Upon the accession to the throne of Abdülmecid I “Gazi” (Abdul-Mejid I) in 1839, the march for the new sultan was also composed by Giuseppe Donizetti, who wrote the march for the previous sultan. (Franz Lizst also composed a paraphrase of Donizetti’s work and presented it to the Sultan.) It does not have any lyrics.

This anthem was also used by Sultan Murad V, son of Abdülmecid I during his brief three month reign in 1876. However, under Murad V’s reign, a different arrangement by Callisto Guatelli (the composer of the Ottoman anthem used after the “Mecidiye” and before Murad V’s reign) was used, and the anthem was published as “Marche Imperiale Ottomane”, and not “Mecidiye” nor “Muradiye” perhaps signifying for the first time the concept of a national imperial march rather than one for the emporer specifically.

Special thanks to: Jaroslaw Wojcik for some of this information and the music file, Enver Demircigil for the sheet music, and Emre Yigit and Emre Aracı for additional this information.