"Üsküp", played on a violin and a darbuka, takes its name from a Rumelian city hundreds of kilometres from Amasya, Üsküp, today's Skopje. The two men who played the tune for the conservatory team, however, were from Amasya itself: the dyer Muharrem Sorgu and Sabri Tınaztepe, whose occupation was entered on the card as "boş", none. The pair recorded three instrumental tunes one after the other on side B of disc 1104, and Üsküp was the first of them. The tune's notation has not been published, nor did it enter the TRT repertoire.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; it does not appear in Kaya's comparison table with TRT either
  • Source persons (players): Muharrem Sorgu (violin; dyer, born Rumi 1321, from central Amasya), Sabri Tınaztepe (darbuka; born Rumi 1329, from central Amasya)
  • Place of collection: Amasya, in square brackets in the catalogue
  • Date of collection: 4 July 1943, in square brackets in the catalogue
  • Collected by: Ankara State Conservatory (Halil Bedii Yönetken, Muzaffer Sarısözen, the technician Rıza Yetişen)
  • Source publication: Celal Volkan Kaya, Ankara Devlet Konservatuvarı'nın Halk Müziği Alan Araştırmaları Kataloğu, İTÜ, 2014, recording list no. 3569
  • Location in the archive: Folklore Archive, disc 1104/B-1
  • Genre: instrumental dance tune
  • Mode, rhythm: not on the card
  • Music: anonymous
  • Regional attribution: disputed; its name recalls Üsküp (Rumelia), while it was collected in central Amasya from Amasya musicians
  • Source link: Kaya's thesis; there is no TRT page

Lyrics

Only the name of this instrumental tune made it into the catalogue, and its notation is in no known publication. The disc, number 1104, is in the Folklore Archive, which today belongs to the State Conservatory of Hacettepe University. What is known about the recording comes from the collection cards copied to TRT in the 1970s.

Name and Attribution

The name points to the Balkans, but the story of the men who played it unfolds in Amasya. The notes column for Sorgu and Tınaztepe is empty, and both are entered simply as "Amasya, Merkez"; according to Kaya, that column is reserved for the original home towns of performers who had come from elsewhere and settled in the collecting area. The name Üsküp occurs in this single recording in the catalogue. There is no printed information on whether the tune came to Amasya from Rumelia or took its name for some other reason, and its attribution to the region accordingly remains disputed.

Story

No local account has been published of the weddings or entertainments at which the tune was played. The disc's own small history, however, can be traced: side A of disc 1104 had been filled two days earlier at Zile with songs sung by Ahmet Temiz, and when the team moved on to Amasya it gave side B to the tunes of Sorgu and Tınaztepe. In the catalogue Üsküp's place and day are given in square brackets as Amasya and 4 July; the team had passed from Zile to Amasya that day.

Musical Features

The violin is in Sorgu's hands, the darbuka in Tınaztepe's; as Kaya explains, the instrument column of the performer list shows only instruments used in the recording. What kind of dance a tune with a Rumelian name accompanied on these two instruments, and its scale and rhythm, cannot be read from the card.

Performers and Recordings

Paçalı, which follows Üsküp, entered the TRT repertoire as no. 125 with Muzaffer Sarısözen's notation; the third piece is "Sarhoş Havası". On the same day Muharrem Sorgu also played in the recording of the song Amasya'nın Dağları with Abdullah Çakırer and Muhlis Orçun. Nobody playing Üsküp after 1943 appears in the records. The other melodies of central Amasya come together in The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Online sources