"İki yavrum büyüttüm de / En sonunda sele verdim": I raised two little ones, and in the end I gave them to the flood. The first quatrain of the lament names the loss outright: two children have been swept away. Words and melody are by Necdet Kurt, who also wrote the notation. The place given in the catalogue is the village of Yeşilöz in Amasya. The lament has no place in the TRT repertoire; entered in the archive as no. 259, it takes its subtitle, "Dağlar Bana", from the refrain.

Catalogue Data

  • Archive no.: Repertükül Archive 259 (not a TRT number)
  • Region: Amasya, Yeşilöz village
  • Genre: lament (ağıt)
  • Words and music: Necdet Kurt
  • Source performer: not written; recorded "from the composer"
  • Collected by: not stated
  • Transcribed by: Necdet Kurt
  • Date of collection: not given
  • Mode: Hüseyni scale; final and closing note La
  • Metre: left blank in the catalogue
  • Source link: as it is not in TRT, Repertükül Archive 259

Lyrics

The lament is a short text of two quatrains and a refrain; as Necdet Kurt is a contemporary researcher and performer, it is protected by copyright. Only the first quatrain is given below, and the refrain and second quatrain remain on the score page.

Ele verdim ele verdim
Umutlarım yele verdim
İki yavrum büyüttüm de
En sonunda sele verdim

The quatrain is built on the echo of "ele, yele, sele": things given first to strangers, then to the wind, last of all to the flood, the loss growing heavier at each step. In the refrain the mountains become the mourner's only home, and the grief is such that even an enemy would weep. In the second quatrain the ember in the heart will not go out; the line "bacı gardaş çifte guzu" tells that the lost were a sister and a brother who went together like a pair of lambs. "Guzu" is the local pronunciation of kuzu, lamb.

Story

A flood disaster lies at the centre of the words. In which year and on which stream it happened, and who the two lost children were, is written in no publication. Nor can one tell from the score whether the lament was made over a real event or is a work built in the language of the lament tradition.

Musical Features

It is a Hüseyni melody spread over seven notes, from La to Sol. La serves as both final and closing note. The metre field in the catalogue is left empty. Laments are often sung in free, unmeasured rhythm, but since the catalogue does not say so explicitly, nothing certain can be said about the rhythm of this tune.

Performers and Recordings

The archive entry does not introduce Necdet Kurt. A 2019 notice of the Institute of Folklore of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences speaks of Necdet Kurt as a Turkish researcher of the art of the âşıks who since childhood had collected and recorded the folk songs of the Tokat and Amasya regions; it is quite likely that he is the author of this lament. The performance behind the notation is the composer's, and no further recording has been published. The name Yeşilöz also appears in a 1960 Köroğlu recording, which is described in the study The Melody of Yeşilırmak. The catalogue does not say whether the two names point to the same village.

Bibliography

Online sources