Author: Yasar Kemal (Turkey)
Genre: Radio play
Production: RIAS 1985
Editing: Tayfun Erdem, Götz Naleppa
Music: Tayfun Erdem
Length: 119 min.
Sound and technology: Röske, Bischke

Contributors: Hürdem Gürel, narration
Erdem, Tayfun (pianist); Aberg, Lennart (saxophonist); Hartmann, Hans (bassist); Temiz, Okay (drummer); Erguner, Süleyman (flute); Özkan, Talip (lute)

Content: One morning, a magnificent, richly decorated white horse stands in front of Ahmet's hut. No inhabitant of Mount Ararat would ever return such a gift from God. The Pasha, however, wants to reclaim his white horse; he knows neither tradition nor traditional law. The prince's mania for ruling finally finds a limit in the pride of the people who revolt against him.
The 'Legend of Mount Ararat' goes back to Kurdish epics from eastern Anatolia. They are set in a time of cultural upheaval in Turkish history, in which the Ottoman dynasty built up its world empire with brutality and cunning. Wherever it won, it installed a "modern" religious-social system that took power away from the old tribal princes and threw the old folk traditions overboard.
Tayfun Erdem, a Turkish composer and singer living in Berlin, has rewritten the legend in the spirit of the folk singers of the time, the Asik, and told it with contemporary musical means oriented towards jazz.
Recording of an event in November 1985 at the
Kreuzberg Passion Church