Trembita

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A hucul is playing trembita . Woodcut by Zygmunt Ajdukiewicz , 1899

Trembita , more rarely trembyta (plural trembity ), Ukrainian трембіта , is a long-blown natural wooden trumpet in the Carpathians , related to the Swiss alphorn , which is played in the Ukraine, especially by the Hutsuls .

distribution

Wooden trumpets of various shapes and lengths are or were widespread in Europe from the Pyrenees to Scandinavia and from Ireland to the Baltic States . They are always part of the tradition of the shepherds, whose herds are to be rounded up by their sounds and predators to be kept away, with them signals are transmitted over several kilometers, in addition they have a magical meaning for the villagers at seasonal festivals. In the Polesia region in northern Ukraine, shepherds used wooden trumpets one meter long as signaling instruments until the beginning of the 20th century.

For the possible origin and distribution of wooden trumpets in Northern and Eastern Europe, see the article Bazuna about the wooden trumpet played in northern Poland.

Name related to the trembita are the trombita played by the Gorals in the Polish - Slovak border area and the trâmbiță (otherwise bucium or tulnic ) in Romania . The third Polish wooden trumpet in central Poland is a ligawka . In Scandinavia the wooden trumpet lur and the birch bark trumpet neverlur are known, the Hungarian fakurt is now a museum.

Design

The trembita , also known as the “Carpathian trumpet”, consists of a cylindrical wooden tube that is up to three meters long and, according to other sources, two to five meters long and about five centimeters in diameter. The lower end widens into a slim, straight funnel, which, in contrast to the alphorn, is smaller and not curved. The trembita made up as the alphorn of two pieces of wood. A suitable round timber is sawn lengthwise in the middle, peeled off inside with a U-shaped bent knife working on the principle of a bow scraper and then glued together again. For protection, the pipe is wrapped with thin strips of birch bark.

According to an old tradition, the trembita should only be made from the trunk of a species of spruce known under the name smereka , which is widespread in the Carpathian Mountains , if the tree has been toppled by lightning strikes. A magical effect on the far-reaching tone of the later instrument is ascribed to the clap of thunder.

Regardless of the material, the trembita belongs to the brass instruments , as the tones are produced exclusively by tensing the lips. The player blows into a removable mouthpiece made of metal or wood. There are no finger holes, so only the tones of the natural tone series can be produced. The range is 2.5 octaves.

Style of play

Trembita player at the Euromaidan protests in February 2014 in Odessa

In the 19th and up to the beginning of the 20th century the trembita served as a signaling instrument to warn of a bear or the outbreak of fire; also for the transmission of messages, for example to report the death of a villager or to announce a wedding. This service was an unpaid social obligation, the trembita players were only paid for their musical performances. Shepherds and cattle herders of the Hutsul used to send signals to their herd animals with a trembita on the high pastures ( Polonina ). To entertain themselves musically and to dance in the marketplaces of the villages, the shepherds played the bagpipe duda ( dudka among the Hutsuls ).

In addition, the trembita was and is still used in some rural mountain regions for ceremonial music at funerals. According to tradition, the deceased in the house is wrapped in a cloth, placed on a stretcher by the window and buried on the third day. The relatives hang a white cloth on a window in the entrance facade and blow the trembita to publicize the death in the village. In the house, certain purity laws have to be observed, neighbors are asked to nail a coffin together from boards that had been specially made for this purpose a long time ago. On the day of the burial, the mourners gather in front of the house with wax candles and crosses brought from the church until the priest comes and performs prayers and rituals in front of the dead ( pochoron ).

Always three players accompany the funeral procession. They stay some distance from the mourning congregation and come into action several times when the train starts moving again after an interruption and after the priest has finished his prayer. The musicians blow polyphonic tone sequences with a staggered start and occasionally come together to a unison ending. Several times, in some areas up to twelve times, the procession has to be stopped in places that, according to popular belief, transmit a magical power. These special places can be a crossroads, a curve, a bridge or a cross ( fihura ) on the side of the road. Each time the participants cross themselves and one of them says a short prayer before the trembita players become active again. As part of the ceremony, the professional musicians receive a piece of bread in addition to their reward, which they tie to their instrument (in a plastic bag) while playing.

Trembity occur in the three Hutsul folk music genres, which are differentiated according to the occasion: music in the pasture ( Polonina ), Christmas carols ( Koliadky ) and funeral music . In the past only men played trembita . From the 1970s onwards, some older players started teaching their granddaughters. Women still do not appear at funerals. Today the trembita is occasionally used in folk music and ethnic jazz by composers who appreciate the dark, melancholy sound of natural tones.

The trembita has become known nationwide as a folkloric addition to pop music. The Ukrainian singer Ruslana Lyschytschko effectively incorporated a trembita into her song Wild Dances , with which she won the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest . In Wild Dances there are choreographed movements that are derived from Hucul dances, whereby in Ruslana's performances the trembita or the Ukrainian flute floyara are used as a particular takeover of tradition in order to locate a pop music style that is received as multicultural in a national Ukrainian identity. According to David-Emil Wickström, the use of the Hutsul instruments is intended to place the style of play of Ruslana's band in the context of a national Ukrainian culture, which is different from that of Russia.

Another wind instrument of the Hutsuls is the rischok ( rih ) a curved conical (cattle) horn, which was used for an instrumental interlude and as a vocal accompaniment. Three or four rischok players blowing at the same time and a singer produced a cacophonic sound result. In the north-west of Ukraine, the one to two meter long conical wooden horn truba replaces the trembita . The truba is played in the same way at funerals.

literature

  • William Noll: Ukraine . In: Thimothy Rice, James Porter, Chris Goertzen (Eds.): Garland Encyclopedia of World Music . Volume 8: Europe. Routledge, New York / London 2000, pp. 812f

Web links

Commons : Trembita  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Andreas Michel, Oskár Elschek: Instruments of folk music. In: Doris Stockmann (Ed.): Folk and popular music in Europe. ( New Handbook of Musicology, Volume 12) Laaber, Laaber 1992, p. 324
  2. ^ Traditional set of musical instruments and instrumental music of Ukrainian Polissya. Photo of musical instruments. storinka-m.kiev.ua
  3. ↑ Ukraine . In: Music in the past and present . Sachteil 9, 1998, col. 1105
  4. ^ Folk Musical Instruments .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Embassy of the Ukraine in Canada@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.ukremb.ca  
  5. ↑ Ivan Senkiv: The pastoral culture of the Hutsuls. A folklore study. Herder Institute, Marburg 1981, p. 161, ISBN 978-3879691678
  6. ^ Samuel Koenig: Mortuary Beliefs and Practices among the Galician Ukrainians. In: Folklore , Vol. 57, No. 2, June 1946, pp. 83-92, here pp. 85f
  7. ↑ Natalia Havryl'iuk: The Structure and Function of Funeral Rituals and Customs in Ukraine: Folklorica, Vol. 8, No. 2, 2003, p. 18
  8. ↑ Trembita Beskidzka + śpiew - Józef Broda. Youtube video
  9. ↑ Marko Pavlyshyn: Envisioning Europe: Ruslana's Rhetoric of Identity. In: The Slavic and East European Journal , Vol. 50, No. 3 (Special Forum Issue: Contemporary Ukrainian Literature and National Identity ) Fall 2006, pp. 469–485, here p. 477
  10. ^ David-Emil Wickström: "Drive-Ethno-Dance" and "Hutzul Punk": Ukrainian-Associated Popular Music and (Geo) politics in a Post-Soviet Context. In: Yearbook for Traditional Music, Vol. 40, 2008, pp. 60–88, here p. 83
  11. ^ William Noll, 2000, p. 812