I took the ferry across to Kadıköy with a heavy heart. Perhaps, somewhere in my subconscious, I was reliving Donizetti’s memories of Istanbul, set against the majestic silhouette of the old city to which he too had once grown accustomed.
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| "I was reliving Donizetti’s memories set against the silhouette of the old city" (photo © Emre ARACI) |
Later, as I wandered the backstreets of Kadıköy, lost in thought, I somehow lost my bearings entirely. Suddenly, I found myself standing in front of a café I had never seen before. I looked up, and I had not misread the sign: not merely “Donizetti”, but “Giuseppe Donizetti” was emblazoned in green above the door—more precisely, “Giuseppe Donizetti Coffee”. The little establishment on Tellalzade Street in Kadıköy struck me, in that instant, as a message borne on the wings of some intangible spirit. I may not have been present at the auction unfolding in Florence at that very moment—but somehow, I felt I had received the most eloquent message of all, as though that musical manuscript might yet one day find its way to me. More importantly still, I found myself believing it—utterly and instinctively—with the deepest conviction of the heart.
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| "The name “Giuseppe Donizetti Coffee” was emblazoned in green above the door" |
Exactly a fortnight after this episode, I received word from my longtime friend Erol Makzume that he had acquired a bound volume of musical notation from an antique dealer in Florence. I knew at once that this could not possibly be a mere coincidence. He wished me to examine the curious volume, and when, some months later, it was placed upon my desk, the handwritten title upon its cover seemed nothing less than the material realisation of a calligraphy that had already taken form in my mind: Memorie Musicali di Giuseppe Donizetti. The manuscript volume—measuring 345 by 240 mm—might well have once rested upon Donizetti’s table in his home on Asmalı Mescid Street in Beyoğlu, where he had lived during a formative period.
As I turned its worn pages nearly two centuries later, infused with the melodies of his daily life, I felt the thrill of restoring long-lost fragments of our musical heritage to their rightful place. More than that, I sensed I was embarking upon a voyage through time—back to Donizetti’s own Istanbul.
Indeed, the album opened with a lively sirto in 2/4 time. This was followed by arrangements of Turkish songs, at times labelled in French as Chanson Turque, and elsewhere annotated phonetically in Italian as Sciarki. These were instrumental works, transcribed as piano arrangements, devoid of lyrics. Then, quite unexpectedly, the album’s opening Oriental character gave way, at its seventh entry, to a magnificent dance composed of five waltzes.
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| Giuseppe Donizetti's La Prova — a set of five waltzes (© Erol Makzume) |
Donizetti had entitled this set La Prova and, in his own hand, inscribed: “Dedicati alli amatori delli Ballo” — “Dedicated to lovers of the ball.” The notation also bore a date: “Cospoli Xbre 1839,” indicating that the waltzes had been composed in Constantinople in December of that year. This inscription not only provided a date for the composition of the waltzes in Constantinople but also helped establish the manuscript’s historical context. The year 1839 would be remembered as one of significant transformation for the Levantine community of Pera. Following the death of Sultan Mahmud II in June, his sixteen-year-old son Abdülmecid ascended the throne. Merely a month before Donizetti entered his La Prova into the notebook, the Tanzimat Edict—known as the Gülhane Hatt-ı Hümâyûnu—was proclaimed on 3 November in the gardens of the Gülhane, granting a host of civic liberties, including to the Empire’s minority populations.
Who knows where this ball, for which Donizetti had composed his elegant waltz set, might have taken place amid Pera’s carnival season?
According to a report in the 15 February 1840 issue of the New Court Gazette—a weekly paper published in London on Saturdays—there was considerable appetite for such dances in the wake of the Tanzimat’s reformist spirit. Under the headline “Balls in Constantinople”, one correspondent observed: “The upper classes of Constantinople are gradually adopting European customs. Balls are held at the Casino in Pera and in the residences of prominent political figures. The Prince of Samos, whose drawing rooms are notable for their elegance and splendour, recently gave a magnificent dinner in honour of the Prince of Serbia, followed by an evening of dancing.”
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| The Graphic, 3 March 1877 (© Emre ARACI) |
The Prince of Samos at that time was none other than Stefanaki Bey—Stefan Bogoridi—who held the post of Governor. The music of Giuseppe Donizetti thus emerged as the soundtrack to a new Constantinople. Indeed, La Prova was followed in the album by a second set of waltzes and a coda, dated January 1840, and bearing the title La Pretenzione—“Pretension” or “Affectation”—a name redolent of the affectations of the ballroom and perhaps a sly nod to the stylised grandeur of the age.
I continued to turn the pages of the manuscript. The waltzes gradually gave way once more to peşrevs, until I came upon a song by Donizetti entitled Il Gondoliere (The Gondolier), set to Italian words. This was followed, in the fifteenth place, by another vocal piece in the bel canto style, composed in April 1839 and titled La Gondola. The text for this latter work had been penned by the celebrated librettist Francesco Maria Piave, and published the same year in Italy by the Ricordi publishing house. Yet the bel canto atmosphere conjured by La Gondola was soon dispelled by a return to more local idioms: Dilistane Şarkısı (The Song of the Garden of the Heart), Bülbül Peşrevi (Prelude of the Nightingale), and Saat Şarkısı (The Song of the Clock).
Among these pieces, I was struck to find a transcription of the song Gönlüm o şuh-i gülizar (My heart [belongs to] that rose-cheeked beauty), composed by Sultan Mahmud II himself—an inclusion that could only belong to a musical manuscript whose unique fabric had been woven in Stamboul.
One of the manuscript’s more remarkable qualities lay in Donizetti’s freedom to bestow upon his hybrid arrangements equally hybrid titles. Notably, entry No. 38—Dilistane Şarkısı, set in 3/4 time—was described by Giuseppe as a Polonâise turque, a “Turkish Polonaise”.
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| "Dilistane Şarkısı brought to mind John Frederick Lewis’s Harem Life in Constantinople" |
That piece, in turn, brought to mind a visual counterpart in John Frederick Lewis’s Harem Life in Constantinople, painted in 1857, just a year after Donizetti’s death. With its sumptuous textiles, elegant furnishings, and delicate architectural flourishes, Lewis had captured the opulence of an interior in Ottoman Istanbul; and now, through Donizetti’s music, I felt as though I were hearing that same world rendered in sound.
The manuscript also bore traces of Istanbul’s diplomatic circles. One composition was dedicated to Madame Boutineff, second wife of the Russian Ambassador, Apollinariy Petrovich Boutineff. Titled Cantata per voce di basso composta per la riacquistata salute di Madama Boutineff, the work had been composed in June 1840 to mark Madame Boutineff’s recovery from a serious illness. Written in F major for bass solo, chorus and orchestra, the cantata employed the florid and poetic language of its age. Madame Boutineff is likened to a delicate flower growing in the verdant meadows of ancient Byzantium’s shores, almost lost to the shadows of illness, until a miracle from the heavens restores her to health. The piece concludes with a wish that the flower might blossom anew, more radiant than before.
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| "Giuseppe Donizetti captured the lost sounds of nineteenth-century Constantinople" (© Emre ARACI) |
Expressions of gratitude and well-wishes for health were not the manuscript’s only motifs; sombre tones, too, occasionally found their way across its pages. As noted in the Gonnelli catalogue, even a fragment as brief as four bars—“A hymn sung by the Turks while bearing the body of an Emir to the grave”—was preserved within it. A few pages later, Giuseppe had transcribed yet another funereal chant, this time sung at the burial of the Emir’s wife.
One can scarcely imagine the impression left upon him as the funeral procession passed beneath his window and the solemn chant drifted upwards to his ears—a moment rendered all the more vivid by the knowledge that he took it down in musical notation.
Among the hundred or more compositions included in the volume were Donizetti’s own piano transcriptions of the Mahmudiye and Mecidiye marches—well-known in our nation’s musical history. Yet the manuscript also contains the first record of a little-known cantata composed by Donizetti upon Sultan Abdülmecid’s return from a forty-day tour of the Rumelian provinces in 1846. The words, written by one Hayri Efendi in return for a reward of “700 piastres”, were set to music by Donizetti. Another composition, Canzone Inno per la Sultana Madre – Valide Sultana, was dedicated to the Sultan’s mother, Bezm-i Âlem Valide Sultan. In truth, these are the lost sounds of nineteenth-century Constantinople.
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| Palazzo Venezia in Beyoğlu by Ayşe Türermiş |
On the evening of Tuesday, 10 December 2024, within the historic Palazzo Venezia in Beyoğlu—under the gracious patronage of the Italian Ambassador Giorgio Marrapodi and Mrs Marrapodi—I turned the pages of Giuseppe Donizetti’s Musical Recollections once more. Accompanied by pianist Çağdaş Özkan and joined by Cihat Aşkın and Mina Aoki Girardelli, we breathed life into melodies long dormant on a rain-swept night.
It was more than a concert with commentary; it was, for me, the fulfilment of a promise made long ago, on that summer day of 3 July, when Giuseppe Donizetti had appeared before me unexpectedly in Kadıköy—and, in his own quiet and mysterious way, had kept his word.
Gazing now upon Ayşe Türemiş’s exquisite watercolour of the Palazzo Venezia—she, who so deftly captures the graceful lines of Istanbul’s historic architecture—I am pleasantly reminded of that most enchanting evening, and the musical memories of Giuseppe Donizetti.
© Emre Aracı 2025. All rights reserved.
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