The Janissary – Epic Symphony

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Music composed and/or arranged by Farya Faraji. More info with all the lyrics in the pinned comment below. With this, I wanted to tell the life of a Janissary soldier through the musical styles representative of a Janissary’s life, from Balkanic music to Anatolian rhythms, Alevi songs, Ottoman Classical music and more. Some of the compositions are entirely mine, others are my arrangements of folk music or existing melodic patterns from these regions. Many thanks to Dimitris Athanasopoulos of the One Man’s Noise channel for providing the direction and vocals for the Epirotic text we brought to life here. Female vocals by Sumru Ağıryüyrüyen.

00:00 Overture – This is my Story
01:00 Песен на майка – My Mother’s Song
02:40 Devşirme – When they took me
05:46 Ανάθεμά σε, βασιλιά – Thrice be Damned, Emperor
08:52 To Anatolia
13:30 Istanbul : Queen of Cities
17:56 Welcome to the Corps
19:10 Tevhid – My New Faith
23:14 Gülbank – The Janissary Oath
27:20 Mehter Marşı – The Janissary Anthem
30:48 Savaşlar – The Wars I Fought
35:22 İstanbul Peşrev – Peacetime Years
38:46 Ben kimim? – Who am I?
40:46 Topkapı Peşrev – My Rise to the Court
46:30 Zaman – Growing Old
50:30 Son Seferim – My Last Campaign
51:45 Son Savaşım – My Last Battle
56:10 Var Git Ölüm – The Bullet
58:30 Ölüm – Death

#epicmusic
#balkanmusic
#anatolianmusic
#onemansnoise

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50 thoughts on “The Janissary – Epic Symphony”

  1. Music composed and/or arranged by Farya Faraji. With this, I wanted to tell the life of a Janissary soldier through the musical styles representative of a Janissary’s life, from Balkanic music to Anatolian rythms, Alevi songs, Ottoman Classical music and more. Some of the compositions are entirely mine, others are my arrangements of folk music or existing melodic patterns from these regions. Many thanks to Dimitris Athanasopoulos of the One Man’s Noise channel for providing the direction and vocals for the Epirotic text we brought to life here. Female vocals by Sumru Ağıryüyrüyen.

    The Janissaries were the elite troops of the Ottoman Empire. Conscripted by force through the devşirme child-levy system, they were taken from Christian Balkan families, converted into Islam and made into the most ferocious standing army of Europe for centuries.

    * Overture
    A taksim (freeform, non-rythmic improvisation in Greek, Turkish, Arabic etc music) in the makam Hüseyni. (A makam is a melodic mode). The instrument I used is the kopuz, an instrument closely linked to the mysticism of Alevi Islam, which was the root culture of the Janissary Corps.

    * My Mother’s Song:
    The song is Chereshko, a Bulgarian folk song. The instrumentation consists of a Balkan tambouras and kaval flutes. The lyrics speak of a cherry tree that can’t bear fruits. A young man walks past the tree and asks it why it doesn’t bear any fruits. The tells him that two young lovers stood beneath it and swore that if they did not marry each other, the tree would dry out.

    * Devşirme – When They Took Me
    This piece brings in the Turkish bağlama and the bendhir. The makam (mode) used is a mixture of Bayat, Nawa Athar and Hijazkar, the latter with microtonal modifications. A Balkan kemane is also heard at the end. The usul (rythmic structure in Turkish music) used is Devr-i-Hindi, a 7/4 aksak (asymmetric time signature, defined in Turkish music as the compound addition of multiple symmetric time signatures).

    * Ανάθεμά σε, βασιλιά – Thrice be Damned, Emperor
    The story behind this passage is an interesting one. I did some digging during my research and found this text from a lost song. The text dates back to Ottoman times, and expresses the sorrow of people whose young boys were taken into the devşirme system. The song is known to have been from Epirus, and whilst the melody has been lost, I did some guesswork and asked for the assistance of Dimitris from the One Man’s Noise channel. He provided me with examples of traditional Epirotic songs that use the 15 syllable structure of this poem; one of the primary metres of Medieval and post-Medieval Greek poetry, also called decasyllabic verse. We used the melody of the Epirotic song Βασιλικέ μου τρίκλωνε, which uses the συρτό στα τρία dance. The instrumentation uses the mainland Greek lauto and kaval flutes.

    Greek text:
    Ανάθεμά σε, βασιλιά, και τρις ανάθεμα σε,
    με το κακό οπόκαμες, και το κακό που κάνεις.
    Στέλνεις, δένεις τους γέροντας, τους πρώτους τους παπάδες
    Να μάσης παιδομάζωμα, να κάμης γενιτσάρους.
    Κλαιν' οι γοναίοι τα παιδιά, κ' οι αδελφές τ' αδέλφια,
    Κλαίγω κ' εγώ και καίγομαι και όσο θα ζω θα κλαίγω.
    Πέρσι πήραν τον γιόκα μου, φέτο τον αδελφό μου.

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  2. The qualifications of the children to be recruited are specified in the Devshirme Law. According to this, the children of Christian nobles, the sons of the priests, the healthiest child of the family with many children, in families with two children only one of two children were taken. The one who had an only son would not have the child taken from them. The son of the village chief was also not recruited. Motherless and fatherless children and those who were known to be greedy or thief were not recruited. Likewise, children of shepherds, disfigured and circumcised children and children from city centres were not recruited. Children who got married and mastered a workmanship, and those who were extremely tall and short, were also among those who were not recruited. However, among the tall children, those who were in good shape could only be taken for the palace.
    Devshirme Memuru (the devshirme officer) would announce that he was coming for the devshirme through Tellals(town criers) and he would arrange for Christian children between the ages of eight to eighteen, to gather in the district center. Christian children must come to the meeting place with their fathers and priests and their baptismal records with them. The recruiter who examined the baptismal records personally than he would see the children and separated those who followed the law and the instruction. It was customary to take one boy from forty households in each kaza(district). The village, township of the recruited children, the name of their father, mother and sipahi or the owner of the chiftlik (farms) they working and live, their date of birth, their full description up to the color of their eyes, and the name of the officer who would take them to the Istanbul were written. These records written as two copies and called as Eshkal Defteri( description records). One of them kept by the recruiter and the other one by the officer called Sürücü(driver or herdman) who sent the recruited children to the Istanbul and the driver would deliver the records with children. The cost of the red cloak and red cone that were put on the recruited children was taken from the people of the region where the collection was made under the name of kul akche(servant money). Certain wages of the people in charge of devshirme were also collected from the people of the relevant region.

    The recruited children were sent to the state center under the direction of the drivers in groups of 100-200 people called Sürü(flock or herd). Strict measures were taken to prevent them from escaping on the way and to prevent foreigners or Muslims interfering with them. A foreigner mixed in with the herd was called Saplama(the one who stab or stabbed to the group). Drivers were severely punished if it was found that a stranger was involved in the herd. As a matter of fact, during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, Pertev Mehmed Pasha, one of the janissary squires, gave all of his suspected herd to the armory, did not recruit any janissaries, and the devshirme officer, who was neglected in his duty, was punished with the stewardship of the far away castle in Arabian desert.

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  7. It's an emotional thing, I can say that as a Bulgarian. I'm sure Greek and Serbian listeners will agree to that as well. The devshirme was a dreaded practice. Still, sometimes, some families felt it as a chance of social rising. Complicated, as everything in the Balkans. Great music, as always!

    Even as a modern man, I've had my fair share of delicate, difficult relationship with Istanbul. Used to live there for some time, loved the City. But then, there followed a hard breakup, so it has remained a bittersweet memory to me. I have a love-hate relationship with the Queen of Cities. Is there any other way of knowing Constantinople at all? Actually, I'm writing a book about it.

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  10. I'm very happy that your research is really deep, and you even touch borderline 'esoteric' stuff regarding Islamic faith and theology like Alevism.

    Absolute GOAT as always, Farya

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  13. Dearest Farya, no matter my personal feelings on this subject, this Symphony is indeed masterful. It captures history as it was and is mesmerizing to all of us listening to it. Even if difficult, emotions are evoked as it is heart wrenching, it's all there. The power of music (μουσικη = musike = the art of the Muses), is yours.

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  15. Greetings from Turkey to the Balkans. Janissaries were the soldiers who caused both the rise and fall of the Ottoman Empire. Still, despite their many hate-love situations, may Allah/ God have mercy on them. 😇☪️❤️☦️

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  17. By the way, it's not just for janissaries. The mothers of Ottoman sultans and princes were women of Balkan origin. Even the Ottoman empire itself had problems both religiously and ethnically. Ottoman people, sultans and soldiers. 🥲
    This multicultural empire survived for 600 years 😮

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  24. We will not forget the Janissaries, who served the Turkish nation a great deal. There are also many vezîriâzâm(grandviziers) of devshirme origin.

    My favorites are: Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, Köprülü Mehmed Pasha, Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed Pasha

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  34. The Italian child Argalia also became a Janissary. They decapitated Vlad Dracul with the Swiss Janissaries and returned.
    3 nations could not be Janissaries. Because Gypsies were dirty, Jews were religious, Transylvanians could not be Janissaries because they were atheist.
    The strong and smart were trained to be soldiers, and the smart ones to run the state.
    The Turks were saying: " We will rule you with your own children. "

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  35. Whenever you do one of these epic symphonies, there are always parts I end up coming back to far more than others. On this one, they were Thrice be Damned, Emperor; My New Faith; The Janissary Oath; Growing Old; and Death.

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  36. For me, Farya is on par with Hans Zimmer, Vangelis and Maurice Jarre in epicness and he even exceeds them when taken into account the historicity of his music and his genius in creating interesting thematic crossovers.

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  41. Mesmerizing piece 😊
    The Janissaries are the face of Modern Standing Army and they were one of the main reasons for the successes of Ottomon Empire in the 14th century. After this the concept of Standing Armies became prevalent as we see today in forces around the world.

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