The title names the Forty (Kırklar), while the only line that reached the card speaks of a beauty: "Bir güzel gördüm kare". The catalogue does not show how the two ends meet in this semah, sung by Kazım Aygül of the village of Halas in Gümüşhacıköy on 9 July 1943, because the rest of the text has never entered any publication. On the same day in the same town another semah, under the name "Gırklar Zamahı", was taken from Bektaş Yıldız; on the cards the two are separate recordings.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; not found in the Amasya section of the TRT repertoire
  • Source person: Kazım Aygül (saz; born Rumi 1318, i.e. 1902-1903; farmhand; Gümüşhacıköy, village of Halas)
  • Place and date of collection: Gümüşhacıköy, 9 July 1943
  • Collected by: the Ankara State Conservatory team (Halil Bedii Yönetken, Muzaffer Sarısözen, Rıza Yetişen)
  • Genre: semah ("zamah" is the pronunciation on the card)
  • Mode, rhythm: not recorded
  • Words and music: registered as anonymous
  • Location in the archive: Folklore Archive, disc 1135/B-1
  • Source publication and link: Kaya's catalogue, no. 3714; full text of the thesis. There is no TRT link

Lyrics

Bir güzel gördüm kare

The first three words of the line are clear in today's language too: "I saw a beauty". The final "kare", however, can be understood in two ways; if it is taken as "kara" written in the local pronunciation, it becomes an adjective describing the beauty's dark hair or eyes, but a single line is not enough to make this reading certain. No notation of the melody has been published either; the sound recording is in the Folklore Archive of the former Ankara State Conservatory, at the beginning of side B of disc 1135.

Story

At which cem gatherings in Halas the semah was performed is not known; nor is the person from whom Aygül learned it. The catalogue's list of performers gives only his year of birth, his work as a farmhand and his village; the notes column, filled in for other singers, is empty on his line. No account of its making is met with in published sources either.

Musical Features

Instead of mode and metre the catalogue records only the instrument: Aygül used his saz in the recording, a fact given in square brackets. After the semah, side B of the disc carries Aşir Sirke's "Gül Türküsü", attributed to Nesimî, while side A holds Aygül's dance tune "Livana", a song of his whose title could not be read, and two pieces by Sirke. Bektaş Yıldız's semah of the same day fills the whole of side A of disc 1134; whether the two semahs are melodically close cannot be deduced from the cards.

Performers and Recordings

The semah is known only from Aygül's disc. That day Kazım Aygül sang eight pieces ranging from a semah and a mersiye to a güzelleme and dance tunes; two folk songs for which he is the source person passed into the TRT repertoire, one of them being Yazı Yazdım Sokuya. "Gül Türküsü", which follows the semah on the disc, is described on the page Sabahtan Uğradım Pir Divanına. For a general view of the melodies of Gümüşhacıköy and the other districts, see The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Online sources