Rauf Yekta Bey

Rauf Yekta Bey — Biography

While working as a government clerk, Rauf Yekta Bey — born Mehmed Rauf in Istanbul's Aksaray district, and given the epithet "Yekta" by his calligraphy teacher Nasûhî Efendi — pursued music alongside his official duties. He began his musical training in 1885 as a pupil of Zekâi Dede Efendi, later studied music theory under Mevlevi sheikhs, and joined the Mevlevi order in 1886, going on to serve as chief neyzen at the Yenikapı lodge. While a clerk at the Divan-ı Hümayun bureau he learned French, Arabic and Persian, and had four children. He devised an original notation system adapting Turkish musical theory to Western notation and introduced it to Europe through his 1922 French-language encyclopedia article La Musique Turque, one of roughly 400 articles he wrote. He was among the founders of Dârülelhan in 1917, where he taught Turkish and Eastern music, and from 1926 until his death chaired the committee cataloguing historic works at the Istanbul Conservatory. In 1932 he attended the Arab Music Congress in Cairo. His research was later built upon by Hüseyin Sadeddin Arel and Mehmet Suphi Ezgi and became one of the foundations of Turkish music theory. Rauf Yekta died of typhoid in Istanbul on 8 January 1935, and is said to have later been called a "martyr of music" by Cemal Reşit Rey.