If you have listened to Turkish folk music, and then go listen to the Classical music, you will realize that these are very different sound, style, mood, etc. However, I enjoy both, which is why this page exists. Just like the Folk Music page, I will list the albums I have and talk about them.
Just like the folk music page, I won't begin to try and talk about it in an educated way (again, because I'm not), but I will try and give my opinions about the albums I have.
This was the first album I listened to in this genre. I managed to find it by tracking down this version of "Uzzal Pesrev" after Farya Faraji featured a few seconds of its Usul on his videos about (guess.......) Usuls (!). That's what led me to this album, I listened to it, and I enjoyed it, and I bought it on iTunes. This was probably the best album for me to get into Ottoman Classical music. While I might rank some other albums on this list higher than this one, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this album at all, and I think it prepared me for some other albums that I would find. Overall, if you have never heard this album before, find it and listen to it; of all the albums I have, I think this would be the average, not in terms of quality, but in terms of aggregating "what Ottoman Classical Music is all about", as I have listened to it, anyway. Like Farya Faraji, I also recommend "Uzzal Pesrev" by Sultan Murad IV.
This is probably one of the top albums on this page. While it does not exclusively feature Ottoman music (it has Armenian and Sephardic songs as well), every song on this album is top quality. Just go listen to it. If you liked Sazende Fasli 1, then you will like this.
I have to be honest. This is probably the most flawed album on this list. Let me explain this. While there are some songs that I simply have less interest in (while others may like them), it seems to be a collection of different various recordings, meaning that some songs sound like they were recorded many years ago, while others sould a bit more modern; some sound like they may have been done in a studio (no reverb) while others sound like they were done in a concert hall or something (reverb); one or two cut off seemingly a few seconds too early. Despite all of this, there are a few songs in this album that I do really enjoy. "Evjara Saz Semai" really stands out, as well as a few others. Give this album a try, though. Maybe what bothers me may not bother you.
This is the one I probably listened to the least; the first few seconds of the first song just kind of threw me off, but when I stop and think about it, the rest of the album is quite good. From what I understand about this album and the composers, Jordi Savall's Instanbul album features many works by Dimitri Cantemir, while this album's works are by Tanbur Cemil Bey, who lived a few hundred years later. I guess later Ottoman Classical Music has a bit of a different sound comapred to earlier; this seems all natural and well. Though, I think I prefer the several-hundred-years-old style more than the more recent sound. Again, I would still recommen this album.
While this one only has something like five actual Turkish pieces, this is another absolute beast of an album! I recommend this one completely!
I actually only have "Nikriz Pesrev" and not the rest of the album. If you have actually listened along, then you know that there are no vocals in any of the albums I have recommended so far. In this album, I think most of the songs had vocals, but this one does not. Now, of course I would want to get the song written by a Polish guy in the Ottoman Classical style (look up Wojciech Bobowski aka Ali Ufki Bey). I heard a different version on YouTube before I found this one, and one comment did seem to sum it up, "sly and slinky". This album has a different sound to the instruments compared to the rest of the albums (except the next one). After reading up on Bezmara, it seems, at least for the next album, and by the sound of it, maybe here too, they used period instruments. I guess this is what Ottoman Classical music sounded like 300 or 400 years ago. I quite like it.
Another Bezmara album; yes! Supposedly, they got the pieces from Dimitri Cantemir's book on Ottoman Classical music. I also highly recommend this album. These Bezmara albums have a different sound to the rest of the albums on here, which is quite refreshing.
This is the only album I own a physical copy of (CD). I know that this is more religious music, but may of the songs sound just like the supposedly secular counterparts (or do I completely misunderstand Ottoman Classical music? probably). That is why I included it here. In typical fasion, I have no idea what the words translate to.