Mr. Jourdain, whose father grew rich by selling cloth, is rather gullible and intends to acquire the manners of the aristocrats of the court.....
In the end of the play Mr. Jourdain believes to have entered the high nobility while all those arround him succomb to the costs of nobility.
The Turkish ceremony (Deuxième air and Troisième air) for the ennobling of Monsieur Jourdain is performed in dance and music and is a burlesque full of comic gibberish in pseudo-Turkish and nonsensical French causing Monsieur Jourdain, dressed in an extravagant costume, turban and sword, to appear ridiculous.
Deuxième air mimics a burlesque "Turkish" dance through off-beat rhythm and a very dissonant harmony between the two charming upper parts. (Mr Jourdain is declared Muslim by a so-called Muphti, ie. a Turk nobleman).
Troisième air has peculiar rhythms.