How it began
In 1618 Avedis, an Armenian alchemist living in Constantinople, now Istanbul, found a process for treating alloys and applied it to making cymbals of unusual clarity and sustain. He worked at the Ottoman court. In 1622 the sultan gave him 80 gold pieces and the family name Zildjian, which means cymbal maker. In 1623 he was allowed to leave the palace and open his own foundry at Samatya, in the suburbs of the city. The company account names the sultan as Osman II; Wikipedia names Mustafa I.
How it works
The instrument is a thin disk of alloy that rings when struck. According to Wikipedia, Avedis combined tin, copper and silver into a sheet of metal that could make musical sounds without shattering. The treatment of the alloy has been kept inside the family. It passed from Avedis to his eldest son Ahkam in 1651 and down the generations after that, and in 1945 it was written down and placed in a vault.
How it spread
The workshop supplied the mehter, the military bands of the Janissaries, and also Greek and Armenian churches. European composers took up cymbals from 1680, when Strungk used them in the opera Esther. Mozart used them in 1782 and Haydn in his Military Symphony in 1794. Kerope Zildjian exported across Europe and won honors at exhibitions in Paris in 1867, Vienna in 1873, Boston in 1883, Bologna in 1888 and Chicago in 1893. In 1929 the business was incorporated in Quincy, Massachusetts.
What lasted
In the United States Avedis Zildjian III worked with drummers such as Gene Krupa, Chick Webb and Papa Jo Jones in the 1930s, made thinner cymbals at their urging, and named the paper thin crash, ride, splash, hi-hat and sizzle. Wikipedia records that these cymbals were widely adopted by swing and bebop musicians and laid the foundations of the modern drum kit. By 1950 the firm made 70,000 cymbals a year.
Where it stands today
The company remains in the Zildjian family, with Craigie Zildjian named chief executive in 1999, and is based in Norwell, Massachusetts, where it opened a factory in 1973. Wikipedia describes it as the largest maker of cymbals and drumsticks and one of the oldest continuously operating companies. It marked its 400th anniversary in 2023 and in 2024 added a line of electronic drum kits. Manufacture left Istanbul in the twentieth century, so the link to Turkey today is one of origin.
