Perihan Altındağ Sözeri was born in Amasya on 5 May 1925 and became, in the middle of the twentieth century, one of the best-loved female interpreters of Turkish art music. Winning a voice audition held by Ankara Radio at the age of thirteen, becoming a soloist in constant demand in Istanbul's casino and radio world for years, and being counted among the four great female voices of her day are among the best-known stages of her life. Besides her beautiful voice, her correct Turkish and the measured elegance of her speech are the qualities that everyone who wrote about her mentioned first. She died in Istanbul on 7 April 2008, and her career also reflects a period in the early decades of the Republic when radio, the gramophone record, the music hall and cinema were growing into one another. On some points, such as her year of birth, her father's tie to Amasya and the date she left the radio, the sources disagree; these differences are noted where they arise.

Family and Year of Birth

Her mother was Hayriye Hanım from Erzurum and her father was Nurettin Behiç Bey. Her father was a soldier. His connection with Amasya is described in two different ways. According to one account, Perihan Altındağ was born in the city because Amasya was his posting; other biographies state that the family was originally from Amasya and that Nurettin Behiç Bey was himself an Amasya man. The records of her younger sister's life repeat the same wording: the family was originally from Amasya, and the mother's side from Erzurum. The two accounts do not entirely exclude each other, since an officer from Amasya could well have been posted for a time to his own home town. Yet the published sources contain no documented information about the family's roots in the city, the quarter where they lived or their relatives there.

There were three siblings. Her elder brother was Nurhan Altındağ; her younger sister Neriman Altındağ Tüfekçi later also became known as an artist. Most sources give her date of birth as 5 May 1925. Only one biography site gives the same day with the year 1928. Accounts stating that she entered the radio in 1938-1939, as a second-year middle-school pupil aged thirteen, support 1925. The information that her sister Neriman was born on 14 March 1926 also makes 1928 unlikely, since the elder sister cannot have been born after the younger. For these reasons 1925 is adopted here.

The family's movements in the following years are best traced through the lives of the siblings. Neriman Altındağ was born in Istanbul only about ten months after Perihan; she attended primary school at the Nene Hatun Primary School in Erzurum and secondary school at the Nişantaşı Girls' High School in Istanbul. A line moving between Amasya, Istanbul and Erzurum within a few years fits the life of a family following a soldier father from one posting to the next. No detailed information about Perihan Altındağ's childhood in Amasya has survived, and it is quite likely that she left the city soon after her birth. Amasya is therefore remembered in her life as a birthplace; she made her name in Ankara and Istanbul.

Her Sister Neriman Altındağ Tüfekçi

It is striking that both daughters of the Altındağ family entered music through the radio. Neriman Altındağ joined Ankara Radio by examination in 1942, the year she finished high school. While her elder sister advanced in art music, she was among the first to choose folk music after it was separated at the radio as an independent branch. In 1949 she was appointed assistant conductor of the Yurttan Sesler Choir, in 1953 she received the title of soloist-teacher, in 1957 she founded and directed a women's choir, and in 1959 she moved to Istanbul Radio. She is remembered as the first female soloist and the first female choir conductor of Turkish folk music. She married Muzaffer Sarısözen and later Nida Tüfekçi, with whom she prepared a book titled "Memleket Türküleri". In 1976 she sat on the founding board of the Turkish Music State Conservatory then being established in Istanbul. She died in Istanbul on 4 February 2009, some ten months after her sister; like her sister's, her funeral set out from the Teşvikiye Mosque and she was buried in Zincirlikuyu Cemetery.

Ankara Radio and the Voice Audition

The years in which Perihan Altındağ entered the radio were a period of reorganisation for Ankara Radio. In 1938 the radio's Turkish music staff was strengthened with well-known performers brought from Istanbul. The tanbur player Refik Fersan was transferred in October 1938, together with a group of colleagues, from Istanbul Radio to Ankara Radio, where he worked until 1950 as a tanbur artist, teacher and head of Turkish music broadcasts. Müzeyyen Senar had also moved to the capital that year as an artist of Ankara Radio. An article on Senar's life says the radio became a second school for her; for trainees like Perihan Altındağ this was even more true.

The radio was holding auditions to recruit vocalists to its staff. Perihan Altındağ entered this audition while still a second-year middle-school pupil. According to the accounts, she came first among more than a thousand candidates, singing Sadeddin Kaynak's "Hazan ile geçti gülşen-i büstân" at the audition. Winning was not enough, because she was too young to join the radio staff. Moreover, her father, a soldier, did not look favourably on his daughter entering the radio. The problem is said to have been solved through the intervention of Lieutenant Colonel Veli Kanık, a friend of her father, then conductor of the Presidential Band and a clarinet virtuoso. Veli Kanık was the father of the poet Orhan Veli. In the end a special permit was issued for Perihan Altındağ, and the young singer was taken into the radio with trainee status.

Most biographies give 1939 as the start of her career and say she was fourteen at the time; one account states that the audition took place in 1938 and that the candidate was thirteen. The two dates can be reconciled by the few months that passed between the audition and her admission to the staff. It is said that during her traineeship she took lessons from Refik Fersan, Mesut Cemil, Nuri Halil Poyraz, Cevdet Kozinoğlu and Artaki Candan, and according to another source Fahri Kopuz was also among her teachers. These were well-known performers and composers of the radio generation of Turkish music. Her teacher Refik Fersan is credited with a large share in training many artists at both the Istanbul and Ankara radios; by transcribing old works written in Hamparsum notation into Western staff notation, he broadened the radios' repertoire. When the traineeship ended, Perihan Altındağ made her first radio programme together with Sadeddin Kaynak.

A Magazine Page from 1947

A contemporary document from the singer's early years survives among the material Reşad Ekrem Koçu collected for his Istanbul Encyclopedia. For entries under letters he was never able to publish, Koçu gathered newspaper clippings and magazine pages; since the printed volumes of the encyclopedia stopped at the letter G, the entry "Sözeri (Perihan Altındağ)" never appeared. The file holds two documents. One is a newspaper clipping whose subjects, according to the archive record, include Ankara Radio. The other is the first page of the first issue of the magazine Türk Musikisi, dated 1947. According to the archive record, this page names her father Nurettin Behiç Bey and her teachers Nuri Halil Poyraz, Refik Fersan and Fahri Kopuz. That a newly founded music magazine mentioned a twenty-two-year-old soloist on the first page of its first issue shows that Perihan Altındağ was already a known voice in the year she came to Istanbul. The appearance of Fahri Kopuz among her teachers also indicates that this detail, found in a later biography, goes back to this 1947 publication.

Marriage and the Move to Istanbul

In 1945 she married Emin Sözeri; her surname Sözeri comes from this marriage. She had two children, a girl and a boy. In 1947 she moved to Istanbul to work in the casinos. At this point the sources diverge chronologically. According to one account, in 1947 she asked to be transferred to Istanbul Radio and worked there without interruption until the 1960s. According to another, her salaried work at the radio lasted until 1949, and in that year she left the radio and began working at the Kristal Casino. Another widely repeated piece of biographical information is that with the opening of Istanbul Radio in 1949 she served at that institution until the 1960s. It appears that her radio and casino work ran side by side for many years; the difference in detail cannot be settled without consulting documents. Her Ankara teacher Refik Fersan had also resumed work at Istanbul Radio in 1950.

The Casino Years

In 1947, when she came to Istanbul, she appeared on stage at the Perihan Casino, which bore her own name. This casino was later renamed Casablanca. She worked for a long time at well-known casinos of the period such as Tepebaşı, Turkuaz, Kristal, Belvü and Küçük Çiftlik; one source writes that she was the regular lead soloist of these venues. In the Istanbul of those years the casino was one of the main settings in which the classical repertoire was heard live and an artist's name reached a wide audience. Perihan Altındağ combined here the measured style of interpretation she had developed at the radio with stage experience.

In those years her name is mentioned together with Safiye Ayla, Müzeyyen Senar and Hamiyet Yüceses among the four most famous female soloists of the era. These singers, who performed on the same casino stages such as the Belvü and the Kristal, also shared a long-lasting friendship. An article on Müzeyyen Senar's life mentions her love of the sea and the days of music and song she spent aboard her boat, where she entertained Perihan Altındağ, Hamiyet Yüceses and Safiye Ayla. It is said that one of the slogans produced before the first general elections of Turkish democracy set Perihan Altındağ beside basic foodstuffs: "Tea, sugar, olive oil; Perihan Altındağ." That such a slogan stuck in people's minds is an anecdotal measure of how widely her name was known among the public; it cannot be said to rest on any official record.

The First Record Contract

In the serial "Hayatım" (My Life), published for twenty weeks in 1953 in the magazine Radyo Alemi, the singer herself recounted her first encounter with the gramophone record. According to her account, she travelled by train from Ankara to Istanbul with her mother and aunt to see Artaki Candan, the musical director of the His Master's Voice record company. Candan had not imagined that the person named on the card could be the small, thin girl standing in his office. The young singer sang him the song "Yalnız bırakıp gitme bu akşamı"; Candan listened silently with his elbows on the desk, and when the song ended he wiped his tears, stood up and kissed her on the forehead. Perihan Altındağ writes that she was told, "One day you will be the great star of this country; never fall into despair." Under the contract, signed in two copies the same day, she was to fill ten records for the company and receive twenty-five lira per record, two hundred and fifty lira in all. The money was handed to her aunt. She also recounts in the same article that as they were going down the stairs they came face to face with Safiye Ayla.

The memoir gives no date, but its details are enough to place it within a certain span. Artaki Candan was an instrumentalist and composer born in Salonica in 1885, whose real surname was Terziyan. He joined the His Master's Voice company during the First World War, first as one of its instrumentalists, later rising to become the firm's manager, a post he held until his death. Candan, some fifty of whose works are known, died in Istanbul on 30 January 1948. The fact that the young singer came by train from Ankara and that Candan was still alive shows that the contract belongs to her Ankara Radio years, that is, to the period between 1939 and 1947.

The first work she recorded under this agreement is reported to have been "Şu dağlar ulu dağlar". In the shellac era, works such as "Sensiz Geçen Her Günüm", "Titrer Yüreğim", "Bahar Geldi Gül Açtı", "Ardahan'ın Yollarında", "Kalacak Sanma Bu Çağın", "Saçları Sarı Kız" and "Kaç Yıl Oldu" were also recorded in her voice.

Repertoire and Best-Known Songs

Her most frequently cited songs are "Estergon Kalesi", "Sevmediklerinle Gönül Avutma", "Güzel Bir Göz Beni Attı" and "Aman Avcı Vurma Beni". Alongside these, "Sazlar Çalınır Çamlıca'nın Bahçelerinde", "Benzemez Kimse Sana", "Yalnız Bırakıp Gitme Bu Akşam Yine Erken", "Sokulun Turnalar", "Aman Cana Beni", "Bir Gölge Ol Beni Peşinden Koştur", "Gurbetten Gelmişim Yorgunum Hancı", "Ne Çok Çektim Hasretini", "Kapın Her Çalındıkça", "Dargın Ayrılmayalım", "Uyup da Eller Sözüne" and "Vah Me'yus-i Visalindir Gönül" are counted among her popular repertoire. Some of the works belong to well-known composers. "Sevmediklerinle Gönül Avutma" is cited as a work of Ud'î İbrahim Efendi. "Titrer Yüreğim" is Suphi Ziya's composition in the muhayyer makam. "Söyle Derdini Kaç Yıl Çekecek Bu Dertli Başım" is attributed to Hüseyin Mayadağ, and "Yalnız Benim Ol El Yüzüne Bakma Sakın Sen" to Selahattin Pınar. These names show that her repertoire rested on both older classical works and twentieth-century composers.

Her repertoire also included folk songs and regional melodies. Her records of the 1960s include pieces such as "Şu Dağlar Ulu Dağlar", "Şu Cide'nin Çeşmesi", "Menekşeler Tutam Tutam", "Iğdır'dan Al Elma Aldım", "Yine Yeşillendi Germir'in Bağları", "Arpa Buğday Daneler", "Haydar Haydar", "Ninni" and "Gannili Şuvayye", sung in Arabic. The same discs also contain gazels and improvisations (taksim). "Kaderim Ölmekse Eğer" was recorded as a hüzzam gazel; a later album includes kürdilihicazkâr and uşşak taksims. This variety shows that she was not merely a casino singer but a performer in command of the classical forms. The appearance of the name "Estergon Kalesi" under the subtitle "Tuna Türküsü" (Danube Folk Song) on one of the records points to the folk-song origin of this piece. This affinity for folk songs also intersects with the field of her sister, who in the same years worked at the radio as a folk music soloist and choir conductor.

Shellac Records, Singles and Albums

The list of shellac records and 45s reveals the scale of her output in the 1960s. In 1961 pairs such as "Gözü Ceylan Gözüdür" with "Bir Zamanlar Maziye Bak", "Şu Cide'nin Çeşmesi" with "Menekşeler Tutam Tutam", "Bir İhtimal Daha Var" with "Sen Arzu Ettin", and "Hastayım Yalnızım" with "Sine-i Suzanıma" were released. 1962 was a very productive year; the lists show fourteen singles from that year. "Yine Bir Sızı Var", "Kalbimdeki Son Aşka", "Dün Gece Ye's İle Kendimden Geçtim", "Dil Yaresi", "Ne Bahar Kaldı Ne Gül", "Geçti Sevdalarla Ömrüm", "Tuna Türküsü Estergon Kalesi" with "Açıl Açılacağım", "Sevdik ve Seviştik", "Ne Çok Çektim Hasretini" with "Sevmediklerinle Gönül Avutma", "Ne Müşkül Seni Sevmek", and "Ayrılık Yaman Kelime" with "Aman Cana Beni Şadet" were all recorded in the same year.

In 1963 works such as "Sarı Giyme Bir Daha Gül Takma", "Ruhsarı Gibi", "Hayat Dolu Bir Gençlik", "Hatıralar", "Gittin Dönersin Diye", "Gurbet Elde Her Akşam", "Hicran Yine Hicran", "Her Mevsim İçimden Gelir Geçersin" and "Seninle Ey Gül-i Ahsen" came out on record. In 1966 "Denizlerin Yeşil Kızı" with "İki Aşk Arasında" was released. Her long-playing albums include "Olanlar Oldu Geçti Artık", "Dargın Ayrılmayalım", "Kapın Her Çalındıkça", "Uyupta Eller Sözüne", "Kimler Ayırdı Bizi", "Benliyi Aldım Kaçaktan", "Bir Nigah Et Ne Olur", "Ne Küstün Bi Sebep Böyle", "Çok Görmeyin Ne Olur", "Kırmızı Gülün Alı Var", "Sönmez Artık Yüreğimde Yanan" and "Gizli Derdim Kalbimdedir". Another album contains "Dağlar Ağardı Kardan", "Gezdiğim Dikenli Aşk Yollarında", "Pınar Başında Bulanır" and "Geçti Muhabbet Demi". A selection titled "Perihan Altındağ Sözeri'den Seçmeler" was also released in TRT's Turkish Art Music Archive Series, as number 219.

Cinema

She also entered cinema in the early 1950s. From 1939 onwards, first for Egyptian films and then for domestic productions, the well-known composers of the day were called upon; figures such as Münir Nurettin Selçuk, Artaki Candan, Sadettin Kaynak and Selahattin Pınar had turned to film music. Perihan Altındağ's entry into cinema came from within this circle. Her best-known film is "Üçüncü Selim'in Gözdesi" (The Favourite of Selim III), in which she acted alongside Münir Nurettin Selçuk; this production is also counted among the films in which Münir Nurettin had been acting and singing since 1937. The sources say she played the role of Mihriban. One account states that the screenplay of the film was written by Nazım Hikmet; this information needs to be verified separately against independent documents. According to the accounts, Münir Nurettin said of Perihan Hanım during the work, "You are my female counterpart."

The number of her films varies from source to source. Some sources write that she appeared in three films. A more detailed list counts eight productions: Üçüncü Selim'in Gözdesi (1950), Sihirli Define (1950), Ne Sihirdir Ne Keramet (1951), Allahaısmarladık (1951), Yıldızlar Revüsü (1952), İstanbul Yıldızları (1952), Sazlar Oynasın Kızlar (1953) and Aziz İstanbul (1953). Another filmography adds "Son Buse" (1952) to these eight, bringing the total to nine, and gives the 1953 production under the title "Çalsın Sazlar, Oynasın Kızlar". The sources do not explain the difference in the number. All the lists agree that her film career fitted into the four years between 1950 and 1953.

Final Years and Retirement from the Stage

She remained a sought-after and beloved voice until the 1970s. She made her last long-playing recording in 1980 and prepared no new album after that. In 1982 she ended her freelance stage work of her own accord. According to the accounts, until the early 2000s she gave concerts as a guest artist at Bilkent, METU and Boğaziçi universities. The Turkish Women's Union presented her with its award "Our Pride, the Women Who Contributed to the Republic in Their Own Field"; the booklet distributed at the award ceremony also included her record anecdote recounted above.

Perihan Altındağ Sözeri died on the morning of 7 April 2008, aged 83, at her home in Erenköy, Istanbul, where she had lived for many years. Her funeral set out from the Teşvikiye Mosque, and she was buried in Zincirlikuyu Cemetery. Her sister Neriman Altındağ Tüfekçi died ten months later, in February 2009, and her funeral too set out from the same mosque to the same cemetery.

On Her Voice and Style

The point most often stressed by those who knew and wrote about her is, together with the beauty of her voice, her correct Turkish and the refinement of her speech. Since the relationship between word and melody and correct pronunciation carry great weight in Turkish music, this is not a detail to be dismissed. An article published in a music magazine in the second year after her death called her the owner of "an original voice and style". In an assessment published in a newspaper in 1996 and quoted in that article, Perihan Hanım is described as an artist who sang Turkish music with a wealth of voice and intellect that would make her predecessors envious and leave her successors pale. The same assessment also praises her ladylike character, the fabric of her voice and her simple beauty. The author counts "Titrer Yüreğim" by Suphi Ziya in the muhayyer makam, Udî İbrahim Efendi's "Sevmediklerinle Gönül Avutma" and Selahattin Pınar's "Yalnız Benim Ol El Yüzüne Bakma Sakın Sen" among her most brilliant performances, and refers to these recordings, which begin with a short taksim that quickly makes one forget the rustle of the gramophone needle, as examples of an artist who built a solitude of her own in the performance of Turkish music.

This language of praise reflects the taste of the period. The concrete grounds of her fame are the number of her records, her long service at the radio and in the casinos, her brief but conspicuous place in cinema, and a stage career stretching from 1939 to 1982. The environment in which she was trained also sheds light on this style. Her sister's biography describes Ankara Radio as the only institution of the time offering academic training and notes that its examinations were held before large juries; Perihan Altındağ, too, was trained at this institution by teachers such as Refik Fersan, Mesut Cemil and Nuri Halil Poyraz. From the point of view of Amasya, Perihan Altındağ Sözeri is one of the rare artists who were born in the city and reached nationwide fame; the main part of her life, however, was spent in Ankara and Istanbul.

Chronology

1925: Born in Amasya on 5 May (one source gives 1928).

1926: Her sister Neriman Altındağ born in Istanbul on 14 March.

1938: Refik Fersan and a group of Istanbul performers transferred to Ankara Radio in October.

1938-1939: Won the voice audition of Ankara Radio; entered the radio as a trainee with a special permit.

1945: Married Emin Sözeri.

1947: Featured on the first page of the first issue of the magazine Türk Musikisi; came to Istanbul and appeared on stage at the Perihan Casino.

1948: Artaki Candan, with whom she signed her first record contract, died on 30 January.

1949: Opening of Istanbul Radio; according to the sources, the year she served at the radio or moved to the Kristal Casino.

1950: The film Üçüncü Selim'in Gözdesi.

1950-1953: Appeared in films (three, eight or nine according to the sources).

1953: The serial "Hayatım" in the magazine Radyo Alemi.

1961-1966: Intensive output of 45 rpm records.

1980: Last long-playing album.

1982: Ended freelance stage work of her own accord.

2008: Died in Erenköy, Istanbul, on 7 April; buried in Zincirlikuyu Cemetery.

2009: Her sister Neriman Altındağ Tüfekçi died on 4 February.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Vikipedi, "Perihan Altındağ Sözeri" article (based on TRT Türk Sanat Müziği Arşiv Serisi 219 and the Hürriyet obituary). tr.wikipedia.org
  • Istanbul Encyclopedia Archive (Reşad Ekrem Koçu; Kadir Has University and SALT), "Sözeri (Perihan Altındağ)" file: newspaper clipping (S17II020) and Türk Musikisi magazine, 1947, no. 1, p. 1 (S17II021).

Academic studies

  • Salih Zeki Çavdaroğlu, "Vefatının 2. Yılında Özgün Bir Ses ve Üslûp: Perihan Altındağ Sözeri", Musiki Dergisi. musikidergisi.net

Other sources

  • Biyografya, "Perihan Altındağ Sözeri" biography (including a quotation from the "Hayatım" serial in Radyo Alemi).
  • Biyografiler.com, "Perihan Altındağ Sözeri" and "Neriman Altındağ Tüfekçi" biographies (filmography and discography).
  • Vikipedi, "Neriman Altındağ Tüfekçi" article. tr.wikipedia.org
  • Dünya Gazetesi, "Neriman Altındağ Tüfekçi toprağa verildi", 5 February 2009.
  • A. Turan Alkan, "Perihan Hanım", Zaman Gazetesi, 4 November 1996.
  • Hürriyet, "Perihan Altındağ Sözeri'yi kaybettik", 8 April 2008.
  • TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, "Fersan, Refik" and "Selçuk, Münir Nurettin" entries; "Kaynak, Sadettin" entry (film music composers). islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Murat Salim Tokaç, "Ortak Mirasın Bilinmeyen Varisleri", SD magazine (Istanbul Medipol University), Summer 2015, pp. 102-103 (section on Artaki Candan). medipol.edu.tr
  • Asu Maro, "Cumhuriyet'in en esaslı sesi", Milliyet, 9 February 2015 (Müzeyyen Senar).

Online sources