The secret of Ottoman music, which inspired Mozart and Beethoven, lay in the sweet sounds of dozens of intstruments which have not survived to our day.

Music occupied a very important place in Ottoman society, and the court did not begrudge music the support it gave to the other arts. Topkapi Palace was a virtual conservatory, where both women and men received intensive training in music. Every concubine mastered an instrument while also being instructed in singing and dancing. Indeed, there were concubines who learned to play the trumpet, usually considered a man’s instrument. The men, on the other hand, received their musical training in the Enderun, which was the palace school. Albertus Bobovius, for example, a Pole who entered this school while still young and spent twenty years there, contributed a great deal to Turkish music.