Mohori (Cambodia)

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Mohori is an ensemble type of traditional Cambodian music that consists of a set number of stringed instruments, various trough xylophones ( roneat ) and drums. The only Cambodian instrumental ensemble that has no religious function plays a repertoire also called mohori for festive events, to accompany folk dances and for general entertainment . In contrast to the courtly pin peat ensemble, the mohori features several string instruments ( tro ) and flutes ( khloy ), but no gong circles ( kong thom ) and no cone oboen ( sralai ).

Musical environment

Around the middle of the 1st millennium AD, the Chenla community of states in what is now Cambodia was in contact with Indian culture through trade connections , from where it received Hinduism and Buddhism as the state religion practiced for centuries. Today, however, almost nothing of the Indian influence is recognizable in the way of playing and the instruments of Cambodian music. The unification of Chenla under Jayavarman II around 802 to form the Khmer empire with the capital Angkor was essential for the story , which enabled a cultural heyday that ended in the 15th century when Siam came to power . The period up to the 19th century was marked by political instability and the musical tradition, which was practically only cultivated on a village level, came under Siamese influence. Most of the Cambodian musical instruments and styles of music occur under the same name in Thailand . The mohori corresponds to the Thai ensemble mahori . Chinese music exerted a stronger influence .

Today's traditional Cambodian music is the product of a twofold revival: Under Ang Duong , who ascended the throne with Siamese help in 1842, a return to the lost courtly arts of the Khmer Empire took place. The second cultural resurgence since the 1980s is due to the reign of terror of the Khmer Rouge , which between 1975 and 1979 murdered all Cambodian musicians they could get hold of, as well as destroyed musical instruments and musicological records. During this time the music was passed on exclusively in the exile communities.

The Cambodian music ensembles differ primarily according to their purpose and are divided into ensembles for court dance accompaniment, for religious rituals and for entertainment on a village level. The musical instruments can be classified according to how they are played (plucked and bowed string instruments, percussion and wind instruments), and they are classified according to their use in the respective ensemble and according to their pitch. High-sounding instruments play more notes per unit of time than low-sounding instruments and - what is related to the temporal dimension, there are certain instruments whose task it is to determine the beat. A xylophone is depending on the classification to a percussion instrument ( Kroeung mound ), a part of the Mohori -Ensemble ( Kroeung Mohori ) or a leading Instrument ( Kroeung Noam ).

Mohori has a light, entertaining character and is the only ensemble used consistently on secular occasions. Of the other ensembles , the best known is the pin peat (in Thailand pi phat ), whose origins go back to the time of Angkor. It accompanies court dances, theater and religious ceremonies. The gong circles characteristic of Southeast Asia, made up of several tuned humpback gongs , which are missing in mohori , appear here. The horizontally beaten, double-headed barrel drum sampho takes over the rhythmic guidance.

Phleng kar stands for an ensemble and its repertoire that is played at family celebrations (house building, weddings and other transitional ceremonies). As with mohori, a flute ( khloy ) can be included in a line-up.

Arak is the oldest ensemble in Cambodia and its overall sound differs from that of the other ensembles. It is used to accompany traditional religious rituals, including obsession ceremonies for healing the sick, which have been preserved within the prevailing Buddhism. The arak still features the rare stab zither kse diev from India , as well as a double reed instrument .

According to the Cambodian linguist Saveros Pou, the word mohori , spelling variant mahorī , is a short form of manoharī , which goes back to the old Khmer expression manoharā ( manoharī, manoharikā ), which means "gorgeous", "fascinating", which disappeared after the Angkor period "Beguiling" means. This describes the character of mahori music as enjoyable, courtly entertainment. A Khmer ensemble called mohori probably came to Thailand during the time of the Ayutthaya Kingdom , where the mahori initially only consisted of three musicians with stringed instruments and one singer with a rattle ( krap phuang ), all of whom were male. Other instruments were added later and the Thai mahori was a female domain until the second half of the 19th century. A different etymology is proposed for the word mohori, which is common in several Indian languages to denote a double reed instrument.

Style of play

Two spiked fiddles tro so
Ranat ek , the Thai equivalent of roneat ek , with 21 wooden chimes
Beaker drum thaun and frame drum rumanea played in pairs

The line-up of a mohori ensemble varies from region to region. As with pin peat , xylophones, drums and rattles form the rhythmic framework. A typical ensemble includes: roneat ek , a xylophone with a boat-shaped curved resonance box and 21 sound bars made of hardwood or bamboo; roneak thung , a similar, deeper sounding xylophone, the 16 bars of which are horizontal; the stringed instruments: tror so che , a two-stringed, high-sounding spit lute; tror so tauch , just such a spit- lute in a medium-high register; tror so thom in the medium low register and tror u in the low register. The latter corresponds to the Thai sor u with a coconut shell as a resonance body, the other fiddles have a tubular resonator made of wood. There is also the khloy longitudinal bamboo flute with six finger holes and one thumb hole, the three-string zither takhe (also krapeu , "crocodile zither"), introduced from Thailand in the 20th century; the dulcimer khim ( chim ) with 14 double or triple strings and a single-headed beaker drum with a flat body, thaun , which is struck together with the frame drum rumanea ( thaun rumanea ), imported from China via Vietnam . The musician holds the rumanea covered with calf skin vertically on his left thigh and hits it with the fingers of his left hand, while he lets the thaun with a horizontal membrane rest on his lap and hits it with his right hand. In addition, there are the cymbals ching ( chhing ), which consist of two bronze half-shells connected by a cord. These instruments can be used one, two, three or four times, depending on the equipment of the orchestra.

Instead of the thaun , the skor arak , a tumbler drum with a deeper body, is occasionally struck. Their body is made of clay or wood and is covered with snake, lizard or calf skin. According to its name, it is mainly used in the arak ensemble, it is also called skor dey ("clay drum") or skor dai ("hand-held drum"). The khloy flute , which is played in phleng kar and also as a soloist, comes in two sizes: as a small, high-pitched khloy ek and as a larger, deeper khloy thomm . Like the other Cambodian wind instruments, it is played with circular breathing .

After a description of the Belgian musician Gaston Knosp (1874-1942) was Mohori one against the played only by men "big Theater Orchestra" in 1900 pin peat a "more tender Women's Orchestra", which played a chamber music for the Prince. He about lists the same musical instruments (the spit sounds tror and he translated " ravanastron ") and supplemented a large long-necked lute Chapey thom , as today Chapey dang veng is known, and a small, disappeared since the mid-20th century lute Chapey toch . Beaker drum and cymbals are missing from his list, instead he mentions a wooden rattle ( castanets ) called crap-fuong and later replaced by cymbals . The three pike sounds used are similar to the Thai and Chinese pike sounds ( yehu and erhu ), from which they are believed to be derived. According to Terry E. Miller and Sam-Ang Sam, two-stringed spit-lutes have only existed in Cambodia since the 20th century. The instruments also appear in the Thai mahori , with the exception of the chopping board khim , which is derived from its Chinese model yangqin and is missing in Thailand.

The mohori tone scale is pentatonic , which is attributed to Chinese influence, while the heptatonic scale , which also occurs in Cambodian music, is attributed to the Khmer tradition. The keynote in every mohori piece is approximately C. The modes that result from the pentatonic scale do not have their own names and, as in Indian music the ragas , do not represent a specific emotional expression. In Indian classical music, the mode (raga) is introduced at the beginning of the piece by a series of intervals; in Cambodian music, the emphasis on individual notes is more decisive for the mode, which can be identified by its final note. A heterophonic harmony arises from the tone sequences that each musician produces using a fixed rhythmic pattern .

The mohori ensemble used to play at court banquets and continue to perform at festivals, annual festivals, to accompany folk dances and popular theater performances of the same name. It had its permanent place in the royal palace for the entertainment of the guests. The song Maha Rik Maha Chey ( Khmer , "Glorious Moonbeam"), in which the singing voice and instrumental part alternate, had a ritual function during the coronation ceremony and was performed immediately after the king had accepted his insignia of power. Sakrava is an archaic choral singing that was only performed with mohori accompaniment during the coronation ceremony in the throne room. Mohori music is also part of the Bon Om Tuk water festival, which is celebrated annually in November at Tonle Sap , when the "Greetings to the moon" are sung and orchestral accompaniment on the night of the full moon.

Popular theaters that still exist are, in addition to the mohori, which is associated with the Thai tradition , the Islamic influenced yike and bassac ( basak ) from Java , the Khmer version of a Chinese theater style. When the bassac theater was invented around 1920 in the region of the same name south-east of Phnom Penh (today in the Vietnamese province of Champasak, with its related name ), the new form of theater with acrobatic fighting dances and Chinese costumes competed with the popular yike and pushed other styles such as the Accompanying music called mohori back. The genre roam vung comes from Laos , today a circle dance that is accompanied by Khmer rock bands. At family celebrations (weddings, birthdays), the mohori ensembles , which are still in use, experience additional competition from amplification systems that are cheaper to borrow and play back pop music from cassettes or CDs. On the popular TV channel CTN ( Cambodia Television Network ), the daily program consists of a mixture of classical dance performances with pin peat accompaniment , Western disco music, traditional folk tales , pop boobs as karaoke , covers of pop stars from the 1950s and 1960s such as Sinn Sisamouth and mohori .

Mohori as a song genre stands for modernized folk songs in which the orchestra accompanies a singing voice, and for the corresponding melody of this musical tradition. The songs are about everyday things like fieldwork, love and the pain of separation. In general, sung stanzas alternate with instrumental sections. Since mohori is the only secular ensemble, its repertoire appeared particularly suitable for a renewal as a popular music style, also as a globalized mix of styles with western pop and rock music.

At weddings, a phleng kar ensemble plays between 20 and 30 songs during the day, the selection of which from the phleng kar repertoire is predetermined by the ceremony. Some groups also use popular songs from the mohori repertoire in the phases between the actual ceremonial acts .

Discography

  • "Hang Meas (The Sacred Golden Bird)" Mohori orchestra and choirs of the Royal Palace. Smithsonian Folkways, LP 1971, Jacques Brunet: producer and text booklet
  • Cambodge. Musiques de Palais Royal (Années soixante ...). Recordings from 1966 and 1968 in the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh. Jacques Brunet: text booklet. Ocora, Radio France, Paris 1994, Mohori: tracks 1-3
  • The Music of Cambodia. Vol. 2: Royal Court Music . CD produced by David Parsons. Celestial Harmonies, 1994, Mohori: Titles 8-15
  • Sam-Ang Sam Ensemble: Mohori. Khmer Music from Cambodia . Latitudes, 1997

literature

  • Sam-Ang Sam: Mohori . In: Stanley Sadie (Ed.): The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians . Vol. 16. Macmillan Publishers, London 2001, p. 884
  • Sam-Ang Sam, Panya Roongruang, Phong T. Nguyễn: The Khmer People . In: Terry E. Miller (Ed.): The Garland handbook of Southeast Asian music . Vol. 4. Routledge, New York 1998, pp. 151-216

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Joanna Theresa Pecore: Sounding the Spirit of Cambodia: The Living Tradition of Khmer Music and Dance-drama in a Washington, DC Community. (Dissertation) University of Maryland, 2004
  2. ↑ Sam-Ang Sam: Cambodia . In: Stanley Sadie (Ed.): The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians . Volume 4. Macmillan Publishers, London 2001, pp. 861f
  3. ↑ Saveros Pou: Music and Dance in Ancient Cambodia as Evidenced by Old Khmer Epigraphy. In: East and West, Vol. 47, No. 1/4, December 1997, pp. 229-248, here p. 247
  4. ^ David Morton: The Traditional Music of Thailand. University of California Press, Berkeley 1976, p. 102f ( online at ucpress.edu ( memento of the original from January 14, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ucpress.edu
  5. ↑ Sam-Ang Sam: Mohori, 2001, p. 884
  6. ↑ Sam-Ang Sam, Panya Roongruang, Phong T. Nguyễn, 1998, p. 172
  7. ↑ Gaston Knosp: About Annamite Music. In: Anthologies of the International Music Society , Volume 8, Issue 2, Franz Steiner Verlag, 1907, pp. 137–166, here p. 155
  8. ↑ Terry E. Miller, Sam-Ang Sam: The Classical Musics of Cambodia and Thailand: A Study of Distinctions. In: Ethnomusicology , Vol. 39, No. 2, Spring – Summer 1995, pp. 229–243, here p. 232
  9. ↑ Sam-Ang Sam, Panya Roongruang, Phong T. Nguyễn, 1998, p. 178
  10. ↑ Jacques Brunet: Supplement to the CD Cambodge. Musiques de Palais Royal (Années soixante ...), 1994
  11. ↑ Catherine Diamond: Emptying the Sea by the Bucketful: The Dilemma in Cambodian Theater. In: Asian Theater Journal, Vol. 20, No. 2, Fall 2003, pp. 147–178, here pp. 162f
  12. ^ Rolf Bader: Buddhism, Animism, and Entertainment in Cambodian Melismatic Chanting smot - History and Tonal System. Published in: Albrecht Schneider, Arne von Ruschkowski (Eds.): Systematic Musicology: Empirical and Theoretical Studies . (Hamburg Yearbook for Musicology, Volume 28) Peter Lang, Frankfurt 2011
  13. ↑ Stephen Mamula: Starting from Nowhere? Popular Music in Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge. In: Asian Music, Vol. 39, No. 1 (Popular Music in Changing Asia) Winter – Spring 2008, pp. 26–41, here p. 33
  14. ↑ Chapey Dong Veng: អុំទូក ស យ (Om Touk Soy). Youtube video (solo of the three-string long-necked lute chapey dong veng to the melody of a mohori love song)
  15. ↑ Linda Saphan: From Modern Rock to Postmodern Hard Rock: Cambodian Alternative Music Voices. In: Ethnic Studies Review , 35, No. 1 and 2, Spring 2015, pp. 23–40
  16. ↑ Kathy M. McKinley: Tros, Tevodas, and Haircuts: Ritual, Music, and Performance in Khmer Wedding Ceremonies . In: Canadian University Music Review / Revue de musique des universités canadiennes, Vol. 19, No. 2, 1999, pp. 47-60, here p. 54