In The Seraglio To Hear In Dem Seraglio

Istanbul is a wonderful City. With an extraordinary history, much of which is open to view for the visitor.

I was fortunate to be able to visit with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, for a series of concerts which were located in some of those most interesting locations.

Staying in Istanbul with a National Orchestra meant staying at a five-star hotel somewhere in the centre of the City, and having sufficient time between concerts to take in the principal sights, which I suppose Santa Sofia, and The Blue Mosque.

Santa Sofia is a 6th-century Church that has been a Mosque as well as a Christian Church during its long life. These days, it is a museum, filled with extraordinary cultural artefacts that tell us something of its story, and by doing so, explaining much of the history of Istanbul in its European context.

The Blue Mosque is one of the most sacred Islamic locations in the City, but tourists can visit, outside of the times when it is filled with Muslims that still pray here in vast numbers.

It is a place of extraordinary beauty, representative perhaps as one of the best examples of Islamic architecture in the Western world.

There were two extraordinary locations in which the Orchestra performed concerts, one of which although now a concert hall, was built originally as a Christian Church.

The other concert venue was quite simply an exterior location within what had been The Sultan's Palace, in fact where the Sultan's Harem, the seraglio,  had been located.

This was where a concert performance of Mozart's opera In Dem Seraglio took place, and I suppose there will always be an excitement to seeing a performance in the precise location that had been the inspiration for that opera.

Strangely, my most vivid memory of that trip to Istanbul is in the purchase of an artefact.

Ostensibly, my being in Istanbul was to be able to have discussions about potential education links. These came to nothing, and yet as a consequence of this purpose, I was introduced to the Assistant Cultural Attache at the British Embassy, where a small concert was given by a chamber ensemble, a concert to which I was not invited.

But in meeting this Cultural Attache, someone fluent in the language, and familiar with local customs, I was able to purchase from a street-trader a tent fringe which I was assured had originated in Azerbaijan.

It was many colored silks sewn onto a black cotton background, about 14 inches wide, and at least 30 feet in length.

I do not remember how much I paid, but no doubt it was considerably less than the trader had originally asked for.

It must have been about a century old, and had clearly been much in use during that time.

It had the kind of beauty that is particular to something carefully crafted, but with purposeful use, and for years it was hung from a brass stair-rod in the three-storey staircase in our house on the Norfolk/Suffolk border, a 17th-century house in which such an artefact sat appropriately.

The concerts were special as well, especially the consort performance in what would have been the Harem in the grounds of the Palace.

But it was the artefact brought back and carefully displayed, complete with its extraordinary history, that I remember most from that visit.