The name "Kızılırmak" turns up in two separate records of Amasya's melodies, and this long air is only one of them. Haluk Yücel's 2018 table of types shows "Kızılırmak" among the uzun havas, the long airs, and his metre table marks it as free. A lament that the Ankara State Conservatory recorded in Amasya in 1943 was also entered in the conservatory's list under the heading "Kızılırmak". In Yücel's table, however, that lament's popular name, "Zilha Gelini", stands on a separate row, as a kırık hava.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; there is no work called "Kızılırmak" in the Amasya section of the TRT repertoire
  • Region: Amasya
  • Type: uzun hava (Yücel 2018, Table 5)
  • Metre: free (Yücel 2018, Table 6)
  • Mode (makam): not stated
  • Source performer, collector, place and date of collection: unknown
  • Words and music: anonymous
  • Link: there is no TRT link; Yücel 2018

Lyrics

Yücel's table mentions the melody by name only; neither its words nor its notation are found in any published source. Although Yücel names most of the other works by their opening lines, he recorded this one with a single word, the name of a river. Which line the melody opens with is therefore unknown as well.

Story

No account of how the long air came to be made has been published. The subject of the 1943 recording that shares its name, on the other hand, is known: it is the lament Allah Allah Dedik Ata Bindirdik, sung for a bride swept away while crossing the Kızılırmak and registered with TRT under number 1893. No record shows whether Yücel's long air has anything to do with that event.

Musical Features

Yücel counts only seven of the 89 works as long airs, and "Kızılırmak" is one of these seven. The melody is marked as free in the metre table, that is, it is sung without being bound to a fixed measure. The 1943 lament in the TRT repertoire, by contrast, is a kırık hava notated in the asymmetrical 5/8 metre; the "Zilha Gelini" row in Yücel's table is likewise marked as a kırık hava in 5/8. This difference in type and metre says that the two names do not point to the same score. That the words of the lament were also sung freely to another tune cannot be ruled out; no notation or sound recording that would confirm this has been published. The article contains no information on the makam of the long air.

Performers and Recordings

No singer or source performer of this long air is known by name. Because Yücel gives no source for individual works, it cannot be traced whether the melody was taken from a TRT recording, from an album or from the people of the region. For a general introduction to Amasya's melodies: The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Online sources