The day on which this halay was played could not be read on the card, and the place was not written down at all. Kaya was able to assign six of the 1943 Amasya recordings only to the month of "July" and to a general "Amasya province"; Turhal Halayı, which Mustafa Kılıç and Veli Döngel gave to the disc, is the last of these six pieces. Its name, however, recalls Turhal, a town of Tokat.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; not registered in the TRT repertoire under the Amasya region
  • Source persons (players): Mustafa Kılıç (born Rumi 1328, from the village of Aşağıabdal in central Amasya, instrument given in square brackets in the catalogue as zurna), Veli Döngel (Rumi 1317, farmer, home town not on the card, zurna)
  • Place of collection: Amasya province; the settlement could not be identified, given in square brackets in the catalogue
  • Date of collection: July 1943; the day could not be read on the card
  • Collected by: Ankara State Conservatory (Halil Bedii Yönetken, Muzaffer Sarısözen, the technician Rıza Yetişen)
  • Source publication: Celal Volkan Kaya's 2014 catalogue thesis, recording list no. 3619
  • Location in the archive: Folklore Archive, disc 1112/B-3
  • Genre: halay, instrumental dance tune
  • Mode, rhythm: unknown
  • Music: anonymous
  • Regional attribution: disputed; collected in Amasya province, its name points to Turhal
  • Source link: Kaya, 2014; there is no TRT link

Lyrics

This is a zurna halay, and the space for a first line on its card was left empty. Neither notation nor words have been printed. Two documents remain: disc 1112 of the Folklore Archive at the State Conservatory of Hacettepe University, and its collection card, copied for TRT in the 1970s.

Name and Attribution

The name leaves open whether the tune belongs to Amasya or to the neighbouring lands of Tokat; the catalogue adds no note on the matter. One of the players, Mustafa Kılıç, is known to have come from an Amasya village; where Veli Döngel came from was not written on the card. The team had begun collecting in Tokat that summer and had come to Amasya by way of Zile. No other recording in the catalogue bears the name "Turhal". The same "Amasya province" group also contains a "Tokat Oyun Havası" that Veli Döngel played with Cuma Nacak. Two instrumental tunes whose names recall the Tokat region thus stand side by side in the same group; what this points to has not been discussed in published sources.

Story

Where the halay was danced, and on what occasion, appears in no printed record. The order on the disc, however, carries a small clue: on side B of disc 1112, directly before Turhal Halayı, come two pieces sung by Naciye Perin with Sabri Tınaztepe, and their cards plainly bear the date 6 July 1943. Kaya nonetheless gave the halay no definite day and left it among the undated recordings.

Musical Features

The instruments are zurnas: the performer list shows both players with the zurna, giving Kılıç's instrument in square brackets. The pair also played a "Kürt Halayı" on side A of the same disc. The card records neither how many sections the halay had nor its scale and rhythm.

Performers and Recordings

Mustafa Kılıç's recordings in the catalogue consist of these two halays alone. Veli Döngel, for his part, played four more pieces with Cuma Nacak in the undated group; pages have been published for two of them, Amasya Üç Ayak ve Yeldirmesi and Bildiş Oyun Havası, which entered the TRT repertoire. Nobody who played Turhal Halayı after that summer is mentioned in the sources. The neighbouring pieces on the disc are described under the titles Geline Bakın Geline and Sabah Oldu Kaynanam Geldi. The province's other dance tunes can be reached through The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Online sources