Reaching from the low F sharp to the D an octave and a sixth above it, "Dedem Beni Bir Bahçeye Gönderdi" ("My Dede Sent Me to a Garden") uses the widest range of any piece in the repertoire credited to Amasya: its catalogue entry gives thirteen notes. Rüstem Coşar sang this deyiş, together with Mehmet Çelen, for the conservatory's collecting team in Merzifon on 8 July 1943, and the recording filled both sides of a disc. İsmet Akyol wrote out the notation, and the piece entered the TRT repertoire as no. 2708, its subject given as "deyiş". Because of the words "bir hoş" ("how lovely") that close every couplet, some publications call the song "Bir Hoş". The title of the notation says "bahçeye", while the lyrics use the local form "bahçıya"; Nail Demircioğlu and Haluk Yücel both list the song under the second form.

Catalogue Data

  • TRT repertoire no.: 2708, kırık hava section; subject deyiş
  • Region: Amasya; the repertoire names no district, the 1943 recording was made in Merzifon
  • Source performer: Rüstem Coşar (also the performer)
  • Collected by: Ankara State Conservatory (Halil Bedii Yönetken, Muzaffer Sarısözen and the technician Rıza Yetişen)
  • Collection: 8 July 1943, Merzifon; in the conservatory list as "Koşuye(?) Makamı […'den ve Güheri'den]", disc 1123/B-1 and 1123/B-2, performers Rüstem Coşar and Mehmet Çelen
  • Transcribed by: İsmet Akyol
  • Mode: Hüseynî scale; final and closing note La
  • Metre: 7/8
  • Words and music: folk deyiş; the last stanza on the collection slip, which did not go into the notation, carries the pen name Kul Himmet
  • TRT link: TRT repertoire no. 2708. As there is no official TRT page for individual works, the catalogue data, lyrics and a recording taken from the source performer are on Repertükül.
  • Ministry of Culture and Tourism audio file: in the list of the Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism as "Dedem Beni", listen

Lyrics

Dedem beni bir bahçıya gönderdi
Vardım o bahçanın gülleri bir hoş
Yel eser de üğrün üğrün üğrünür
Üğrünür selvinin dalları bir hoş
Eğer o bahçanın bağbanı varsa
Gülünü derdirmiş gerçek er ise
Eğer o bahçanın ismi dil ise
Sultan serhoş olmuş dilleri bir hoş

The glossary under the notation explains four words: üğrünmek means to sway, bağban a gardener, dermek to gather, and dil the heart. The first stanza can be rendered in plain prose as: my dede sent me to a garden; I went, and how lovely were the roses of that garden; whenever the wind blew, the branches of the cypress swayed gently, and how lovely those branches were. In the second stanza the garden becomes a riddle. If the garden has a gardener, and he is a true man, he has had its rose gathered; if the garden's name is the heart, then the sultan there is drunk, and its tongues are lovely. In the last line the word dil works in both of its senses at once, as heart and as tongue.

Read this way, the garden of the deyiş is the familiar garden of the heart in Sufi poetry, and the true man is the mature one of the path. In Alevi tradition dede is the title of the person who guides the community; the "dedem" of the first line may have been meant in that sense, but the notes to the notation do not touch on it, and the word can just as well be read as "my grandfather".

The repertoire note records separately that the collection slip contains two more stanzas that were not written into the notation:

Zemheride ak güllerin açılır
İreyhanım cüml'aleme saçılır
Dost elinden bade gelse içilir
Badeyi verenin elleri bir hoş
Ezeli de deli gönül ezeli
Benzimize düştü gülün gazeli
Kul Himmet sevmez mi böyle güzeli
Ol ceylan bakışlı özleri bir hoş

Zemheri is the harshest stretch of winter, ireyhan is basil, and bade is wine. White roses opening in midwinter and wine offered by a friend's hand carry the garden image into the gathering of the faithful. The word gazel in the last stanza does not mean the poetic form here but the leaf that yellows and falls: the faded leaf of the rose has settled on the colour of our faces, the singer says. Since the stanza with the pen name was not taken into the notation, the deyiş in its usual form ends without naming a poet.

Story

No printed account tells on what occasion the deyiş was sung. The only clue to hand is the title in the conservatory list. It names two sources in square brackets; the first name could not be read, the second is written "Güheri". The last stanza on the collection slip, meanwhile, carries the pen name Kul Himmet. The two records do not explain each other. That both sides of the disc were given to this piece suggests that the two names in brackets may belong to two separate deyiş sung one after the other in the same session; the catalogue offers no explanation, so this remains only a possibility.

Musical Features

The tune is in the Hüseynî scale and moves in 7/8; it settles on La and closes on La again. What calls for attention is the range. The lowest note is given as F sharp and the highest as the D above the octave; at thirteen notes, this span is close to twice that of most other Amasya pieces in the repertoire. Nail Demircioğlu's table of 48 songs carries over both mode and metre unchanged, while Haluk Yücel files the piece with the kırık hava, the metred songs, and enters it in the 7/8 column of his metre table. The difference between a recording that filled both sides of a disc and the two stanzas of the notation shows that the deyiş was sung at greater length at the time of collection; the notation carries only half of the four stanzas on the slip.

Performers and Recordings

The earliest performance on record is the 1943 disc of Rüstem Coşar and Mehmet Çelen. On the same day in Merzifon Coşar also sang a piece titled "Engin Hüseynî", described in the list as "the oldest tarikat makam", and "Kandilli Kerem". The online copy of the repertoire notation includes a recording marked "from the source performer". The list of local songs of the Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism also has an audio file called "Dedem Beni", but the singer is not named. Beyond these two recordings, no artist who put the song on disc or album turned up in the sources searched. The other songs and long songs of the province are discussed together in the article The Melody of the Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Academic studies

Official sources

Other sources

Online sources