You probably need to download the lot - including the short tracks -to get the full flavour. It gives a vivid impression of music at the capital of the great (and liberal) Ottoman Empire three hundred years ago. The "Turkish" pieces transported me straight back to my first visit to Istanbul 45 years ago. The Ladino (Sephardic Jewish) and Armenian repertoire was new to me, and is lovely. There is a lot of info about this disk on the Internet
All I mean by that is that besides the obviously Western pieces, this is stylized versions of Ottoman music, mostly written by Cantemir, a 17th century Romanian diplomat (more or less), although a celebrated Ottoman composer, performer and teacher. If you're looking for more 'traditional' interpretation, ensemble, or repertoire, check out some of Kudsi Erguner's many other recordings. The taksimler are fantastic. If you like this, you might like Necdet Yasar, Burhan Ocal, Selim Sesler, Lalezar Ensemble; there are many more.
I wasn't sure how I would react to having a full album of...Turkish music? Absolutely fabulous! To the reviewer below me, thank you for the info! I will try some of them out.
So much so that at times it feels like Hesperion/Savall are producing albums at a faster rate than one can listen to them. Hence one has a difficulty in forming a balanced opinion of each album. This one sounds richer than the Jerusalem album which came out also this year.
