Life in Istanbul.

 

With the help of the Court pianist to the Sultan, Ilen Ilegy, Bortkiewicz began to give concerts and started teaching again in Istanbul (Turkey). He became well known throughout a number of embassies and made an acquaintance with the wife of the Yugoslavian ambassador Natalie Chaponitsch, to whom he dedicated his Trois morceaux opus 24 pour piano. She organised musical gatherings for Bortkiewicz within the embassy. Despite the good living conditions in Constantinople (Istanbul), Bortkiewicz longed to live in Europe. To Hugo van Dalen he wrote on 18 August 1921: "Naturally I long for Europe, music, culture, art with my whole heart. Over here things are very pitiful in this respect. Only the place and the climate are beautiful. I have engagements for Vienna and Budapest for the 1st September, but for the time being I will remain here till I have accumulated plente of foreign exchange with concerts and lessons. I then hope to move to Vienna or Budapest to recover and finally to compose. Here I do not have the time nor the mood to write even a few notes." With the help of ambassador Chaponitsch the composer and his wife were able to obtain a visa for Yugoslavia. Bortkiewicz and his wife arrived in Sofia via Belgrade, where they had to wait for some time before obtaining an Austrian visa.