The name "Kandilli Kerem" turns up several times on the collection cards of the summer of 1943, each time with a different first line. In the Merzifon recording that line is "Ervahı ezelden bir gözel sevdim", and the man who sang the deyiş onto disc was Rüstem Coşar of Diphacı, a village of Merzifon. The recording was made on 8 July, the last of the three pieces Coşar gave the team. The deyiş stayed outside the TRT repertoire, and neither its words nor its melody ever reached print.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; not found under the Amasya region in the TRT repertoire
  • Place and date of collection: Merzifon, 8 July 1943
  • Source person: Rüstem Coşar; according to the index of performers his home was the village of Diphacı in Merzifon
  • Collected by: the Ankara State Conservatory team (Halil Bedii Yönetken, Muzaffer Sarısözen, technician Rıza Yetişen)
  • Published source: Celal Volkan Kaya, Ankara Devlet Konservatuvarı'nın Halk Müziği Alan Araştırmaları Kataloğu (İTÜ, 2014), no. 3668
  • Location in the archive: Folklore Archive, disc 1124/A-2
  • Genre: deyiş
  • Mode, rhythm: not stated
  • Words and music: recorded as anonymous; no poet's name appears in the title
  • Source link: there is no official TRT link; the recording is in Kaya's catalogue

Lyrics

Ervahı ezelden bir gözel sevdim

"Ervah" means souls; the phrase "ervah-ı ezel" refers to the world before creation, when souls had not yet entered bodies. "Gözel", too, means beautiful in Anatolian dialects. The line therefore means "While still in the world of souls I loved a beauty": the lover says his love began before he came into the world. The name "Kerem" in the title seems to tie the deyiş to the repertoire of the tale of Kerem and Aslı, but the catalogue does not explain this link, nor does it say what the word "Kandilli" describes. Nothing beyond the first line appears in any publication. Because Kaya's catalogue deliberately quotes no lyrics, the text has been left to the copies of the cards at TRT; according to Kaya's preface, the ink of some of these photocopies has faded over time and some cards have become illegible.

Collections and Variants

On the same tour this name was recorded in two more places. In Tokat, where the team began its journey, it took down on 25 June a "Kandilli Kerem" from Veli Aydın opening with the line "Bülbül gül dalında gendi halında", and three weeks after Merzifon, in Tirebolu on 31 July, it put on disc another from Emin Uğur beginning "Yümseğine çıkdım kurdum çadırı oturdum". The "Kandilli Kerem" recordings made in Kayseri and Göksun on the conservatory's 1941 tour also open with different lines. That the name stays fixed while the words change in every recording suggests "Kandilli Kerem" may have been used as the name of a tune rather than of a single poem; the cards carry no note that would confirm this, and until the notations are published it cannot be known whether the melodies resemble one another. The "Gandilli (Güzelleme)" that Bektaş Yıldız sang in Gümüşhacıköy the next day carries the same word.

Story

Not a line tells on what occasions this deyiş was sung in Diphacı, or from whom Coşar committed it to memory; no story of its composition was collected either.

Musical Features

All that is known about the melody is its neighbour on the disc. The recording shares side A of disc 1124 with "Engin Hüseynî", which the card describes as "the oldest tarikat makam"; Coşar sang that long song first and this deyiş after it.

Performers and Recordings

The first piece Rüstem Coşar sang that day was "Koşuye(?) Makamı", performed together with Mehmet Çelen. This recording, whose first line on the card is "Dedem beni bir bağçaya gönderdi", later entered the TRT repertoire as Dedem Beni Bir Bahçeye Gönderdi. In Merzifon the name "Kandilli Kerem" remains tied to Coşar's disc alone. The Melody of Yeşilırmak considers the deyiş of Merzifon together with the other melodies of the region.

Bibliography

Online sources