Disc 1133, filled in Gümüşhacıköy on 9 July 1943, holds two güzellemes, songs in praise of beauty, and two different singers sang them. On side A stands Bektaş Yıldız's "Gandilli (Güzelleme)", at the end of side B this piece sung by Kazım Aygül. The title written on the card also states whose words they are: "Güzelleme (Kul Hüseyinden)", a güzelleme from Kul Hüseyin. The first line was recorded as "Aşkı muhabbetim destim demanda"; no publication is known to give the rest of it or its melody.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; not registered under Amasya in the TRT repertoire
  • Source person: Kazım Aygül; farmer, from the village of Halas in Gümüşhacıköy, year of birth on the card 1318 in the Rumi calendar (1902-1903); in the list of performers his instrument is given in square brackets as saz
  • Place and date of collection: Gümüşhacıköy, 9 July 1943
  • Collected by: the Ankara State Conservatory team: Halil Bedii Yönetken, Muzaffer Sarısözen, the technician Rıza Yetişen
  • Genre: deyiş (güzelleme)
  • Words: Kul Hüseyin (according to the title on the card); music anonymous
  • Mode, rhythm: unknown
  • Source publication: Celal Volkan Kaya's catalogue, no. 3705 (İTÜ Polen); there is no TRT link
  • Location in the archive: Folklore Archive of the former conservatory, disc 1133/B-2

Lyrics

Aşkı muhabbetim destim demanda

The beginning of the line is clear: "aşk-ı muhabbetim", my love and my affection. "Destim" means "my hand", from the Persian word dest. "Demanda", however, is open to two possibilities. If the collector who wrote the card set down the word "dâmanda", "on the skirt", as it reached his ear, the line means "my love, my affection; my hand on (the beloved's) skirt", a way of speaking about binding oneself to a spiritual guide or to a beloved. If the word has to do with "dem", breath or moment, the meaning turns in another direction. Until the rest of the line is known, neither can be chosen. The catalogue does not say who Kul Hüseyin was or when he lived; since the full words have not been published, only the first line given by the card can be quoted here.

Story

The way the title is written offers a small clue to where the name Kul Hüseyin came from. Where the poet's name was not written on the card, Kaya read the pen name from the words of minstrel poems and added it to the title himself, marking these additions with square brackets; "Ben de Şu Dünyaya [Pir Sultan Abdal'dan]", which Aygül sang the same day, is one such case. "Kul Hüseyinden", by contrast, stands in ordinary brackets, which suggests that the name was written on the card itself. At the start of the same journey, on 26 June in Reşadiye, another deyiş titled "Safa Geldin [Gul Hüseyn'den]" was recorded. Whether the two pen names belong to the same poet cannot be determined from the information in the catalogue. How the güzelleme came about, and in what setting it was sung in Gümüşhacıköy, is not recorded in print.

Musical Features

Two güzellemes on one disc invite the thought of a melodic kinship, but whether Aygül's piece shares anything with Bektaş Yıldız's, which begins "Çünki gözel bende meylin yoğumuş", is unknown. The mode and rhythm of the melody are recorded nowhere either.

Performers and Recordings

The güzelleme is the first of eight pieces Aygül sang for the team that day, and no other performance of it is known. After it come a "Mersiye", "Meyrem Oyunu", "Parçalı", "Livana", a song whose opening could not be read and which continues "Elinde bıçak yarim", a "Kırklar Zamahı" and the deyiş of Pir Sultan Abdal. "Meyrem Oyunu" entered the TRT repertoire as Meryem Suya Gidiyor; there is one more song in the repertoire in which Aygül is named as the source person: Yazı Yazdım Sokuya. The general article on the melodies of Amasya: The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Online sources