As is typical with every project he undertakes, Jordi Savall's album Istanbul: Dimitrie Cantemir "The Book of the Science of Music" and the Sephardic and Armenian musical traditions is beautifully executed, with lively, idiosyncratic performances informed by scrupulous research and collaboration with performers who are masters in their field. Cantemir (1673-1723) was one of the most exceptional and multitalented men of his time. He was twice briefly the Prince of Moldavia; a scholar in the fields of linguistics, ethnography, historiography, religion, philosophy, literature, and music, whose intellectual achievements were recognized in Eastern and Western Europe and in the Ottoman Empire, an advisor to Peter the Great of Russia, and a composer and virtuoso performer. He devised a notation system for Ottoman music and left a vast collection of transcriptions of existing and original compositions in The Book of the Science of Music.