Composer and tunesmith (B.
1831, Istanbul – D. 1885, Istanbul). He was a son of the Head Clerk of Eyüp
Şer’i Court, Ebubekir Efendi. He took his first lessons from Zekâî Dede. After
that, he progressed in his musical taste and knowledge through lessons from
composer Eyyubî Mehmed Bey. With the help of Mehmed Bey, he was recruited as a
civil servant at Bab-ı Seraskeriye (1844). For a while, he attended to Mehmed
Bey’s lessons in Muzika-yı Hümayun as an observer. Hearing about his beautiful
voice, Sultan Abdülmecid took him for Mızıka-yı Hümayun. Here, he took lessons
from the music teacher of the palace, Haşim Bey. Sultan Abdülmecid put him in
charge as a chamberlain and music teacher of bondmaids. He fell in love with a
bondmaid called Çeşm-i Dilber. With the permission of the Sultan, he married
this lady and left the palace. After Çeşm-i Dilber left him and married a
merchant, Abdülmecid took him to the palace again, this time as the serhanende
(head singer) and he continued to give music lessons in the harem. This time,
he fell in love with the bondswoman Zülf-i Nigâr Hanım. He got married and left the
palace again. When Zülf-i Nigâr died of tuberculosis soon after, he was once
more recruited as the head singer fort he Palace Music Society under composer
Rıfat Bey’s supervision. After being put in charge as the music teacher of
bondmaid once more, Arif Bey got married to Nigârnik Hanım, one of the maids
for the honor of Pertevniyal Valide Sultan. He stayed married to Nigârnik Hanım
until his death and he worked in the Palace for ten years. He left the palace
in 1871, and worked as a civil servant in the Beykoz Tithe Directorate of the
Council of State. When the Ottoman-Russian war (the 93 War) ended, Abdülhamid
recruited him in the palace for the fourth time in Mızıka-yı Hümayun and he was
promoted to the lieutenant commander rank. Arif Bey continued to give lessons
in Mızıka-yı Hümayun until his death. His grave is in Yahya Efendi Dergâhı
cemetery.
One
of the most important composers of Turkish music, Hacı Arif Bey gave the song
form a complete different identity. It was with his works that the song forms
were given certain rules, and the song form was adopted into its final form. He
found the müsemmen tempo, with its eight times and three beats. He formed the
Kürdilihicazkâr maqam. The musical school started by Arif Bey was later named
as the Romantic Turkish Music. He raised students like Şevki Bey, Levon
Hancıyan and Zati Arca. Out of about a thousand works he composed, 337 works
reached today with the notation. 327 of these are songs. Six of the remaining
ten works are hymns, one is a tevşih, one is a durak, one is a composition and
the other one is yürük semai. Arif Bey was conferred with the title 4th
Mecid by Abdülmecid, and “Şir ü Hûrşit” by the Iranian Shah Nasıreddin, and he
had his own lyrics among a thousand lyrics with more than fifty different
maqams, which were all published in the publication titled Mecmû’a-i Ârifi (1873).
REFERENCE:
İbrahim Alaeddin Gövsa / Türk Meşhurları (1946), İbnülemin Mahmud Kemal İnal /
Hoş Seda (1958), Vural Sözer / Müzik ve Müzisyenler Ansiklopedisi (s. 165-166,
1964), TDE Ansiklopedisi (c. 3, 1976), Mehmet Nazmi Özalp / Türk Musikisi Tarihi
(1986), Yılmaz Öztuna / Hacı Arif Bey (1986) - Büyük Türk Musikisi Ansiklopedisi
(c. 1, 1990), Büyük Larousse (c. 8, s. 794, 1986), TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (c. 14, 1996), TDOE – TDE
Ansiklopedisi 4 (2004), İhsan Işık / Ünlü Sanatçılar (Türkiye Ünlüleri Ansiklopedisi,
C. 5, 2013) - Encyclopedia of Turkey’s Famous People (2013).
