"Gandilli" is how "kandilli" is pronounced in the dialect of Gümüşhacıköy, and the word found its way onto the conservatory team's cards several times in the summer of 1943. This güzelleme, a song in praise of a beauty, sung by Bektaş Yıldız in Gümüşhacıköy on 9 July, opens with the line "Çünki gözel bende meylin yoğumuş". The güzelleme was not taken into TRT's repertoire, and neither its notation nor its words have been published to date.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; not registered under the Amasya region in the TRT repertoire
  • Place of collection: Gümüşhacıköy
  • Source person: Bektaş Yıldız
  • Collected by: the Ankara State Conservatory team: Halil Bedii Yönetken, Muzaffer Sarısözen and the technician Rıza Yetişen
  • Date of collection: 9 July 1943
  • Published source: Celal Volkan Kaya, Ankara Devlet Konservatuvarı'nın Halk Müziği Alan Araştırmaları Kataloğu (İTÜ, 2014), recording list no. 3703
  • Location in the archive: Folklore Archive, disc 1133/A-2
  • Genre: minstrel song (deyiş); described on the card as "güzelleme"
  • Mode, rhythm: not recorded
  • Words and music: anonymous
  • Source link: there is no TRT page; the details are in Kaya's catalogue

Lyrics

Çünki gözel bende meylin yoğumuş

The line means "Since, my beauty, you had no inclination towards me"; "meyil" here is the leaning of the heart, love. The minstrel seems at last to have understood that the beauty he loves feels nothing for him. How this reproach continues in the rest of the güzelleme is unknown, because the remaining lines never passed into any publication. Kaya's catalogue gives nothing beyond the first line; the full text is kept on the card's TRT copy, and Yıldız's voice on side A of disc 1133.

Collections and Variants

On the conservatory cards the name "Kandilli" usually appears together with Kerem. "Kandilli Kerem: Dizini dizimden ıramaz iken" was recorded in Kayseri in 1941, and "Kandilli Kerem: Seherde uğradım ben bir güzele" in Göksun in the same year. On the 1943 journey the name turns up again: in Tokat on 25 June Veli Aydın sang a "Kandilli Kerem", and in Merzifon on 8 July Rüstem Coşar put "Kandilli Kerem: Ervahı ezelden bir gözel sevdim" on disc. On the Gümüşhacıköy card, however, the name Kerem does not appear, and the piece is described as a güzelleme. Whether Yıldız sang the güzelleme to the melody known as Kandilli Kerem, or whether the name points to something else, remains unanswered as long as no notations are available.

Story

The card gives no poet's name. Kaya writes that in minstrel poems he identified poets not named in the title from the pen name in the lyrics and added them in square brackets. The previous piece Yıldız sang on the same disc carries the note "[Veli'den]"; that this recording has no such addition suggests that the cataloguer saw no pen name in the lyrics. No printed information was found on whom the güzelleme was written for or where Yıldız learned it.

Musical Features

"Güzelleme" names a poetic genre, the praise of a beauty; it says nothing about whether the melody was sung in free or measured rhythm, and the card has no note on its scale or metre either. Yıldız's saz appears in the catalogue's appendix of instruments as tuned in the bozuk tuning; he probably played and sang the piece on this saz, but the cards do not state the instrument separately for each recording.

Performers and Recordings

On side A of disc 1133, "Beni Bir Dost Yareledi (Divan) [Veli'den]" was recorded before Gandilli, and on side B "Beypazarı: Gezdür Garacoğlan gır atı gezdür". No performance of the güzelleme other than this 1943 disc is known; the only one of Yıldız's recordings that day to enter the TRT repertoire is Tokat'ın Mezerliği. The other melodies of Gümüşhacıköy and the province are brought together in The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Online sources