Mehmed Chelebi

Turkish musician and writer on music theory, b. ? (Lazqiye), d. 1494 (Istanbul, Ottoman Empire).

Ladiqli Mehmed Chelebi was born in Ladiq at Amasya as the son of Abd al-Hamid. He spent most of his life in Ladiq, where he studied sciences and music. When Bayezid II became Sultan of the Ottoman empire in 1481, Mehmed Chelebi moved to Istanbul to serve the sultan.

Chelebi was one of the first great Ottoman theorists of music. Among his most important works are

• Zubdat al-Bayân, a treatise on logic written in Turkish for Bayezid II, kept today in the Sulaymaniya Library.
• Zain al-Alhân fi Ilm al-Ta'lif va al-Avzân, written in Arabic in about 1483 and translated into Turkish by the author in 1484. The work, which is kept in the Nuruosmaniya Library today, contains an introduction and three chapters:
  • The introduction deals with the definition of the science of music, including the study of notes and rhythm; definition of note, interval, consonance and dissonance, musical composition, arithmetic and harmonic proportions, and Qur'an (Koran) cantillation with a beautiful voice. It discusses the virtue and utility of music and includes anecdotes concerning the beneficial effect of music on morals. It gives credit to Pythagoras as the inventor of the science of music and discusses the composition of melodies on the base of the seventeen notes of the scale which can be produced on one single string. It concludes with considerations on the causes of acuity and gravity in stringed and wind instruments as well as in the human voice.
  • The first chapter is on intervals. It enumerates all the intervals, large, medium and small, ten in number, and the genres. A discussion of conjunctive and disjunctive tetrachords concludes the chapter.
  • The second chapter deals with the fashionable intervals of Mehmed Chelebi's time in great depth and discusses the affiliation of certain intervals with the zodiac, the planets and the elements.
  • The third chapter is dedicated to a discussion of rhythm and its constituent elements: conjunctive and disjunctive rhythms and the rhythmical modes. It ends with an elaboration on the benefits of music for the individual and society.
• Mehmed Chelebi's last work on music, ar-Risala al-Fathiyya, was written for Bayezid II in Arabic in 1485. It is divided into introduction and two chapters and covers similar material as the Zain al-Alhân but in greater depth and detail.
  • The introduction is divided into three sections. The first section deals with the definition of music, the science of music, the purpose of music and its origin. It again gives credit to Pythagoras, "disciple of King Solomon", with its invention through God's inspiration. The second section covers the physical principles of sound and the modalities of its production. The third section focuses on arithmetical and geometrical principles related to the intervals and their ratios and proportions.
  • Chapter one is divided into five discourses.
    Discourse 1: The division of the string and the repartition of the frets; the 14 consonantic intervals; the degrees in the first octave, the lower tetrachord; the degrees in the second and third octaves; the general scale of seventeen degrees; Arabic and Greek names of the degrees.
    Discourse 2: Rules of calculation.
    Discourse 3: The consonance; the causes of dissonances; the soft and strong genres; the common genres.
    Discourse 4: The composition of cycles or scales; a definition of the rhythmical cycle; the 12 principal cycles and their names as practised by the ancients and moderns; the two categories of musical instruments stating that the voice belongs to the latter; the accordatura of the lute; basic compositional patterns.
    Discourse 5: The fashionable modes of Mehmed Chelebi's time; the effects of these modes in relation to the human character and to specific times.
  • Chapter two consists of three discourses.
    Discourse 1: The definition of rhythm, rhythmical time; conjunct and disjunct rhythms; rhythmical cycles.
    Discourse 2: The six rhythmical modes of the ancients; the six melodic modes of the ancients.
    Discourse 3: The eighteen rhythmical modes of the moderns.

Most of Mehmed Chelebi's works were written only a few years after Bayezid II had become sultan in 1481 and established the imperial school of music. No major works are known after 1485. It can therefore be assumed that his works were written as textbooks for teaching at the new school of music.

based on an article of Recep Uslu, Istanbul Technical University, Department of Musicology of the State Conservatory.

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