Palokë Kurti (1858–1920) was an Albanian composer, performer, and singer. A native of

Shkodër Shkodër ( , ; sq-definite, Shkodra; historically known as Scodra or Scutari) is the List of cities and towns in Albania, fifth-most-populous city of Albania and the seat of Shkodër County and Shkodër Municipality. Shkodër has been List of o ...

, he was a musical amateur who composed the ''Unity of Albania March'' (''Bashkimi Shqipnis'') in 1881. Kurti took his first piano lessons from the Italian musician Giovanni Canale. During his youth he was in contact with the ''aheng'' groups from which he learned their way of singing and also how to compose verses in the ''

bejtexhi A bejtexhi (, , a compound of Arabic ] and rom Turkish , occupational suffix plural: bejtexhinj ) was a popular bard of the Muslim tradition in Ottoman Albania. The genre of literature created by bejtexhinj in the 18th century prevailed in d ...

'' style. He joined the Shkodra band in 1878 and two years later became its bandmaster. After the ''Bashkimi Shqipnis March'' he also composed several marches, polkas and mazurkas in the Mittel-Europa tradition. However the compositions related to national music are the ones that will make him important in the history of the music of Albania. Kurti composed two

potpourri Potpourri ( ) is a mixture of dried, naturally fragrant plant materials used to provide a gentle natural scent, commonly in residential settings. It is often placed in a decorative bowl. Etymology The word "potpourri" comes into English from ...

s on Shkodrane urban popular songs called "The Musical Entertainment of our Forefathers", the second of which is in F Major. In this potpourri he uses an entirely

diatonic Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are used to characterize scales. The terms are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair ...

modal language and a tonal harmony (unlike in Potpourri 1 which uses non-diatonic modes of the

makam Maqam, makam, maqaam or maqām (plural maqāmāt) may refer to: Musical structures * Arabic maqam, melodic modes in traditional Arabic music ** Iraqi maqam, a genre of Arabic maqam music found in Iraq * Persian maqam, a notion in Persian class ...

type). According to Koço he is doing this on purpose so that the local music was purged of Oriental sounds, but sounded more Western. Kurti composed songs and also wrote the texts of the songs. Several songs that have been composed by Kurti have survived but many survive without attribution. He was exiled for two years, probably for political reasons. After his return to Shkodër in the 1890s his main occupation was composing. He was exiled two more times, the last time to

Corfu Corfu ( , ) or Kerkyra (, ) is a Greece, Greek island in the Ionian Sea, of the Ionian Islands; including its Greek islands, small satellite islands, it forms the margin of Greece's northwestern frontier. The island is part of the Corfu (regio ...

in 1919. Exhausted, he died in 1920 and his burial was followed by a multitude of people from his native town. His value remains due to a very skillful and masterful combination of oriental and western music.

References

Bibliography

* 1858 births 1920 deaths Albanian composers Albanian male composers Albanian musicians Musicians from Shkodër Albanian conductors (music) 19th-century composers from the Ottoman Empire Albanian people from the Ottoman Empire {{Albania-composer-stub