Bandura
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- For the article on the Canadian psychologist, see Albert Bandura.
Bandura (Ukrainian: Банду́ра) refers to a Ukrainian plucked string instrument similar to a zither, as well as to its lute-like Baroque predecessor, the kobza. The term is also occasionally used by folk instumentalists when referring to a number of other more common Eastern European string instruments such as the hurdy gurdy and the 5 string guitar (commonly referred to by the diminutive bandurka).
Musicians who play the bandura are referred to as bandurists. Some traditional bandura players, often blind, were referred to as kobzars.
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[edit] Etymology
The earliest mention of the term bandura dates back to a Polish chronicle of 1441, which states that the Polish King Sigismund III[citation needed] had a court bandurist known as Taraszko who was Ukrainian and was the king's companion in chess. A number of other court bandurists of Ukrainian ethnicity have also been recorded in medieval Polish documents.
The term bandura is thought to have a Latin pedigree (deriving from pandora or pandura via the medieval Polish term barduny ("lute").
The term kobza was often used as a synonym for bandura and the terms were used interchangeably until mid 20th century. The use of the term kobza pre-dates the first known use of the term bandura. Kobza was first mentioned in a Polish chronicle in 1313, having been introduced into the Ukrainian language sometime in the 12-13th century. It is thought to have Turkic pedigree.
Occasionally one comes across the combined term kobza-bandura which refers to the dual origins of the instrument, however this is rarely used in spoken Ukrainian.
The term bandoura, a transliteration of the Ukrainian term via French is occasionally found. The term was incorrectly translated as bandore or bandora in some Soviet Ukrainian-English dictionaries.
[edit] Early history
The use of lute-like instruments by the inhabitants of the lands than now constitute Ukraine dates back to 591.
There are iconographic depictions of lute-like instruments in the 11th century frescoes of St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, once the capital of a vast ancient kingdom. It is not known what these instruments were referred to in these early times, although it has been surmised that the lute-like instrument was referred to by the generic medieval name for a string instrument - husli.
The instrument became popular in the courts of the nobility in Eastern Europe. There are numerous citations mentioning the existence of Ukrainian bandurists in both Russia and Poland. Empress Elisabeth of Russia (the daughter of Peter the Great) was alleged to have secretly married her Ukrainian court bandurist, Olexii Rozumovsky.
Use of the instrument fell into decline amongst the nobility with the introduction of Western musical instruments and Western Music fashions.
The bandura was a favourite instrument of the Ukrainian Cossacks. After the destruction of the Zaporozhian Sich the instrument continued to be played by wandering blind itinerant musicians known as kobzari in Right bank Ukraine.
[edit] Development of the bandura
The invention of an instrument combining organological elements of lute and psaltery is creditable to Francesco Landini, an Italian lutenist-composer of trecento. Filippo Villani writes in his Liber de civitatis Florentiae, "...[Landini] invented a new sort of instrument, a cross between lute and psaltery, which he called the serena serenarum, an instrument that produces an exquisite sound when its strings are struck." Rare iconographic evidence (by artists such as Alessandro Magnasco) reveals that such instruments were still in use in Italy ca. 1700. Similar instruments have been documented as having existed in Ukraine in the preceding century.
In the hands of the Zaporozhian cossacks, the bandura underwent significant transformations, undergoing changes in construction and the development of a specific repertoire. At the Zaporozhian Sich, special schools for blind bards were established, setting the foundation for the epic tradition of the kobzar. By the 18th century, the instrument had developed into a form with approximately four or five stoppable strings strung along the neck (with or without frets) and up to sixteen treble strings known as prystrunky strung in a diatonic scale across the soundboard. The bandura existed in this form relatively unchanged until the end of the 19th century.
The development of an unfretted bandura was thought to have happened later, around 1800. This type of bandura superseded the fretted type, and became the ancestor of the modern-day bandura.
The bandura underwent a rapid change in the 20th century, paralleling the development of Ukrainian ethnic awareness. Sanctions introduced by the Russian government in 1876 banning the playing of the instrument on stage were lifted in 1902. While it had been believed that the last blind kobzar (Ostap Veresai) had passed on in 1890, six blind traditional kobzars were found to be alive and performed on stage at the XIIth Archeological Conference in Kharkiv. Thenafter, the bandura became very popular among young students. Gut strings were replaced by metal strings (standard after 1902). The number of strings and size of the instrument also began to grow to accommodate the sound production required for stage performances.
Subsequent developments included metal tuning pegs (introduced in 1912), additional chromatic strings (introduced in 1925 on instruments used by the Kyiv Bandurist Capella), and the mechanisms for rapid retuning of the instrument (first used in 1931).
Although workshops for the serial manufacture of banduras had been established earlier outside of Ukraine (in Moscow (1908), and Prague (1924)), continuous serial manufacture of banduras was started in Ukraine in sometime in the 1930s. After World War II, two factories dominated the manufacturing of banduras: the Chernihiv Musical Instrument Factory (which produced over 300,000 instruments from 1954-1991) and the Trembita Musical Instrument Factory in Lviv (which has produced over 3,000 instruments since 1964).
[edit] Education
The first mentions of an institution for the study of bandura playing date back to 1738 to a music academy in Hlukhiv where the bandura and violin were taught from music. This was the first music school in Eastern Europe and prepared musicians and singers for the Tsarist Court in St Petersburg.
In 1908, the Mykola Lysenko Institute of Music and Drama in Kiev began offering classes in bandura playing, instructed by kobzar Ivan Kuchuhura Kucherenko. Kucherenko only taught until 1911, and attempts were made to restart the classes with Hnat Khotkevych teaching them, but his exile in 1912 and the death of Mykola Lysenko prevented this from happening. Khotkevych wrote the first primer for the bandura, which was published in Lviv in 1909. It was followed by a number of other primers specifically written for the instrument, most notably those by Mykhailo Domontovych, Vasyl Shevchenko and Vasyl Ovchynnikov, written between the years 1913-14.
Formal conservatory courses in bandura playing were reestablished only after the Soviet revolution, when Khotkevych returned to teach at the Kharkiv Muz-Dram Institute. This development was prompted by the establishment in 1923 of a bandura school in Prague with over 60 students. Other courses in bandura instruction were begun in 1930 at the conservatories in Kyiv and Odessa. By 1932-33, however all bandura courses in Ukraine were disbanded.
After World War II, and particularly after the death of Joseph Stalin, bandura courses were again re-established in music schools and conservatories in Ukraine, initially at the Kyiv conservatory under the direction of Volodymyr Kabachok, who had recently released from a gulag labor camp in Kolyma.
Today, all conservatories of music in Ukraine offer courses majoring in bandura performance. Bandura instruction is also offered in all music colleges and most music schools, and it is now possible to get advanced degrees specialising in bandura performance and pedagogy. The most renowned of these establishments are the Kyiv and Lviv conservatories and the Kyiv University of Culture, primarily because of their well-established staff. Other centers of rising prominence are the Odessa Conservatory and Kharkiv University of Culture.
[edit] Performance
[edit] Persecution
Many bandurists and kobzars were systematically persecuted by authorities that controlled Ukraine at various times. This was because of the association of the bandura with certain aspects of Ukrainian history and also the prevalence of religious elements in the kobzar repertoire that eventually was adopted by the latter-day bandurists. Much of the unique repertoire of the bandura dealt with the Ukrainian Cossacks. A significant section of the repertoire consisted of para-liturgical chants (kanty) and psalms which were sung by the kobzari outside of churches as the latter were often suspicious of and sometimes hostile to kobzars' moral authority.
In the 1930s, Soviet authorities took measures to curtail nationalistic aspects of Ukrainian culture (see Russification). This included any interest in the bandura. Various sanctions were introduced to limit cultural activities that were deemed nationalistic. When these sanctions proved to have little effect on the spreading of such cultural artifacts, bandurists often came under harsh persecution from the Soviet authorities. Many were arrested and some executed or sent to labor camps. At the height of the Great Purge in the late 1930s, the official State Bandurist Capella in Kyiv was changing artistic directors every 2 weeks because of these arrests.
In recent years significant evidence has come to light that an ethnographic conference for bandurists, specifically for blind kobzars and lirnyks, was organised in Kharkiv in December of 1933 which was attended by an estimated 300 blind musicians who were subsequently executed.
After the death of Joseph Stalin the severe policies of persecution against bandurists was halted. Many bandurists who had been shot or sent off to labor camps were "rehabilitated". Some returned to Ukraine. Conservatory courses were once again re-opened as was the serial manufacture of instruments by instrument factories in Chernihiv and Lviv.
Although direct and open confrontation ceased, the Communist party continued to control the development of bandura art. A policy of feminization of the bandura restricted the number of male bandurists able to study the bandura (kobzarstvo had originally been an exclusively male domain). Restrictions existed in obtaining an instrument and in the opublication of musical literature for the bandura. Only specific trusted performers were allowed to perform on stage with severely censored and restrictive repertoire. These restrictions have left a significant impact on the contemporary development of the artform.
[edit] Construction
The back of a traditional bandura is usually carved from a solid piece of wood (either willow, poplar, cherry or maple). Since the 1960s, glued back instruments have also become common; even more recently, banduras have begun to be constructed with fiberglass backs. The soundboard is traditionally made from a type of pine, usually spruce. The wrest planks and bridge are made from hard woods such as birch.
The instrument was originally a diatonic instrument, and despite the addition of chromatic strings in the 1920s, it has continued to be played as a diatonic instrument. Most contemporary concert instruments have a mechanism which allows for the rapid retuning of the instrument into different keys. These mechanisms were first included in concert instruments in the late 1950s.
Significant contributions to bandura construction were made by Hnat Khotkevych, Leonid Haydamaka, Peter Honcharenko, Ivan Skliar, Vasyl Herasymenko and William Vetzal.
Today there are three main types of bandura:
- Starosvitska or Authentic traditional banduras: also referred to as Classical or old-time bandura, these instruments usually have some 20-23 strings. Theses instruments are usually hand-made, with no two instruments being exactly the same. The backs are hewn out of a single piece of wood, and wooden pegs hold the strings which are tuned diatonically. Traditionally these instruments had gut strings, however at the beginning of the 20th century common performance practice preferred steel strings.
- Kyiv-style or Academic bandura: these are the most common banduras in use today in Ukraine. These instruments have 55-65 metal strings tuned chromatically through 5 octaves, , with or without retuning mechanisms. Concert banduras are primarily manufactured by the Chernihiv Musical Instrument Factoryor the Trembita Musical Instrument Factory in Lviv. Rarer instruments exist from the Melnytso-Podilsk and Kiev workshops.
- Kharkiv-style bandura: these instruments are primarily made by craftsmen outside of Ukraine; however, in more recent times, they have become quite sought after in Ukraine. They are strung either diatonically (with 34-36 strings) or chromatically (with 61-65 strings).
[edit] Music
In 1910 the first composition for the bandura was published in Kyiv by Hnat Khotkevych. It was a dance piece entitle "Odarochka" for Kharkiv-style bandura. Khotkevych prepared a book of pieces in 1912, but because of the arrest of the publisher, it was never printed. Despite numerous compositions being composed for the instrument in the late 1920s and ealy 30's, and the preparation of these works for publication, little music was published in Ukraine. In 1926, a collection of bandura compositions was compiled by Mykhailo Teliha, which was published in Prague.
Professional Ukrainian composers only started composing seriously for the instrument after World War II. Composers such as M. Dremliuha, A. Kolomiyetz, Y. Oliynyk and K. Miaskov have created complex works such as sonatas, suites, and concerti for the instrument.
In recent times more Ukrainian composers have started to incorporate the bandura in their orchestral works with traditional Ukrainian folk operas such as Natalka Poltavka being rescored for the bandura, and contemporary works such as Kupalo by Y. Stankovych and The Sacred Dnipro by V. Kikta incorporating the bandura as part of the orchestra.
Western composers of Ukrainain extraction such as Yuriy Oliynyk and Peter Senchuk have also begun composing serious works for the bandura.
[edit] References
- Diakowsky, M. - “A Note on the History of the Bandura” // The Annals of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the U.S. - 4, 3-4 №1419, N.Y. 1958 - С.21-22
- Diakowsky, M. J. - The Bandura // The Ukrainian Trend, 1958, №I, - С.18-36
- Diakowsky, M. – Anyone can make a bandura – I did // The Ukrainian Trend, Volume 6
- Haydamaka, L. – Kobza-bandura – National Ukrainian Musical Instrument // “Guitar Review” №33, Summer 1970 (С.13-18)
- Hornjatkevyč, A. – The book of Kodnia and the three Bandurists // Bandura, #11-12, 1985
- Hornjatkevyč A. J., Nichols T. R. - The Bandura // Canada crafts, April/May, 1979 p.28-29
- Mishalow, V. - A Brief Description of the Zinkiv Method of Bandura Playing //Bandura, 1982, №2/6, - С.23-26
- Mishalow, V. - The Kharkiv style #1 // Bandura 1982, №6, - С.15-22 #2 – Bandura 1985, №13-14, - С.20-23 #3 – Bandura 1988, №23-24, - С.31-34 #4 – Bandura 1987, №19-20, - С.31-34 #5 – Bandura 1987, №21-22, - С.34-35
- Mishalow, V. - A Short History of the Bandura // East European Meetings in Ethnomusicology 1999, Romanian Society for Ethnomusicology, Volume 6, - С.69-86
- Mizynec, V. - Folk Instruments of Ukraine // Bayda Books, Melbourne, Australia, 1987 - 48с.
[edit] External links
