Ottoman–Safavid histories · 1623–1639

Shah, with What Force Did We Come to Baghdad?

This programme brings together music from early seventeenth-century sources, including pieces notated by Ali Ufkî, with compositions reflecting the Ottoman court and its wider cultural sphere.

At its centre is the Baghdad Campaign during the Ottoman–Safavid War of 1623–1639. Archival texts, chronicles, and poetic fragments place the music within the artistic responses to Murad IV’s conquest of Baghdad, exploring how sound, memory, and power intersect in times of conflict.