Analysis of A. Adnan Saygun’s ‘The Cantata in the Old Style’ (Op. 19) with a Generative Theory of Tonal Music (GTTM)

Abstract

A. Adnan Saygun’s work Op. 19, The Cantata in the Old Style (1941) focuses on the struggle of Turkish society for nationalization from the late Ottoman Empire to the foundation of the Republic. Saygun told Donald Hoffman (1965) that he wrote this work in order to gain an experience in the Yunus Emre Oratorio. In this context, The Cantata in the Old Style gains importance as it contributed to the formation process of the Yunus Emre Oratorio. Moreover, there is a view that there are great similarities between the two works in terms of structure and musical character. In these similarities context, our main problem is to analyse the formal structure of this work. Observing harmonic progression, analysis of function and modulation process are our sub-problem. Hence, our aim is to examine A. Adnan Saygun’s aesthetic understanding through the example of The Cantata in The Old Style. Hence, it was determine the harmonic path, the tension-relaxtion regions and points in the melodic and the harmonic progression that the composer constructed in this work. Despite of the fact that the work has a text, correlate the text with its music was analyzed in tension-relaxation regions. In this study was used a literature review and musical analysis method. A Generative Theory of Tonal Music (GTTM) was used as an analysis method. It was determined the harmonic path, the tension-relaxtion regions and points in the melodic and the harmonic progression that the composer constructed in this work. In conclusion, it is evaluated that Saygun was used the word-painting technique, which is one of the composition methods used in the Renaissance and Baroque periods, in this work. Additionally, re-analysing his verbal works such as the Yunus Emre Otatorio and the Saga for Atatürk and Anatolia with word-painting technique could yield new insights to us.