Langeleik
Langeleik , also langleik ( Norwegian , "long game"), is an elongated fretboard zither that is traditionally played by women in Norwegian folk music, especially in the Valdres and Hallingdal regions . With a melody and usually seven drone strings is one of Langeleik including historic Scheitholt to Bordunzithern .
origin
Drone zithers have evolved from single-stringed stick zithers (musical sticks), which is the simplest form of a stringed instrument alongside musical bows . The European zithers go back to the monochord built for teaching purposes in ancient Greece . It consisted of a rectangular wooden box with a sliding bridge over which a string ran. In his music theory work Harmonik from the 2nd century AD, Claudius Ptolemy handed down a box zither with 15 strings of equal length, which was used as a teaching aid and in an ensemble. In the same function and for determining the length of organ pipes, such a monochord with between one and eight strings is mentioned in several sources from the 10th and 11th centuries. According to a manuscript that is in St John's College in Cambridge, and according to the Werden Psalter , which is kept in Berlin, both from the 12th century, minstrels used the monochord together with other musical instruments. Presumably they replaced the movable bridges with frets and thus created the first fretboard zithers. The development went straight up to the drone, which was equipped with a series of drone strings in addition to the playing string while the body remained the same . In addition, the Trumscheit was created in the 12th century, a single-stringed string instrument without a fingerboard, in which the string could be made to sound in the natural tone row by touching it with the thumb . By resorting to the basic form of a monochord, the Swedish preacher Johann Dillner invented the single-stringed fretted psalmodicon in 1829 , which was crossed with a bow . It was widely used as a teaching aid in Scandinavia and the Baltic States .
The name Scheitholt appears for the first time in Michael Praetorius' work Syntagma musicum . II. De Organographica from 1619 for a zither with two melody and two drone strings. The first Scheitholte had no bottom, two playing strings plucked with the thumb and up to ten drone strings. In France, the épinette des Vosges belongs to the type of a long rectangular box . The southern German Scherrzither and the bumblebee , which is widespread in northern Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark and is called humle in Denmark , are further developments with a body that is bulged on one side and taken over from the mandolin . In Sweden this instrument is called långspel or långharpa , in Iceland langspil . A special variant in Finland is the jouhi kantele (also jouhikko ), derived from the name of the Finnish box zither kantele , which is bowed with a bow and is typologically one of the string lyres . The Estonian kannel with five to twelve strings is plucked, as is the similarly shaped Lithuanian kankles and the larger triangular kokles in Latvia . The Dutch noordse balk has an elegantly curved, symmetrical body, which is divided in the middle by a fingerboard over which six playing strings run.
In 1980 the oldest Langeleik with the year 1524 was found in Vardal near Gjøvik . This find is older than the previously known written sources on the drone. The oldest known illustration shortly after 1560 comes from Rynkeby Church in southern Denmark. The first mention of a Langeleik by name is the description of a guest at a wedding that took place in 1619 in the village of Hemne , 90 kilometers west of Trondheim . The guest, because he was drunk, could no longer remember the song he had sung, but still knew that a girl had accompanied him on the Langeleik. This is what it says in a report by the Trondheim bishop published in 1622.
At the end of the 17th century the langeleik was a popular accompaniment instrument for dances and songs in Hjartdal in the southern Norwegian province of Telemark . The same is stated in the 18th century for the nearby town of Tinn . Langeleik was probably played in large parts of the country. At the beginning of the 20th century, the instrument no longer seemed up-to-date and disappeared from radio programs around 1930. The tradition was only preserved to a limited extent in the southern Norwegian regions of Valdres and Hallingdal . There has been a certain revival since the 1970s / 1980s, Langeleiks can be bought in music stores and are taught in some schools.
Design and style of play
The body is oblong and flat, with many instruments tapering at one end and some being slightly bulged on one or both sides. The strings run over a flat ceiling to a built-in or into the body deposed and after curved bottom peg box . The oldest examples from the 17th century are simple, rectangular boxes made of boards without a bottom. The number of strings in older Langeleiks fluctuates between four and 14, today one melody string and seven drone strings made of steel are common. Up to three drone strings can be shorter on some instruments. The free length of the melody string in a modern specimen was 72 centimeters.
The distance between the frets on earlier instruments resulted in unusual tone intervals that lay between a tempered semitone and a whole tone. There is no semitone interval. The Pythagorean according form fifth and octave the scope of the tone scale. The intervals between different old instruments differ considerably. Today a diatonic scale is common for the melody string, starting with the key c1 . The drone strings are tuned in fifths and octaves or as a major triad.
In the 1920s there were sometimes controversial discussions among musicians and composers about the tone scales used in Norwegian folk music. Erik Eggen published an investigation of old Langeleiks in 1923 and came to the conclusion that folk music is partly based on a series of natural tones , especially on the eighth to twelfth overtones, while Eivind Groven , whose research focused on the seljefløyte (willow flute ), is even more so highlighted the importance of the natural tone scale. Another thesis attributed the unequal pitches to the unconscious simultaneous use of different scales. As a basis for the investigations, 100 appropriately functional Langeleiks could serve, which belong to the total number of 200 specimens that had been preserved from the period between the middle of the 17th century and the 19th century. A further investigation from 1974 produced the unifying result that in many Langeleiks the intervals of the lower and upper octaves differ and that, apart from the fifth and the octave, there is hardly any clear interval rule to be found.
The Langeleik lies across in front of the seated player on a table. The melody string and some or all of the drone strings are plucked with a long plectrum in the right hand; The index finger, middle and ring finger of the left hand shorten the melody string. The thumb is generally not used, the little finger is used by some musicians. This way of playing is used to accompany folk dances at a constant tempo, with other melodies, such as the klokkeslåtter ( klokke-lått , "bell tone ", "bell melodies") in tempo rubato , individual accompanying strings can occasionally be plucked to create a melody. The plectrum, guided in a swinging arc in an up and down movement, produces the rhythm. The downward movement takes place with somewhat stronger pressure against the strings and so that the melody string sounds louder than the other strings, so that the melody tone falls on the basic beat. With some upward movements, the pick only strokes the melody and the first two or four accompanying strings. Between the basic strokes generated with the pick during the downward movement, rhythmic subdivisions fall through the fingers of the left hand pressing on the string. While the middle or ring finger is depressing the string, the index finger can pluck the string for an additional note. The same happens if only one finger rests on the string and pushes the string sideways when it is lifted. A second effect arises when a finger of the left hand hits the melody string directly on a fret, adding a higher note than the one already pressed down (with the middle finger) and struck with the pick. Both playing techniques of the left hand in connection with the basic strokes of the plectrum result in a maximum of four subdivided rhythmic patterns.
distribution
Several traditional string instruments are still in use in Norwegian folk music to this day. The old wind instruments, which included long wooden trumpets ( lur ), have also disappeared from rural areas. Langeleik traditionally falls within the sphere of activity of women. In rural regions, the women spent the summer with the cattle on the high pastures ( soeter ). A special genre of songs was created here in connection with everyday tasks. Certain songs called smørbon describe the production of butter, there were melodic calls for goats ( geitlokkar ), cows ( kulokkar ) or to communicate with the shepherds ( laling, huving ) over great distances. In the early evening the women were busy with handicrafts on the soeter or performed instrumental pieces ( lydarslåttar ) with Langeleiks. Later that evening they played to ballroom dances. Concert and dance accompaniment remained the two areas of application of the Langeleik.
Written sources from the end of the 17th century tell of concerts taking place regularly on Sunday evenings, at which women played Langeleik. Still, there were some men who came to be known as professional langeleik players. Ragnhild Viken (around 1810–1895) was a professional Langeleik player who appeared at markets and celebrations. She taught the instrument to her son Johannes Viken (1844–1936), who also became a well-known musician. Berit Pynten (1809 / 1812–1899 / 1900), who lived in a homestead in Valdres, was equally respected. In her low hut she received a visit from Edvard Grieg in the 1880s , who let himself be played and wrote down her dance songs on paper. Grieg and other Norwegian composers studied folk music in the 19th century, which they valued as an element of national culture. It is said that Berit Pynten had a small dancing doll attached to her right hand with a string during the game. In the course of the 17th century, various forms of the violin emerged , which took over the two areas of application of the Langeleik and gradually pushed it back into its core area. The European string instrument spread under the names flatvele ("flat violin") and venleg vele ("ordinary violin") mainly in the north and east of the country, while the Hardanger fiddle ( hardingfele ) with an additional four or five sympathetic strings under the fingerboard remained almost unchanged Form has been played in the south and west since around 1700.
The pieces of music played on the Langeleik are divided into dance songs and melodies for listening. At the dance songs of named, lively in his home region of Hallingdal and fast played dance style include halling , the ganger and Valdres, Hallingdal and Telemark asymmetric in a strict ¾ time standing Springar . Several composers adopted the rhythm and melodic forms of springar , including Edvard Grieg in his folk music adaptation of Jon Vestafe's Springdans Opus 72/2. In popularizing folk music, Grieg was preceded by the violinist Ole Bull (1810–1880) and the composer Ludvig Mathias Lindeman (1812–1887). Lindeman's extensive collection of Norwegian folk songs Ældre og nyere norske Fjeldmelodier ("Older and Newer Norwegian Mountain Melodies") appeared in twelve volumes between 1853 and 1863, with a follow-up volume in 1867. According to the Norwegian pianist Einar Steen-Nøkleberg, his piano arrangement of the dance piece Springlått contains typical Langeleik tone sequences to be played by the left hand.
Concert music pieces belong to the group of klokkeslåtter or huldreslåtter ("Huldrenmelodien", Huldra is a beautiful girl in Scandinavian mythology related to trolls ).
literature
- Ola Kai Ledang: Instrument - Player - Music. On the Norwegian Langleik. In: Gustaf Hilleström (Ed.): Studia instrumentorum musicae popularis III. (Musikhistoriska museets skrifter 5. Festschrift for Ernst Emsheimer .) Musikhistoriska museet, Stockholm 1974, p. 107–118, illus. P. 273 f.
- Pandora Hopkins: Norway . In: Thimothy Rice, James Porter, Chris Goertzen (Eds.): Garland Encyclopedia of World Music . Volume 8: Europe. Routledge, New York / London 2000, p. 414 f.
- Reidar Sevåg, Tellef Kvifte: Langeleik. In: Grove Music Online , 2001
Discography
- Gunvor Hegge (Langeleik), Knut Kjok (violin), Roger Slastuen (violin), Jacques Leininger (Langeleik): Norvege - la langeleik. Ocora, Radio France, 2003 (M0505276)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ John Henry van der Meer: Zither . In: Friedrich Blume (Ed.): The music in past and present. (MGG) Volume 14. First edition 1968, Sp. 1363f
- ^ Klaus-Peter Koch : String instruments . In: Herbert Jankuhn , Heinrich Beck (ed.): Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde . Volume 26, De Gruyter, Berlin 2004, p. 158
- ^ Hopkins: Norway . In: Garland , p. 414
- ↑ Ola Kai Ledang, p. 109
- ↑ Olaf Gurvin: Norway. In: MGG, Volume 9. First edition 1961, Col. 1586
- ^ Hans-Hinrich Thedens: Norwegian folk music in the sound archive. (PDF; 132 kB) International Association of Music Librarie, Volume 51/2, April - June 2004, p. 3
- ^ Reidar Sevåg: Neutral Tones and the Problem of Mode in Norwegian Folk Music. In: Gustaf Hilleström (Ed.): Studia instrumentorum musicae popularis III. (Musikhistoriska museets skrifter 5th Festschrift for Ernst Emsheimer) Musikhistoriska museet, Stockholm 1974, pp. 207–213
- ↑ Ola Kai Ledang, p. 109f
- ^ Margaret Hayford O'Leary: Culture and Customs of Norway. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara CA 2010, p. 145
- ^ Hopkins: Norway. In: Garland , p. 415
- ^ Daniel M. Grimley: Grieg: Music, Landscape and Norwegian Identity. Bodyell Press, Woodbridge 2006, pp. 36, 44, ISBN 978-1-84383-210-2
- ^ Hayford O'Leary, p. 146