The title on the card itself tells when the song was sung: while the bride was being brought out before those gathered at the wedding house. This piece, sung by Fatma Samsun in Amasya on 4 July 1943, opens with a religious invocation addressed to an exalted spiritual guide: "Elâ ey mürşidi âlâ". The song was not taken into the TRT repertoire, and no printed text or notation of it is to be found.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; not registered under the Amasya region in the TRT repertoire
  • Place of collection: central Amasya
  • Source person: Fatma Samsun
  • Collected by: the Ankara State Conservatory team: Halil Bedii Yönetken, Muzaffer Sarısözen and the technician Rıza Yetişen
  • Date of collection: 4 July 1943
  • Published source: Celal Volkan Kaya, Ankara Devlet Konservatuvarı'nın Halk Müziği Alan Araştırmaları Kataloğu (İTÜ, 2014), recording list no. 3581
  • Location in the archive: Folklore Archive, disc 1106/A-2 (with a question mark in the catalogue)
  • Genre: folk song (wedding)
  • Mode, rhythm: not recorded
  • Words and music: anonymous
  • Source link: there is no TRT page; the details are in Kaya's catalogue

Lyrics

Elâ ey mürşidi âlâ

The line is built from words of Arabic and Persian origin. "Mürşid-i âlâ" means the exalted guide, the one who shows the way; the opening "elâ" can be read as an interjection of address. That such words were sung at the moment the bride was brought out suggests that this moment was greeted with a ceremony accompanied by prayer. How the words continue and how the ceremony proceeded, however, cannot be learned from the card.

That only the first line is known is the result of Kaya's choice: his catalogue deliberately does not reproduce the words written on the cards, and neither the text nor the melody has passed into any other publication. Fatma Samsun's voice is on disc 1106, and the copy of the card among the documents TRT duplicated from the conservatory's archive.

Story

The title says that the piece is tied less to a particular event than to one stage of the wedding ceremony. When and by whom it was composed is unknown, and published sources are silent on the matter. Besides this, Fatma Samsun sang a henna song and "Gelin Hamama Gidiyor" for the team that day; together, the three pieces form a small bouquet of the melodies women sang at weddings in Amasya in 1943.

Musical Features

In the catalogue the number 1106/A-2 is given both to this song and to the recording in the entry just before, "Bozuk: Yüce dağ başında bir top gar idim", taken from Osman Samsun; the question mark beside the number arises from this overlap. The card for the first recording on the same disc, A-1, is not among the copies at TRT, so that entry remains untitled in the catalogue. Whether the two Samsuns were related cannot be learned from the cards; all they share is a surname and a disc. The song's musical structure is not documented.

Performers and Recordings

Although the henna song on side B of the same disc entered the TRT repertoire, this song is known from no performance other than Fatma Samsun's 1943 recording. The henna song is discussed on the page Âdem Havva'yı Yarattı (Kına Havası); among the other examples of bridal and henna melodies from Amasya is Geline Bakın Geline. The Melody of Yeşilırmak surveys all the province's melodies.

Bibliography

Online sources