CONSTANTINOPLE.
The reform which the emperor has been so industriously and zealously promoting in the manners and customs of the Turks, will soon be as complete in musical as it already is in military affairs. The Turkish, or rather Arabic music, has given way to that of Europe, and scarcely anything of melody or harmony is now heard in Constantinople that has not been imported from Italy. At four o’clock in the afternoon, at the moment of Yindy, the time when the public functionaries among the Ottomans retire from business, a band of wind instruments is daily heard traversing the interval between the courts of the new palace. This band is called the ‘Band of the Agas of the Seraglio,’ and consists entirely of young Turks who have become able performers, under the instruction of M. Donizetti, brother of the composer. At first, the combinations of European harmony, and the overtures of Rossini, were torture to the ears of all good Mussulmen, but they begin, at length, to be somewhat reconciled by use, and their holy horror at whatever proceeds from the Giaours of the West is not proof against the charms of ‘Di Tanti Palpiti,’ and numerous other melodies of Rossini, &c.