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Vano Sarajishvili Tbilisi State Conservatoire 2005.

This bulletin is published semi-annually in Georgian and English

© International Research Center for Traditional Polyphony ofTbilisi V. Sarajishvili State Conservatoire, 2005.

ISSN 1512 - 2883

Editors:Rusudan Tsurtsumia, Tamaz Gabisonia

Translator:Maia Kachkachishvili

Design:Nika Sebiskveradze,Giorgi Kokilashvili

Computer services:Tamaz GabisoniaValeri Jugheli

Printed by: Chokhi

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Ethnomusicologists are well aware of the dis-cussion between the followers of two differentscientific viewpoints, which continued through-out the 20th century. According to one, ethno-musicology is a science, which is based on per-sonal experience obtained in field expeditions;according to the other, ethnomusicology, as a sci-ence, emerged thanks to sound recordings.

Most scholars agree that ethnomusicology orcomparative musicology, as it was called fromthe 1880s until the 1950s, deals with both “livemusic of oral tradition” and folk music (accord-ing to Bruno Nettl, this is found not only inEurope and America, but in Africa and Asia too).When researching this kind of music, ethnomusi-cologists give priority to the experience of theirpersonal expeditions. This enables them to con-sider the impressions which they obtained whenlistening to the audio material performed in itsnatural environment, as well as the context ofperformance or ritual-magic function - in shortthe social, ethnological and culturological con-text of the audio example.

It must be admitted that two technical innova-tions turned to be significant factors for thedevelopment of comparative musicology in the1880s – Edison’s gramophone and Ellis’s nota-tion of cents for musical intervals. The formergave the possibility for repeating the perform-ance, the latter – to compare various musical tun-ings.

The first phonogram-archives of Vienna(1899), Paris (1900), Berlin (1900) and Moscow(1901) gave an incentive to the comparativestudy of the oral musical traditions of variouspeoples.

For the preservation of the world’s musicaldiversities UNESCO adopted the “Conventionfor the Safeguarding of the Intangible CulturalHeritage”. The adoption was preceded by muchwork. I would like to make a mention of specialprojects, thanks to which the inventorying of tra-ditional culture, including musical folklore, start-ed in many countries of the world. This also

implies creation of an information database i.e.documentation of the music of oral traditions.Being a participant of UNESCO Experts Meetingon Inventorying Intangible Cultural Heritage(17-19 February, 2006, Paris), I was convincedthat the only way for safeguarding and transmis-sion of this tradition is its teaching. Hence, mate-rialization and replication are necessary today forthe preservation of oral tradition.

It is not surprising that the interest of bothpracticing performers and scholars to folk songrecordings has significantly grown. Ronda L.Sewals writes about the factors which create the-oretical barriers for ethnomusicologists in the useof archival recordings (Ronda L. Sewald, SoundRecordings and Ethnomusicology: TheoreticalBarriers to the Use of Archival Collections, in:Resound, A Quarterly of the Archives ofTraditional Music, Vol. 24, #1,2). Scholars canconsider these barriers and use both methodolo-gies, i.e. the synthesis of already existing record-ings and personal field experiences. The currentsituation in Georgia provides a wonderful possi-bility for this; here we can still find a number oftrue “homo-polyphonicuses” (Zemtsovsky) and,at the same time, have at hand audio recordingsof Georgian polyphony, the earliest of which wasmade exactly a century ago - in 1907.

The Third International Symposium onTraditional Polyphony confirmed the increasedinterest in the collections of audio recordings.The following presentations on this topic werepresented: Dieter Christensen (USA) - “SoundArchives, Technology, Research, State”; SusanneZiegler (Germany) – “Polyphony in Historical

Echoes from the Past Dr. Prof. Rusudan Tsurtsumia,

Director of the IRCTP

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Sound Recordings of the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv”; Gerda Lechleitner & Nona Lomidze(Austria) – “Georgian and Bukharian Jews inVienna”; Franz Lechleitner (Austria) – “TheGeorgian Wax Cylinder Collections - RecordingTechnology and Recommendations forRestoration”; Rusudan Tsurtsumia (Georgia) –“Georgian Wax Cylinder Collection”.

The readers of our Bulletin already know, thatthe International Research Center for TraditionalPolyphony of Tbilisi State Conservatoire has car-ried out two projects on phonograph wax cylin-der collections. One project involved the trans-mission of the material from wax cylinders ontodigital media, which was realized together withVienna Phonogrammarchiv and with the person-al help of Dr. Franz Lechleitner; the otherinvolved the publication of the catalogue ofGeorgian wax cylinder collections, as part of theProgram for the Preservation of Cultural Heritageof the Georgian Ministry of Culture, MonumentsProtection and Sport. In addition to this 4 CDswith the audio material have been published;publication of the remaining examples has alsobeen planned.

This volume of Bulletin includes the paper byDr. Susanne Ziegler, which she presented at theThird International Symposium. The paper willalso be published in the book of proceedings forthe Symposium, but we think that wider group ofour readers would also be interested in it. Here we

also suggest the introduction to the “Catalogue ofWax Cylinder Collections in Georgia” for theCatalogue was published in small quantities.Those who would like to familiarize themselveswith it can do so at the following places: GeorgianState Museum of Theatre, Film, Music andChoreography; Ivane Javakhishvili Institute ofHistory and Ethnology; Central Archive of Film-Photo-Phono Documents of the State Departmentof Archives and Records Management ofGeorgia; State Museum of Art and Culture ofAchara Autonomous Republic; Simon JanashiaGeorgian National Museum and Vano SarajishviliTbilisi State Conservatoire.

Rusudan Tsurtsumia

From the beginning of the 20th century upuntil the early 1950s, when it ceased to be used,Edison’s phonograph rendered

a significant service to researchers in theworld of sound. Indeed, it was thanks togramophone and phonograph recordings thatGeorgian polyphony became known outsideGeorgia and the rest of the world got to hearGeorgian polyphony for the first time. Weknow that the Berlin and Vienna archivesinclude collections of wax cylinders andgramophone records of Georgian music record-ed by Adolf Dirr during his expeditions in

Georgia (1909-1913), and Georg Schunemannand Robert Lach recorded from Georgian warprisoners in 1915-1918. A similar collection ispreserved at St. Petersburg Institute of RussianLiterature (Pushkin House), magnetic copies ofwhich are at the State Department of Archivesand Records Management of Georgia.

In the 1970s Vladimer Babilua, a renownedsong-master and head of the then GeorgianState Archive Audio Department, copied thisvaluable material. This archival stock includesexamples recorded in Guria by NikolaiDerzhavin (1910), in Dusheti and Batumi by

INTRODUCTIONRusudan Tsurtsumia

Josef Shilinger (1927) and Evgeni Gippius(1930 and 1935). When recording Guriansongs, Gippius used a new technique for thosetimes, which he developed himself for thispurpose – each voice part being recorded sep-arately.

In the aforementioned Audio Departmentcan also be found magnetic copies of expedi-tion recordings made by Shalva Aslanishvili(Racha, 1928), Ioseb Megrelidze (Guria, 1932)and Grigol Chkhikvadze (Guria, 1933, andPasanauri, 1934). There are few examples ofstudies conducted by native ethnomusicolo-gists into the history of the collection ofrecordings

of Georgian folk music. Until recently wewere better aware of the collections outsideGeorgia, than those in our country.

At the Georgian Folk Music Department ofTbilisi State Conservatoire one could find bro-ken phonograph and wax cylinders; these hadbeen here for years and were regarded as cher-ished relics of past times for there was no pos-sibility of listening to their content. Moreover,nothing was known about the exact number ofwax cylinders in Georgia or their owners until2005.

The efforts of Prof. Kukuri Chokhonelidze,former Head of the Georgian Folk MusicDepartment at Tbilisi State Conservatoire, andProf. Anzor Erkomaishvili, Artistic Director ofthe Georgian Folk Song and Dance StateEnsemble Rustavi, to create a device for mak-ing wax cylinders produce sound were unfortu-nately unsuccessful. When all hopes had faded,

Tbilisi State Conservatoire approached theVienna Phonogrammarchiv for help. This well-known institution immediately responded tothe request and Mr. Franz Lechleitner wasinvited to Tbilisi for preliminary investiga-tions. Support from the Georgian Ministry ofCulture, Monuments Protection and Sportenabled us to invite Mr. Lechleitner for alonger period of time. In November 2005 hetransferred the content of wax cylinder collec-tions onto digital media with a special appara-tus that he has devised to play cylinders. Bythis time the International Research Center forTraditional Polyphony had gathered all avail-able wax cylinder collections in Georgia – 528cylinders in total. It is not improbable thatthere are more cylinders in some private col-lections. The process of transfer turned out tobe fairly arduous. The poor quality of the orig-inal material complicated the issue. This, in itsturn, affected the sound quality of the trans-ferred examples.

Thus the project “Echoes from the Past”came into existence through the efforts ofTbilisi State Conservatoire with the support ofthe Georgian Ministry of Culture, MonumentsProtection and Sport and the ViennaPhonogrammarchiv. Available data suggeststhat Dimitri Arakishvili was the first Georgianmusician to use a phonograph in 1901. Over aperiod of fifteen years he transcribed recordedmaterial and published it in the publications ofthe Musical-Ethnographic Commission ofMoscow University. After returning fromMoscow in 1903, Zakaria Paliashvili traveledaround Georgia with his phonograph. Later hetranscribed his recorded material and pub-lished it as separate collections of transcrip-tions. Phonograph was widely used until theearly 1950s. According to GrigolChkhikvadze, the professors and students ofTbilisi State Conservatoire actively started toapply phonograph for recording folk musicexamples in 1927. Conservatoire students

Shalva Mshvelidze, a composer, and ShalvaAslanishvili, a music historian, visited everyvillage in Svaneti for recording purposes. Inthe 1920s-1940s Georgian composers and folkscholars, including Grigol Chkhikvadze, Ioseb

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Megrelidze, Tamar Mamaladze, SergiZhghenti, Alexandre Partskhaladze and others,traveled all over Georgia and recorded almosteverything currently performed in those times.Chkhikvadze states, that in 1927-1934 the All-Union Institute of Anthropology, Ethnographyand Archaeology organized field expeditions inGeorgia led by Evgeny Gippius, Zinaida Evald

and Khristophor Kushnarev (1927), JosefSchillinger (1927), Shalva Aslanishvili (1928),Evgeny Gippius (1930), Ioseb Megrelidze(1932), Grigol Chkhikvadze, Elene Virsaladzeand Shota Dzidziguri (1933) and GrigolChkhikvadze (1934). The last such field expe-dition material in our possession dates from1952. This current publication includes collec-tions from the following sources: GeorgianState Museum of Theatre, Film, Music andChoreography, Ivane Javakhishvili Institute ofHistory and Ethnology, the State Department ofArchives and Records Management ofGeorgia, State Museum of Art and Culture ofAchara Autonomous Republic, Simon JanashiaGeorgian National Museum and VanoSarajishvili Tbilisi State Conservatoire.

Included here are a total of 523 wax cylin-ders; 44 of these are either blank or have sus-tained serious damage. Specialists

claim, however, that the vast majority of thelatter category could be retrieved and madeaudible, as and when restoration was to takeplace. The audio material from the remaining474 cylinders was transferred onto laser discswithout computer processing (both, the cylin-ders and their laser copies have been returnedto their owners). In addition, full copies ofeach collection are preserved at Tbilisi StateConservatoire and the Vienna Phonogrammarchiv with copyright reserved to originalowners.

This catalogue was prepared for publicationby the International Research Center forTraditional Polyphony as part of a program“Protection of Cultural Heritage” with the sup-port of the Georgian Ministry of Culture,Monuments Protection and Sport. The aim ofthe catalogue is to document the wax cylinders,from which the audio material has been trans-ferred onto digital media and thus make it

available for all those interested in Georgia’scultural heritage.

The information in the catalogue is system-atized and is presented as a chart: Column 1 –specimen number 1- 479; Column 2 – the num-ber indicated on the cylinder box in pencil orpen, presumably written either by the recorderor later by the owner. Sometimes one box pro-vides two different numbers. In this case bothnumbers are included in the chart;

Column 3 – Date of recording;Column 4 – Place of recording;Column 5 – Title of song;Column 6 – Name of performer;Column 7 – Additional relevant notes.The above information is extracted from

rough paper notes inserted into the cylinderbox at the time of recording, usually by theresearcher. For example, it is clear in the caseof Shalva Mshvelidze’s collection that it was,in fact, his daughter Nana, who created the listof the recorded material based on the paperinformation included into the cylinder boxeswhen the composer was still alive. Recordedmaterial on the cylinders themselves often con-tains noteworthy information; the recorder gen-erally announces the title of a song and thename of a performer, sometimes even namesthe instrument played, etc.

In cases when the information provided onthe paper and by the announcer does not coin-cide, the latter is included in the column“Recorder’s note”. Sometimes the announcer isinaccurate; for instance, when it is announcedthat a performer plays the chonguri and in factthe panduri is clearly heard. In the cases suchas this, the correction is presented in the chart“Editor’s Note”

In Column 5 the numbers that precede thesong titles indicate the order of songs on thecylinder. In Column 6 we indicate in parenthe-ses before the performer’s name the songswhich can be attributed to him / her. Somecylinder boxes in the collections of theNational Museum (numbers 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 12 and15) and the Institute of History and Ethnology(numbers 33 and 16) contain the full writtentexts of the songs recorded on the correspon-ding cylinder. These texts remain in the posses-

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sion of the above-mentioned institutions andany person interested in these should makeappropriate inquiries to them. Specification ofgeographical names was a difficult task.

Sometimes the recorder indicates not only aprovince, district and village, but also a com-munity, which does not always correspondwith modern administrative geographical divi-sion. The original geographical names areincluded in the atalogue since they are likelyto be helpful in providing a historical perspec-tive of those times.

For the most part, the catalogue consists ofsongs. There are, however, purely instrumentalpieces too. In such cases, olumn

5 provides the name of the instrumentalist.When the song in question is accompanied byan instrument, the title of the instrument isindicated in parenthesis, next to the per-former’s name. Separate mention should bemade of Dimitri Arakishvili’s collection. Thedaughter of the outstanding Georgian compos-er and scholar handed this collection over tothe Georgian State Museum of Theatre, Film,Music and Choreography together with othermaterials. These include Arakishvili’s reporton Ossetian folk songs that he gave in Moscow(1923), and later at the Georgian Academy ofSciences in Tbilisi (1944). According to themanuscript, Arakishvili organized his firstexpedition in the North Caucasus in 1902 andrecorded 6 Ossetian songs. In 1923, he record-ed 38 examples in just created AutonomousRegion of South Ossetia, in Georgia. All theseare presented on the 12 wax cylinders includedin the catalogue. The cylinder boxes providewritten data and song 10 titles in Russian,which are not always accurate. It turned out tobe extremely difficult to make out verbal notesbefore the songs, which are mostly song titles.We would like to express our gratitude to Mrs.Naira Betiev of “Caucasian House” for herkind help in clarifying this information. Wefollowed her advice, and since the Ossetianlanguage is phonetically much closer toGeorgian than to Russian, we included all theinformation in the Georgian language.Investigative work was conducted to identifythose who recorded the Conservatoire’s collec-

tion. It transpired that the material was record-ed by Grigol Chkhikvadze in Meskhet-Javakheti (1949) and Khevsureti (1953), andby Vladimer Akhobadze in Samegrelo andZemo Svaneti (1950).

The catalogue also includes cylinders withfragments of classical music. We believe thatthe existence of such cylinders in

the collections of the State Department ofArchives and Records Management ofGeorgia, Achara Museum of Art and Cultureand Tbilisi State Conservatoire can beexplained by the use of the socalled “secondhand” cylinders by the recorders when record-ing folk material. This may account for the oddsounding musical variations on some cylin-ders, for example, operatic vocal fragmentsperformed by a woodwind orchestra. Wewould like to acknowledge the valuable assis-tance of Gocha Bezhuashvili and TemurEliava, professors of Tbilisi StateConservatoire, and Gvantsa Buniatishvili, athird-year

piano student with whose help we were ableto piece together some of these musical frag-ments. The significance of the field expeditionmaterial preserved on wax cylinders deservesspecial mention for future generations. The cat-alogue provides folk songs – from one-voicedexamples collected in the East Georgian moun-tains to the masterpieces of Georgian multipartsinging collected in Kartli-Kakheti and Guria -as recorded throughout Georgia by DimitriArakishvili, Shalva Mshvelidze, ShalvaAslanishvili, Tamar Mamaladze, SergiZhghenti and Alexandre Partskhaladze, GrigolChkhikvadze and Vladimer

Akhobadze in 1923-1953. These reflect theenormously rich diversity of traditional music,which Georgia has retained hrough its historyup until the end of the 20th century. Part of thematerial (notably from the collections ofMshvelidze and Aslanishvili) has been tran-scribed into Western notation and published;the remainder is in handwritten form. It is ourhope that this unique catalogue of wax cylindercollections will provide rich material for fur-ther in-depth study of Georgia’s magnificentmusical heritage.

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Dr. Susanne Ziegler, Phonogramm-Archiv / Department of

Ethnomusicology, EthnographicalMuseum, Berlin

1. IntroductionThe subject of my paper are the earliest

sound recordings of polyphony in traditionalmusic, which were recorded in the first half ofthe 20th century and are preserved today in theBerlin Phonogramm-Archiv. I shall follow thetraces of polyphony in the BerlinPhonogramm-Archiv and discuss some of thewax cylinder recordings with special regard totheir presentation (discussion and transcrip-tion) in publications. Numerous publications,mostly case studies, but also substantial theo-retical papers and books have been publishedon this subject. Due to the limited amount oftime here, I shall cite only two examples indetail: the first article on polyphony in non-European music, written by Erich M. vonHornbostel in 1909, and, second, the compre-hensive book on the history of polyphony,written by Marius Schneider in 1934.

I should like to mention that my paper isrelated to my first visit in Georgia inBordzhomi in 1988. At that time we discussedpublications about polyphony, among them J.Jordania's paper about M. Schneider's bookand my paper about Georgian polyphony inGerman ethnomusicological literature, whichis published in Sabchota Khelovneba 1989.

At the present conference the audience isinternational, so I shall use the opportunity topresent not only examples from Georgia, butalso from other areas of the world wherepolyphony is found.

I would like to share with you some ideasand thoughts that emerged from my researchin the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv since 1993.This work has resulted in my recent book onthe wax cylinder collections of the BerlinPhonogramm-Archiv (Ziegler 2006).

2. Polyphony in historical recordingsThe recordings in the Berlin Phonogramm-

Archiv date back to 1900, when Carl Stumpf,professor of psychology at Berlin University,made the first recordings for the Archive witha theatre group from Siam. Recording differ-ent kinds of non-European music was success-fully continued, first in Berlin during presen-tations for the public of ethnic groups("Völkerschauen"), and later also in the field.Due to the good relationship with the Museumfür Völkerkunde, and especially with thedirector of the African and Oceanic depart-ment, Felix von Luschan, many expeditionsand researchers were provided with phono-graphic equipment and asked to record exam-ples of indigenous music in the area of theirresearch or during their extensive expeditions.

Erich M. von Hornbostel was of the opin-ion that all kinds of musical expressionsshould be collected in order to gain insightinto the heterogeneous practises and conceptsin music, including polyphony, which wasfound to play an important role in many musi-cal cultures.

The "Guidelines for Collectors" ("Anlei-tung für ethnographische Beobachtungen undSammlungen in Africa und Oceanien") werefirst published by von Luschan in 1899, and in

Polyphony in Historical Sound Recordingsof the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv"

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cooperation with von Hornbostel, who cameto Berlin 1901; the section on music wasenlarged and improved. In one of the para-graphs it was recommended to pay specialattention to polyphonic music and to recordthis music in a specific way:

"Von Musikstücken, bei denenMehrere zusammen nicht unison musizieren,sind auch die einzelnen Stimmen, jede fürsich, aufzunehmen, und zwar in der Weise,dass die eine Stimme unmittelbar vor demTrichter, die anderen im Hintergrundaufgestellt werden, so dass bei jederAufnahme zwar alle spielen, aber durch denjedesmaligen Platzwechsel immer eine andereStimme in den Vordergrund tritt." However, inpractice it seemed to be very difficult to fol-low this instruction. Had von Luschan'sadvice been followed, it would have been ofgreat value for research.

On his correspondence with collectors, vonHornbostel and later Schneider drew attentionto polyphony, vocal as well as instrumental.Two examples: Hornbostel an ViktorLebzelter (Roman Catholic Mission, WindhukAfrika), 1927 "...Falls die Leute mehrstimmigsingen, würde ich bitten, diese Gesängebesonders zu berücksichtigen (vgl. Punkt Bmder beiliegenden Anleitung) ... Schneider anArnold Bake (20.III.32) "... Daß Sie jetzt nachCeylon kommen, ist besonders wertvoll. Ichwürde mich sehr freuen, wenn es Ihnen gelin-gen würde, ganz primitive Mehrstimmigkeitzu finden. Letzteres ist nämlich meinSteckenpferd. Für jede Auskunft, obSekunden, Terzen oder Quinten, wäre ichIhnen recht dankbar!..."

The fruits of this engagement can still befollowed in the Phonogramm-Archiv, not onlyin the overwhelming amount of sound exam-ples of polyphonic music, but also in the writ-ten archival sources, where we sometimes findremarks indicating what kind of polyphonywas found.

3. Theoretical discussion of polyphony Recordings of polyphony from different

musical cultures of the world – vocal as wellas instrumental – make up a considerable

amount of the historical wax cylinder collec-tions in the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv. Thus,great attention was paid to all forms of poly-phonic singing and multipart instrumentalmusic, which were consequently discussed inpublications, that is to say, at first in case stud-ies, mostly written by Hornbostel himself, andlater in more or less theoretical papers writtenby Erich von Hornbostel (1909), Carl Stumpf(1911), Georg Schünemann (1920),Mieczyslaw Kolinski (1930), MariusSchneider (1934) and others.

It is interesting to note that in the first yearsand first publications (up to ca. 1905)polyphony was not particularly stressed.However, the more field recordings fromAfrica and the South Seas arrived in thearchive, the more they required attention andscholarly discussion. Polyphony outside ofEurope was quite unexpected, and the firstexamples were regarded as incidental or influ-enced by European music. To give just oneexample, many missionaries recordedChristian songs, which of course stemmedfrom European sources. The growing amountof recordings documenting indigenouspolyphony led to substantial considerationsabout the origin of music in general, and ofpolyphony in specific. Researchers were thusfaced with several problems: 1. How shouldthe findings be described? (This resulted in aterminological discussion); 2. How should thefindings be classified? (This resulted in theo-retical discussions and hypotheses about theorigin of polyphony). The discussion wasdominated by the assumption that non-European music was basically in unison, and,further, "... all these [exotic] forms of multi-part music ... are clearly different in principlefrom our harmony, which is based on the con-sonance of simultaneously sounded tones"(Hornbostel 1905).

The organization of the material, in somecases quite astonishing new sounds (such asparallel seconds, fourths and fifths in record-ings from the South Seas and Africa) requireda special terminology. New terms were neces-sary, but naturally the existing vocabulary thatwas already in use for historical musicology

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was adopted. A clarification and standardisa-tion of terms have been undertaken severaltimes with more or less success, but a termi-nology independent of European musicologyis not yet in common use, even today. This isalso true for the term "polyphony" itself; forpolyphony was known only from Europeanmusic history. Hence, it is no surprice thatterms were taken from European music histo-ry, since exactly at that time (around 1900) thestudy of medieval music was en vogue. ForMedieval, and consequently also non-European polyphony the term"Mehrstimmigkeit" (multipartite singing) wasused in contrast to the term "Harmonie" (har-mony), which was restricted to Europeanpolyphony only. In fact, the term "Harmonie"is not only a musicological term; it designatesmuch more than music, namely a psychologi-cal condition as well. Of course, any kind oftranslation will render the situation even moredifficult, especially the translation of vernacu-lar terms. But I shall not pursue this aspecthere.

In the early writings about non-Europeanpolyphony up to 1910 a difference can berecognised in the descriptions of polyphonyfrom Africa and from the South Seas. Here Ishall present two examples:

1. Africa. In his article "Wanyamwezi-Gesänge", published in the journal"Anthropos" in 1909, Hornbostel discussesrecordings from East Africa, which were col-lected mainly by Karl Weule in 1906. In a spe-cial chapter, entitled "Harmonie" (pp. 1038-1041), the recordings of non-Europeanpolyphony are immediately viewed asMedieval: "... the harmonies of theWanyamwezi songs correspond surprisinglywith the kind of polyphony, which has beenused in Europe not today, but 1000 years ago."(p. 1038).

By comparing these examples with othersfrom West Africa, Hornbostel does notexclude the autochthonous origin of Africanharmony. And even if they would be merelyan imitation of European models, they shouldbe treated as "a separate form and a sign of

higher musical talents". 2. South Seas. In his article about the col-

lection of Dr. Emil Stephan recorded in NewMecklenburg in 1904, Hornbostel does notmention polyphony at all. Unfortunately thetranscriptions in this article do not includepolyphonic songs. More information can begained from Hornbostel's short contributionentitled "Musik", published in RichardThurnwald's article "Im Bismarckarchipel undauf den Salomoinseln" (Hornbostel 1910).Hornbostel's observations are based onRichard Thurnwald's extensive wax cylindercollection from this area, recorded in 1906 –1909 and comprising 343 cylinders. In a pre-liminary report Hornbostel refers to differentkinds of polyphony, some of them resemblingyodels of the Alps; others, namely dancesongs from Baluan (Admirality Islands), aretotally new and "... most interesting andremarkable...", because they proceed in paral-lel seconds and also finish with this interval(Hornbostel 1910:141). (One sound example)According to Hornbostel, European influenceas well as coincidental use can be eliminatedin this region. "The parallel seconds on theAdmirality Islands represent a new problemfor the evolution history, music theory andpsychology; and in the first place they repre-sent a crux for general music aesthetics."(ibid.)

The phenomenon of "harmony" or"polyphony" in non-European music was firstobserved and discussed in case studies, but ittook quite a long time before any theoreticaldiscussion about polyphony began. Forinstance, in Hornbostel's paper "Über dengegenwärtigen Stand der vergleichendenMusikwissenschaft", presented at a confer-ence in 1906, published in 1907, polyphony isnot mentioned at all.

An initial attempt to summarize the obser-vations on non-European polyphony wasgiven at the Third Conference of the Inter-national Musicological Society in Vienna in1908 and published in 1909 ("Über Mehrsti-mmigkeit in der außereuropäischen Musik",mit Vorführung von Phonogrammen).

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Without any introduction Hornbostelbegins with the question about the origin ofpolyphony, which he sees as a logical conse-quence that follows the question on the originof music. He states that only with the help ofthe phonograph is it now (means 1909) possi-ble to access to material equivalent toEuropean music history. He sees obviousanalogies between the early medieval periodand "exotic forms of polyphony". The exam-ples found in exotic music should enable achronological order and provide the missinglinks in the European polyphonic tradition. Incontrast to the pure one-voice harmony("reine Einstimmigkeit"), which he calls"Homophonie", Hornbostel distinguishes twodifferent kinds of multi-part music, which arebased on two different mental attitudes:"Harmonie" (harmony) preserves the melodyin all its entirety, but provides the melody infuller chords. On the opposite, the term"Polyphonie" (polyphony) should, accordingto Hornbostel, be restricted to severalmelodies, which are more or less separatefrom one another, but sounding simultaneous-ly. He discusses the different forms ofpolyphony and illustrates them with soundexamples, unfortunately without naming themprecisely. So the aim and purpose of this arti-cle is clearly defined: it is a demonstrationthat non-European polyphony reveals the dif-ferent early stages of European medievalpolyphony. Once this hypothesis had beenstated, all the articles that followed fell intothe same slot.

In his publication "Anfänge der Musik"(1911:97 -101) Carl Stumpf enlarges the cate-gories and distinguishes aside fromHomophonie and Polyphonie three more cate-gories: "Organum" which is parallel cords inoctaves, fifths, and fourths as basic, thirds,sixths, seconds, only if the interval is notchanged according to the scale; "Bordun",meaning one or more tones (one or morechords) sustained during the whole piece orconstantly changing (ostinato); and"Heterophonie" meaning the simultaneousperformance of several variants of the same

theme. All five categories cited are under-stood as stages of polyphony, culminating inthe European functional harmony. This con-cept is continuously repeated in Hornbostelsarticles and in Curt Sachs' publications, and italso acts as the starting point for MariusSchneider's book, "Geschichte der Mehr-stimmigkeit" (History of Multipart Music)(1934/1935).

Schneider, however, combines the cate-gories with melody and tonality, resulting infour circles or "Kreise": 1. Primitive Culturesin South Asia and South America; 2. SouthAsia and Oceania; 3. Samoa; 4. Africa. Hisbasic principle is: "Die Form der Melodik bes-timmt die Harmonik" (the melodic form deter-mines the harmony). A second edition of thisbook, published in 1969, comprises the firstand second volume of Schneiders book, but isenlarged with a third part, entitled "DieKompositionsprinzipien und ihre Verbreitung(with 115 musical examples). In the firstchapter Schneider lists 12 basic principles ofpolyphonic compositions; in the second parthe studies the relationship between Europeanand non-European polyphony.

4. Critical remarksThe substantial contributions of the Berlin

School of Comparative Musicology to thestudy of multipart music in the world werevalid for a long time, but they were often crit-icized as well. Earlier criticism concentratedmainly on the following points: 1. The cultur-al evolution theory which has become obso-lete in the meantime; 2. The independent ori-gin of multipart music in different corners ofthe world is no longer doubted; 3. in coopera-tion with other disciplines such as ethnology,anthropology, history, organology, archaeolo-gy, etc. the different forms of polyphony havealready been or are now being studied indetail. These studies will help to enlarge ourknowledge about the origin, disseminationand history of polyphony.

My criticism here is not general, but con-crete and is based on contextual information.

After a long period of silence we only now

have the chance to look at the sound record-ings themselves in combination with all therelated material, correspondence and papers.It is a wonderful experience to have the soundof the wax cylinders available today, even ifthey are not of the best quality. Finally it hasbecome possible to listen to the historicalrecordings, which have often been discussedand can now be compared with the musicnotations, and moreover, be discussed - orbetter re-discussed - on the basis of the avail-able sources.

Thus we can better understand how record-ings of polyphony were made in the field.Some collectors did not realize that multipartsinging was substantial for the music underdiscussion, since "harmony" (meaning theEuropean kind of polyphony) did not exist.We have evidence that a collector refused torecord a group singing polyphonic, because hewas not aware that this (in his understanding)"unorganised" polyphonic singing was essen-tial. Therefore he asked the people to sing notsimultaneously, but one after the other. Sinceit was not expected to find other and differentforms of polyphony in the world besides theEuropean harmony, these forms were appar-ently regarded as not worth being recorded.Hornbostel recommended as early as in 1907that the choice of what should be recorded beleft to the indigenous people and not decidedby the collector.

In other cases collectors had great difficul-ties in recording polyphony due to the techni-cal restrictions of the phonograph. The horn ofa phonograph was normally too small for cat-ching more than one or two voices; so severaltechniques were discussed (in the correspon-dence with G. Herzog, M. Küsters and others).For example M. Küsters writes (1934) toHornbostel: ... "So bin ich für den altenEdison schon recht dankbar. Vielleicht ist esIhnen möglich, mir dazu einen grösserenAufnahmetrichter anfertigen zu lassen, dennmit dem kleinen Trichter muss man die Leuteso nahe herantreten lassen, daß eigentlich nurdie wenigen, die unmittelbar in den Trichterhineinsingen, zu Gehör kommen. Ich habe

seinerzeit bis zu 50 Personen singen lassen,ohne freilich mehr als ein leisesUntergeräusch feststellen zu können. Da aberdie Lieder oft mehrstimmig sind, wäre geradevon Wichtigkeit, daß der Chor zur Geltungkäme...", or Hornbostel an Herzog (1930): ..."Wir haben Ihnen vor einer Weile die 3.Walzenserie geschickt und einen Trichter bei-gepackt, den uns Quadfasel (unser speziellerPhonograph-Mechaniker) eigens gebaut hatund den Kolinski gut fand. Er ist doppelt sobreit als hoch, so dass bequem zweiSängerköpfe davor Platz haben und vielleichtnoch ein dritter zwischen diesen Köpfen überdie Schultern ihrer Besitzer weg in denTrichter hineinsingen kann. "

Another problem is that we do not under-stand why specific kinds of polyphony wererecorded, while others – no less important –are missing among the recordings. For exam-ple, in his collection from the Caucasus madebetween 1909 and 1914, Adolf Dirr has noexamples of Georgian polyphony, but he doeshave Ossetian and Svan pieces. What is thepossible reason for this selection? Did he nothave a chance to listen to that kind of music,or did he not realize that it would be importantfor musicology to have examples of polypho-ny from Georgia? Or, quite simply, did he nothave enough blank wax cylinders? On theother hand, the examples of Georgianpolyphony among the recordings in Austrianand German prison camps in World War Icaused a musical revolution and led to a newunderstanding and new theories aboutpolyphony in Europe (here just to mention R.Pöch, Siegfried Nadel and M. Schneider).

A special kind of criticism is connectedwith M. Schneider, who in his comprehensive"Geschichte der Mehrstimmigkeit" never pub-lished the whole piece, but only excerptswhich are (coincidentally) polyphonic. If wewish to understand polyphony, we must viewthe whole piece and not excerpts of it. A waxcylinder recording of 2 or 4 minutes can onlypresent a small part of a more extensive piece,and it is by no means justified to reduce it toonly a few notes. Today by listening to the

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complete recording on a wax cylinder we canfinally judge the role of multipart music in thegiven context.

5. SummaryIt is the first time since World War I, that

the different materials of the BerlinPhonogramm-Archiv may be reviewed inentirety. With the unification of Germany thewax cylinders were returned to thePhonogramm-Archiv in 1991. Since then wehave been devoted to making the collectionsaccessible to the public, together with the nec-essary additional information. Many collec-tions are now available on digital sound carri-ers; their publication is part of the Archive'swork. Even if the sound quality lacks hifi-quality, the historical sound examples aremore than (acoustical) sound. They representthe individual and personal history of the col-lectors as well as of the informants, while theyalso reveal the history of a discipline and itsmethods at different times.

Thus, examples of multipart music on waxcylinders must be presented against a back-ground of the correspondence and publica-tions, in which they have been used and dis-cussed. The value of the historical soundrecordings is unique, and it increases the morewe know about their history and especially thecircumstances surrounding their recordings.

BibliographyHornbostel, Erich M. von1905 "Die Probleme der vergleichenden

Musikwissenschaft." In: Zeitschrift derInternationalen Musikgesellschaft 7 (3), 1905,85-97.

1909a "Wanyamwezi-Gesänge." In:Anthropos 4:781-800, 1033-1052 und Noten.

1909b "Über Mehrstimmigkeit in der auße-reuropäischen Musik". In: 3. Kongreß derInternationalen Musikgesellschaft. Wien undLeipzig 1909, 298-303.

1910 "Musik." In: Zeitschrift fürEthnologie 42:140-142, In: RichardThurnwald "Im Bismarckarchipel und auf denSalomoninseln", Zeitschrift für Ethnologie42:98-147.

Schneider, Marius 1934 Geschichte der Mehrstimmigkeit.

Historische und phänomenologische Studien.Erster Teil. Die Naturvölker. Berlin: JuliusBard.

Stumpf, Carl 1911 Anfänge der Musik. Leipzig: Johann

Ambrosius Barth.Ziegler, Susanne2006 Die Wachszylinder des Berliner

Phonogramm-Archivs. Staatliche Museen zuBerlin – Ethnologisches Museum.

A new scholarly center for folk polyphonywas created in Vienna not long ago. At the ini-tiative of renowned ethnomusicologistsGerlinde Haid and Ardian Ahmedaja TheResearch Center for European Poplyphonywas founded at the premises of ViennaUniversity. The International Research Centerfor Traditional Polyphony, as the institutionworking on the study of Georgian polyphony– one of the most important traditional phe-nomena in Europe, immediately established

close contacts with the newly establishedorganization. As a result of this cooperationthe way was paved for the members of theIRCTP to take active part in the very firstproject of the Viena scholarly center. Namely,The Research Center for EuropeanPoplyphony decided to create a lexicon offolk terminology for European polyphony.Georgian ethnomusicologists JosephJordania (from Melbourne University) andTnaz Gabisonia (from the IRCTP) were pro-

Online Terminological Lexicon ofGeorgian Traditional Polyphony

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To date both ethnomusicologists and thewide circle of people interested in traditionalGeorgian music have paid particular attentionto the problem of how the performance man-ner of today’s Georgian folk ensembles cor-responds to the traditional one. A noteworthyproject was realized in May-June 2007, aspart of the Georgian President’s Program forthe Support of Folklore. At the initiative ofthe Georgian Ministry of Culture MonumentsProtection and Sport a program “For theRevival of Georgian Folk Song” was pre-pared. Specialist ethnomusicologists weredirected to different regions of Georgia -Eastern Georgia in the first instance - to con-duct master-classes. This aimed to offer thesingers a traditional manner of performance,which having been formed through the cen-turies, has been remarkably distorted inrecent years.

The fact is that most of today’s folkensembles are estranged from the traditionalfolk performance environment and havepractically turned into scenic collectives.Thus, the Georgian Folk Music Departmentof Tbilisi State Conservatoire approved themission, which implied instructing the per-formers on the “rules” of traditional folk per-formance. And so we shouldered the respon-sibility for the realization of this project.

The teachers from the Georgian Folk

Music Department – Natalia Zumbadze,Davit Shughliashvili, Malkhaz Erkvanidzeand Tamaz Gabisonia (project coordinator) -conducted master-classes for 25 folk groups.It is noteworthy that, after having listened tothe performance, they offered their remarksand suggestions to the singers in the form ofrecommendations rather than directives.

The master-classes were held inAkhaltsikhe, Dedoplistsqaro, Sighnaghi,Khashuri, Dmanisi, Kaspi, Borjomi,Zhinvali, Telavi, Akhmeta, Tianeti, Mtskheta,Qazbegi, Kakhi (historical Saingilo, inAzerbaijan since 1921), Gori, Qvareli,Rustavi, Tsalka, Aspindza, Sagarejo andKareli.

Each group had two classes from eachteacher and received gifts as part of the proj-ect: a CD player; a collection of 5 CDs ofEast Georgian folk songs specially preparedfor this purpose (these included folk exam-ples from the archive of Georgian Folk MusicLaboratory selected by Ketevan Matiashvili,Nino Nakashidze and Nino Makharadze);and a booklet “Georgian Folk SongPerformance” written by Natalia Zumbadze.

It must be said that both the members ofthe ensembles and their instructors werehappy with the program. The singers wouldcarefully listen to the instructions andimmediately tried to follow them at the spot.

MASTER-CLASSES FOR FOLK ENSEMBLES

posed to participate in the project. As a conse-quence of this, the terminological lexicon ofGeorgian folk music terminology was pre-pared. This includes 104 concise articles sofar. The suggested material will be added toother similar data from all over Europe andwill be displayed on the corresponding site. Ina year a scientific forum on folk terminology

is planned to be held in Vienna as well as pub-lication of its result as a separate volume.

The terminology of Georgian folkpolyphony mostly includes the names of sep-arate voice parts of traditional three-partsinging and comparatively small number ofterms denoting perfromaing peculiarities ofpolyphonic singing.

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They also learned new (i.e. unknown tothem) songs. As for us, we were granted awonderful opportunity to get a better knowl-edge of the ensembles’ repertoire, theiractivities and their problems. We recordedthe songs as performed by them as well asthe master classes. It must be mentioned,that the major problem for the choirs is poorfinancial support from local governments.Due to this, the ensembles from Mtskheta,Khashuri, Tianeti, Borjomi, Tsalka,Aspindza, Dedoplistsqaro, Akhmeta andKaspi cannot rehearse; they only gather forthis or that occasion. We found no betterfinancial situation in the other ensembles.However, it is a comforting factor that some

ensembles from Rustavi and Sagarejo,mainly of young singers, achieve an activeartistic life without financial support.

In conclusion, the performing mastery ofregional ensembles can be considered satis-factory for now. The project coordinatorsapply to the Ministry of Culture, MonumentsProtection and Sport of Georgia with a rec-ommendation to pay more attention to thefinancial support of regional folk ensembles -the most effective means for the support oftraditional music in the regions.

A similar project is planned to be carriedout in Western Georgia as well.

Tamaz Gabisonia

Georgian Ethnomusicologists

Kakhi Rosebashvili is one of those whodevoted their life to national musical culture.His life was too short to fully express hisviews and artistic skills. He experienced thekindness and distress of his time; he workednoiselessly, distanced himself from theadvantages of career and titles, and made hisown path rather than following those of oth-ers.

Rosebashvili was different from those peo-ple who parade their achievements and striveto make an impression. His personality com-bined knightly appearance, sedateness, multi-lateral talent, a thoroughly wide education,high professionalism, spiritual purity andpatriotism. Being an incorrigible seeker withan artistic nature, he upset the stereotypicalrectilinear flow of professional self-perfec-tion. He was a talented child; he played theviolin fairly well; he was a model aircraft

constructor. Then he took great interest inGeorgian folk song, which he served devoted-ly and selflessly all his life. After completinghis studies in music history and folk music in1955, and post-graduate course in 1962(under Professor Grigol Chkhikvadze’ssupervision), Rosebashvili graduated fromthe Composition Department at Tbilisi StateConservatoire (under Professor AlexiMachavariani’s supervision), and later com-pleted post-graduate studies at the Institute ofArchaeology and Ethnography (underProfessor Giorgi Chitaia’s supervision).

Kakhi Rosebashvili(1930-1988)

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In 1959-1977 Rosebashvili was Head ofGeorgian Folk Music Laboratory; from 1970he was a senior teacher at Georgian FolkMusic Department, Dean of Faculty, and amember of the Composers’ Union.

Rosebashvili’s activities developed in sev-eral directions. He searched for, collected andperformed scholarly studies of examples rep-resenting various layers of Georgian folkmusic. In parallel with this, he was an enthu-siastic and fruitful composer.

Folklore was the magic power which cap-tured him and held him tightly throughout hislife. But composition, as the new object ofRosebashvili’s interests, was determined byseveral factors; firstly, the search for noveltyand an unquenchable thirst for cognition;attempts to feel the artistic pulse of contem-poraneity, and craving for the elucidation ofnew compositional technologies. He wasseriously carried away by ArnoldSchoenberg, Samuel Barber, KrzysztofPenderecki and, especially, by dodecaphony.He wrote a serious theoretical analysis on thetechnique of dodecaphony and created anumber of compositions with the use of thistechnique, such as: concert for a piano andstring orchestra, vocal-symphonic poemsGmiruli and Vepkhi Da Moqme, piano pieces,one-act television opera SakhrchobelisTsinashe, symphonies, vocal-symphonic andchamber-instrumental pieces (string quartet,polyphonic sonata, Claviphonia for clavecinand instrumental ensemble), music for vari-ous plays and telefilms, and a great numberof chamber-vocal works, etc. These were pre-sented at various contests and were awardedprizes.

This kind of professional “bifurcation” did

not result in Rosebashvili’s estrangementfrom his lifetime ideal – folk music. He madefirst steps in ethnomusicology when thepupils of Grigol Chkhikvadze – the patriarchof the Georgian school of musical folklore -appeared on the scene: Mindia Zhordania,Kukuri Chokhonelidze and others.

Beginning from his student yearsRosebashvili took an active part in fieldexpeditions - first as a member, and later as aleader. He collected and documented ancientpagan and cult examples, ritual hymns anddistinguished variants of songs of variousgenres. It is worth mentioning, that forrecording folk songs he used his own hand-made tape recorder, as there was no otherrecording equipment available in those times.He also created a catalogue of the GeorgianFolk Music Laboratory and kept records inthe register book which he had started.

As a teacher and mentor, Rosebashvili wasa brilliant example of civil consciousness tohis students. He encouraged their boundlesslove of national culture, and directed theirprofessional responsibility towards preserva-tion, care and solution of relevant problemsin the Georgian musical treasury.

Parallel to his lectures in Georgian folkmusic, he led a comprehensive course of gen-eral folklore, which included the musical cul-tures of Africa, America, Asia Minor and theMediterranean, ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia,China, India, Byzantium, the Slavic peoples,Germany, England, Spain, the Baltic peoples,the Middle East, etc. For this purpose hestudied a number of works of various schol-ars from various times as well as Georgiansources.

As a researcher Rosebashvili’s focus was

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lesser-studied problems. His personal archiveincludes many significant documents; name-ly, his notes on the original works by ArsenIqaltoeli, Giorgi Mtatsmindeli, Ioane Petritsiand Ioane Bagrationi; AnaniaErkomaishvili’s manuscripts and other valu-able materials. He was greatly interested inancient Georgian, Russian and oriental nota-tion systems, and studied Greek manuscriptswith the neumatic system. In his works hemakes mention of the chanters ShalvaSaakadze, Nikoloz Aivazashvili, VladimerChopurishvili, Nikoloz Khutsidze, NestorJibladze and others, who he himself, found invarious parts of the country.

Among the central themes ofRosebashvili’s research activity, as of adeeply religious person, were then-tabooedchurch chanting and problems of Georgianhymnography. The latter consumed a lot ofhis talent and energy. His personal archivesinclude a letter written by Ilia II, theCatholicos Patriarch of All Georgia,addressed to Rosebashvili. In it theCatholicos confirms Rosebashvili’s particularauthority as of a professional.

Mention should be made of Rosebashvili’swork, in which he presents ten church hymnsof Easter Liturgy recorded as performed byArtem Erkomaishvili. Another significantwork of his is the work including twenty-onechurch hymns of Imeretian-Gurian Mode.These were selected with consideration oftheir artistic value, mode-intonational andconstructional peculiarities. It is to be notedthat Erkomaishvili was alone, as his co-singers had died; so each voice part wasrecorded separately and then combined.

In answer to Rosebashvili’s letter, Rodion

Schedrin – a famous composer, wrote: “Yourpersonality and love of this ancient treasuryarouses deep interest and admiration”.

In 1980-1981 Rosebashvili published thebooks entitled Otsdaati Khalkhuri Simghera(Thirty Folk Songs) and Kartuli KhalkhuriSimgherebi (Georgian Folk Songs). In themhe included a number of highly artistic exam-ples of various musical dialects, such asKhasanbegura, Shavi Shashvi, Kviria, KalosKhelkhvavi, Alilo, Imeruli Naduri,Vakhtanguri, Odoia, etc.

Being a leading specialist in instrumentalmusic, he had a thorough knowledge of con-struction peculiarities of instruments, tech-nology of their making, musical tunings, andacoustic and technical potentials. He madeefforts to restore and revive ancient musicalinstruments, which had disappeared fromnational folk practice. He dedicated specialstudy to such folk instruments as larchem-soinari, tongued and tongueless salamuri(flute), gudastviri (bagpipe).

Apart from intensive research on chantingand instrumental music, Rosebashvili’s inter-est was drawn to dialectology as well. Heinvestigated the interconnection betweenmusic and everyday life, and the interdepend-ence of traditional and modern folklore.

Rosebashvili remains an example of pro-fessional consciousness and honesty. Themusicologist Mikhail Bialik wrote: “There isnothing to be said in consolation, when a per-son, gifted with such generosity and talent,passes away”.

Rosebashvili lived an unsullied life, andserved his favourite work with devotion,leaving on it a significant trace.

Tamar Meskhi

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One of the monuments of Georgianmusical culture - a panpipe and the livetechnique of its playing survived in Georgiauntil the 1970s.

The territory of its distribution encom-passes entire Samegrelo and Guria. Someunofficial data testify panpipe was also pop-ular in Apkhazeti (Abkhazia) and Imereti,neighbouring with Guria. According toIskander Tsitashi, a Laz expert, panpipenamed ostvinon was widely spread amongthe Laz population, who now live within theborders of today’s Turkey.

As for Eastern Georgia, not a single evi-dence of a panpipe has been found so far.

The name of a panpipe is larchemi inSamegrelo and soinari in Guria.

Here we will discuss both types of thepanpipe basing on musical and ethnograph-ic material collected in Tsalenjikha andChokhatauri Districts in 1958-1959.

Unfortunately, the days of larchem-soinari in Georgia are numbered. The prob-lem is that in these regions young peoplehad never seen the instrument, and most ofelderly and old people could not play it.After a long search in the village of Kurzu,Gegechkori (today’s Martvili) District, wefound one person – Kosta Pirtskhalava, 66,who could not play the instrument any morebecause he was toothless. He only made aninstrument for us. Another person – PavlePoniava could only make the instrument for

he, too, could not play it anymore. In thehigh mountain village of TsalenjikhaDistrict we met three larchemi players:Aronia, 70, in the village of Muzhava and,Gera and Grigol Kukhilava in the village ofChkvaleri. As they say, Chkvaleri had a richtradition of playing the larchemi. Here theinstrument had been popular since oldentimes and the tradition of its playing wastransmitted from generation to generation.The best larchemi players in Chkvaleri werethe Kukhilavas, Kantarias and Pipias. Herewe also met Kotsia Kukhilava and VitsiPipia, who were virtuoso players in thewhole of mountain Samegrelo some 20years ago.

We documented noteworthy materialabout Gurian soinari from VardenMeparishvili in the village of Tsiplnari,Chokhatauri District.

The study of a panpipe one of the mostarchaic instruments, which is widely spreadin many parts of the world, is hampered dueto the lack of special monographs and liter-ary sources. Kurt Sachs, Felix Behn, ErichHornbostel, Fritz Graebner, Max Ebert andJacob Reineggs provide stingy, but consid-erable data about the instrument in theirworks and articles. Another important workon this subject is Fleita Pana (“APanpipe”), a monograph by Valentina

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Georgian PanpipeLarchem-Soinari(scholarly work,from the manu-

script, 1986)

Kakhi Rosebashvili

Steshenko-Kuftina. Her the author displaysher opinion about the instrument. In hiswork Kartuli Musikis Istoriis DziritadiSakitkhebi (“Basic Issues on the History ofGeorgian Music”) Ivane Javakhishvili pro-vides wide speculation on the terminologyof larchem-soinari.

As has been mentioned, panpipe is foundin many parts of the world. The territory ofits distribution starts in the equatorial zoneof South America (Brazil, Bolivia andPerus), passes onto Oceania – WesternPolynesia and Indonesia, Indo-China andChina, where it reaches the highest level ofdevelopment. Then it passes by / roundIndia, where no sign of the instrument hasever been documented, and moves to Africa.Here the instrument is found in the southernparts of Congo. Panpipes are also widelyspread in Europe.

Scholars draw their attention to the cul-ture of Asia Minor, from where syrinx -Greek panpipe and Georgian larchem-soinari originate.

A Hittite stone slab from Rum Kale(Steshenko-Kuftina, p.63) depicts a malefigure dressed in chokha (traditionalGeorgian male garment today) with a dag-ger on the waist. In his right hand he is hold-ing a ear of wheat and in the left hand – aclearly carved panpipe very much resem-bling Georgian larchem-soinary. It shouldbe mentioned that the larchemi on the bas-relief consists of six pipes. Georgian tradi-tional larchemi has always had six pipes andthe players have never heard or seen othernumber of pipes.

The territorial difference in the area ofinstrument distribution would naturallycause the difference in the construction, sizeand tuning of instruments as well. This isdue to the geographical environment, eco-nomical and social system and aesthetics ofthe owner community. For instance, the con-struction and tuning of a panpipe fromOceania absolutely differs from its confrere

in Greece and Europe. The same can be saidabout Chinese-Japanese, Bolivian-Peruvian,etc. panpipes. This testifies to the ground-lessness of the search for the homeland of apanpipe. In an article from 1913 Felix Behn,a German scholar, writes about a clay pan-pipe discovered on the territory of LowerRein. He believes, that panpipe originated inFrance. In literature the instrument was firstdocumented with Trojans in Iliad by Homer.Others have opinion that it came into exis-tence in Arcadia. In reality panpipe, just likea simple pipe, is a true “folk invention”.

Many scholars, including Steshenko-Kuftina, emphasize two moments when dis-cussing panpipe:

1. Panpipe is the very first, initial type ofwoodwind instrument; a single-stem pipewith finger-holes is the next stage of itsdevelopment.

2. Panpipe laid foundation to vocalpolyphony.

Today it is impossible to claim the sound-ness of the first viewpoint as both a panpipeand a single-stem pipe with finger-holeshave passed a long way of development.Undoubtedly, the priority in terms of techni-cal peculiarities and timbre should be givento a single-stem pipe. The transcriptions ofmusical pieces on both instruments also tes-tify to his. More archaism is felt in mode,meter and melody of the pieces played on apanpipe. At one glance, this point is decidedand needs no more discussion, but entirelydifferent picture emerges after the geograph-ical and historical analysis of the two instru-ments.

The existing material shows, that in theplaces where people practice a panpipe,there is no knowledge of a single-stem pipewith finger-holes. Melanesia is an excep-tion; here a panpipe as well as a short pipeswithout finger-holes are found at the sametime. These two do not condition each other;moreover, they have nothing in common.Similar interconnection is between them in

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Georgian too. Steshenko-Kuftina regards a panpipe as

the basis for vocal-polyphony as follows:“The role of a panpipe in the history ofGeorgian folk music is connected with theinitial processes, when tunings and ancienttypes of harmonies were formed. Withoutconsidering this fact it will be impossible tofind the foundations of Georgian vocalpolyphony. Vocal art based on the change-able / unsteady nature of sounds, could nothave worked out clear harmonic abutmentwithout experiencing instrumental inter-vallics.

Musical culture originated and developedas soon as musical consciousness emergedi.e. man became aware of tone, intervaland combination of two tones. At the sour-ces of this culture the rhythmic order formulti-tonal instruments, like panpipe, wasbeing introduced thanks to percussion andplucking instruments.” (Steshenko-Kuftina,pp. 3-4)

We believe that this theory is wide of themark.

Man would make any instrument, includ-ing woodwind instruments, according to hisrequirements and auditory corrections(including development and innovations)and not vice versa.

Musical instrument is a monument ofintangible heritage. It was made by manafter preliminary understanding. In theinstrument he developed the knowledgeacquired from his own experience. It mustbe noted that the surviving tuning and soundcompositions of larchemi have very little incommon with the regularities of Georgianvocal style.

When claiming this or that point of view,scholars very often turn to the culture oflesser developed tribes and looks for theanswers to certain questions in their life.The best example for this is the rich cultureof Australian aborigines.

Let us take this approach to the study of

polyphony and regard Australian musicalculture. We see that the Australians, whohave no multi-tonal instruments, havedeveloped polyphony chiefly by “building”octave, fourth and fifth on the basic voicepart.

Georgian larchemi is distinguished andoriginal type of all panpipes in the world.This instrument, with all its qualities, comesfrom Georgia’s ancient history.Unfortunately there are very few written andother sources about it. Among the latter isthe aforementioned Hittite bas-relief, whichdepicts a man with a panpipe in his hand.Basing on this monument, it can be conclud-ed that a panpipe was very popular amongour ancestors.

The term larchemi has not been docu-mented in Georgian written sources; but thename of a similar instrument from Guriacalled soinari is defined by Sulkhan-SabaOrbeliani as “pipes attached together in har-monious order”.

In the Georgian translation of “The HolyBible” a woodwind instrument namedsastvineli (pipe) is mentioned several times.For instance, Chapter 3.5 of “Daniel” reads:“That when you hear the sound of the horn,pipe, lyre . . . “. Sastvineli is also mentionedin “The Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ”. IvaneJavakhishvili ( ) explains thatsastvineli is the same as syrinx – a popularGreek panpipe. Thus, it can be concluded,that in Georgian sources there is no directmention of larchemi, but is referred to as asimilar instrument sastvineli.

The Megrelian name for a panpipe – lar-chemi comes from the name of a plantlarchema or larchama from which it is madeand which is the Georgian word for “reed”.This is a long and narrow, about 10-12mm-wide, tube. Interior partitions divide its inte-rior space into sections. These sections areused for making pipe stems. According tolarchemi players, they traditionally cut theplant at the end of August or beginning of

September. This time it is already dry anddoes not crack when processed. For longerflutes i.e. bass pipes, they specially selectthe sections closer to the bottom on theplant. The exclusive instrument used byinstrument masters is a pocket-knife.Similar technique is used for Gurian soinari.

Each pipe of larchem-soinari has corre-sponding name. For example: first pipe fromthe right, the shortest one, is mechipashe -first voice; second is mebane – bass; third ismeshkhuashe, also called gemachqapali –beginner. The following three pipes on theleft, attached symmetrically, have the samenames as those on the right side, but defini-tion kholo umos meaning “longer” is addedbefore the name. The musical analysis of thepipes has shown that indeed kholo umosmechipane, kholo umos meshkhuashe andkholo umos mebane produce lower sound ascompared to the analogous pipes in the rightside. Thus larchemi consists of six pipes orsix tubes (stopped at one end). The longestpipes are placed in the middle, the shortest –at the edges. The pipes are attached to eachother with a string, called bulishi sartqe inMegrelian, which was made of the bark of acherry tree. Noteworthy is how larchemihad to be carried. As Gera Kukhilava, a mas-ter and a player, says nobody would ever putthe instrument into the pocket. Larchemiwas carried hanging on the neck / chest witha string gina bunapali.

In Guria there were two kinds ofsoinari – the so-called pocket soinari anda larger one.

In Samegrelo, apart from a six-pipe, thereexisted a three-pipe larchemi. The pipeswere attached to each other in a similar way– with a string made from the bark of a cher-ry-tree. At one glance this looked as a differ-ent instrument, but it cannot be consideredas such, for there are no musical pieces spe-cially composed for it. Besides, its tuning isexactly the tuning of one side or half of thesix-pipe larchemi.

The existence of a three-pipe larchemican be explained by a certain way of per-formance the so-called nirzi or competition- two players would divide the six-pipeinstrument into halves and compete in thelength / durability of performance and mak-ing beautiful sounds. Six-pipe larchemi wasnever used during nirzi for it is very difficultto play on two instruments with differenttunings. Two three-pipe larchemi should, byall means, be made by one master whichprobably means that the tuning of the twoinstruments creates that of a six-pipe one.This very fact testifies against the independ-ent existence of a three-pipe larchemi.

The original shape of a Georgianlarchem-soinari – a rectangle with a triangu-lar bottom is another noteworthy factor.Instrument of this shape has not been docu-mented in Europe and Asia. The exception isBolivia, where they practice a seven-pipeinstrument, very similar to Megrelian lar-chemi in shape. This is another evidence ofthe originality of a Georgian panpipe.

Larchemi was an essential part of peo-ple’s life; it is shepherds’ instrument, andaccording to legend, their invention too.Larchemi was also played during variousvillage festivals. According to LavrentiPipia there were virtuoso performers in thevillage of Chkvaleri, who would play vari-ous dance melodies. Larchemi was an insep-arable part of a hunters’ life too. They woulduse it for both entertainment and signaling.

No one in Samegrelo remembers larche-mi played in ensemble with other musicalinstrument. The only documented ensembleperformance is nirzi. Indeed, it is hard tocombine the sound and intonation of thisinstrument with other instruments fromGuri, Samegrelo and neighbouring regions.

Lavrenti Pipia from Chkvaleri claimed tohave seen the ritual of evoking the soul of ahunter, who fell off the cliff, in Abkhazia.Four larchemi players from Samegrelo weretaking part in this. As he said, two larchemi

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players spent the night at the spot where theaccident had happened, and played theinstrument in turns until the soul started towhistle, just like larchemi, at the dawn.

Julius Lips describes similar occurrencefrom the life of people from New Guinea inhis work “The Origin of Things. A CulturalHistory of Man”: “In the times when peopleare being called by the sound of drums, thedignity of souls requirements other from ofinvitation – the sound of a flute, a sacredinstrument. The New Guineans refer to thesound of a flute as to a holy spirit”. (thispiece needs to be checked; I will do it later)

There is a musical piece for larchemi inGuria and Samegrelo, which is an alterationof instrument and outcries. Unfortunatelythe meaning of such performance is lost.Larchemi could have been connected withother rituals too, which were eventually for-gotten.

The musical and acoustic peculiarities ofthe Georgian panpipe is an interesting mate-rial for music scholars. The pipes obey theprinciple of organ pipes i.e. the stopped onesgive a note an octave lower. The figures cal-culated from the acoustic data entirely coin-cide with the theoretical principles ofacoustics; there are some minor diversities inmillimeters, which can be explained by dif-ferences between folk and tempered tunings.

There is a fixed tuning of larchemi-soinari in Georgia (Steshenko-Kuftina, pp.167-187). But as ethnophores say, this doesnot imply accurate intervals between notes,however it is based on one general principle.We compared the tunings of two panpipesmade by Dzokia Aronia from Muzhava; onelarchemi was tuned a semi-tone higher, butthere was only a slight difference betweenthe two instruments. The tuning of larchemiis as follows: ascending movement in fixedintervals if started from the middle or basspipe, and descending movement followedby an ascending one if startled from theextreme pipe.

On the panpipes we had at hand the inter-vals between the pipes were second, thirdand fourth. The length of these intervalsdepend on the musical taste and perform-ance skills of the master, namely what inter-vals and sound combinations he would liketo make in musical pieces. Reasoning fromthe fact, that the tuning and construction oflarchem-sonari relies on the auditoryamendments of a player, and that theMegrelian master obeys the fixed sequenceof sounds, we have to do with a definitemusical system.

The distribution of sounds on larchemi iswithin fifth or sixth diapason and theirsequence according to height does not pro-vide an established mode.

In musical pieces composed for larchemiwe come across the germ of mode and tonal-ity. Here the division of sound order intotwo groups should be considered. If weregard the larchemi pipes according to thelength, we will get odd numbers on one sideof the bass and even numbers on the otherside, which differ from each other in pitch.Such distribution of sounds on larchemi canbe explained by two-voiced performance onthe instrument. Musical pieces for larchemiare alterations of parallel seconds, thirds andfifths. The player can move within of fiveintervals. Two-voiceness enriches the har-monious side of larchemi on the one handand makes it more attractive, but reserves itstonal peculiarity. Naturally, five notes, thatmake complex movements towards eachother when played, do not make mode.

It should be noted that the basic tone inthe musical pieces for larchemi is not thesound made by the longest bass pipe, but byits neighbouring maghali bani (high bass).Dabali bani (low bass) is used not as tonics,but as the 7th step. In most cases the stanzaof a musical piece ends on the 7th step mov-ing onto the first step of the third. Thus thereis a cadence, which is typical occurrence in

The Men’s folk ensemble Mtiebi was found-ed in 1980 by a famous musician and folklorist,later to be a well-known ethnomusicologist,Edisher Garakanidze. Musical circles immedi-ately focused their attention on the pivotal artis-tic principles of the group – to sing the songs inthe authentic manner - i.e. the way they are per-formed in their traditional context. Theyadhered to the peculiar regional manners of per-formance and intonation and mode systems.“Without this it will be impossible to preserveour national identity. Otherwise Tsintsqaro andAka Si Rekisho can be mistaken for the songsfrom the same region” – said Garakanidze in oneof his first interviews.

Mtiebi accompanied their songs with dancesand various musical instruments just like in thetraditional environment. These were real folkinstruments - the leader of the group consideredchromatic instruments to have deviated from tra-

ditional tuning. The “village manner” of performance natural-

ly demanded the balance of voices as is heard inthe earliest sound recordings and which had pre-viously been ignored by modern ensembles -namely, one first voice, one second voice and agroup of basses. Only this kind of performanceenables a singer to improvise, which is the mostorganic feature of Georgian folk song. Mtiebifollowed this path. “Improvisation is moreimportant for us, than balance” – the members ofthe ensemble would say.

They danced just like peasants do. “Fallingdown on the knees, whirling and acrobatic jumps– this is all sport” – said Garakanidze. He consid-ered folklore primarily as a means to expresspersonal freedom. This is why he gave prefer-ence to the free arrangement of singers on thestage, rather than to the academic style of stand-ing in a semicircle.

Georgian folk music, and which indicated tothe phonation of the instrument. The centerof gravity in musical pieces lies on the basictone. It is the ending sound and at the sametime the “turning” sound, after which thestanza is repeated. Here the germs of varia-tion development are observed.

In the repertoire that we have recorded,there is not a single case of producing newi.e. a duodecimo high sounds by overblow-ing of larchemi. Violent blowing producessemi-tone higher sounds than the basic tone,which can be explained by the requirementof the musical piece; at the same time thisdemonstrates high skills of the master.

All the above-mentioned ethnographicaland musical elements about larchemi indi-cate to the ancient origin of the instrument.In general, ancient melodious, rhythmic andharmonious peculiarities of Georgian musi-cal culture can be found in the tunings andmusical forms of Georgian panpipes.

REFERENCESJavakhishvili, Ivane. 1990. Kartuli

Musikis Dziritadi Sakitkhebi (Basic Issuesof Georgian Music). Tbilisi: Khelovneba(in Georgian)

Stshenko-Kuftina, V.K. 1936. FleitaPana (Panpipe). Tbilisi, State Museum ofGeorgia (in Russian)

Behn, F. 1927. Musik. B: Max Ebert,Reallexikon der Vorgeschichte, Bd. VIII,Berlin

Graebner, F. 1923. Ethnologie. B:Anthropologie, Berlin

Hornbostel, E.M. 1922. Notiz über dieMusic der Bewohner von Süd-Neu-Mecklenburg. B: Sammelbände für ver-gleichende Musikwissenschaft, Bd. I,München

Reineggs, Jacob. 1796. Allgemeinehistorisch-topographische Beschreibungdes Kaukasus, Theil 1, Gotha u. St.-Petersburg

Sachs, Curt. 1913. Reallexikon derMusikinstrumente, Berlin

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MTIEBIGeorgian Folk Ensembles

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The repertoire of Mtiebei was rich in terms ofgenre and dialectal diversity. It included exam-ples of almost all genres from all over Georgia,as well as “simple” and the so-called “classical”folk songs. Thus the ensemble perfectly dis-played the diversity of national folk music.

Mtiebi included the folk tradition of simpleround-dances and shairi (two singers singing inturns humorous, teasing couplets with musicalaccompaniment); they were the first to performthe folklore of the Georgians living in Turkey.

For the realization of their principles, themembers of the ensemble organized field expe-ditions to various parts of Georgia. They greatlybenefited from contact with the village life.Their purpose was not only to collect songs, butto revive some of the lost traditions in situ - forexample they encouraged the villagers to prac-tice the ancient traditions of Alilo and Chona.

Their “peasant” style of performance natural-ly meant wearing corresponding garments. Eachmember of Mtiebi wore a national costume thathe himself had selected from archival ethno-graphic photo material.

Mtiebi had concerts in many countries of theworld. Parallel to this they held master classes ofGeorgian folk songs for foreigners. They werelaureates of a number of international festivals(Vilnius, Copenhagen, Moscow and Lvov. In1992 Mtiebi became a laureate of the interna-tional festival of sacred music in Germany. In1990 the members of the ensemble were electedHonorary Citizens of Lowell, Massachusetts.They have produced five compact discs and

Dimitri Gugunava, a filmproducer, made a filmabout them.

It is of great impor-tance that Mtiebi intro-duced authentic traditionsof national folklore to theyoung. Garakanidze foun-ded the children’s ethno-graphic studio Amer-Imeri, where childrenlearned folk songs, nation-al folk instruments, dance,folk games, etc. This wayMtiebi brought up the fol-lowers of their art.

Here is an interviewwith Giorgi Garakanidze, Edisher’s Son, whohimself is an alumnus of Amer-Imeri, and thesuccessor of his father’s work. He has been theleader of Mtiebi since 2001, two years afterEdisher’s tragic death. In 2003 he changedMtiebi into a mixed male-female group which, in2004, was named “Edisher GarakanidzeEthnomusic Theatre Mtiebi”.

M.K. Great responsibility has fallen to yourlot – continue Edisher’s work. What have youmaintained untouched in the ensemble and whatis that you have changed?

G.G. As you know, Mtiebi’s elder generationperformed folk art in the authentic way. ModernMtiebi follows Edisher’s creed of “authenticdirection”. The name of the group and member-ship have been changed, but not the principles.On the contrary, this enables us to more fullypresent Georgian folklore. Since 2003 Mtiebi isa mixed – male-female group i.e. performs bothmen’s and women’s repertoire.

M.K. What is so peculiar about “EthnomusicTheatre”?

G.G. Mtiebi realized the results of Edisher’sscholarly research in practice. “EthnomusicTheatre” is connected with my activities as ascholar (the theme of my theses for Master’sDegree was “Georgian Ethnomusic Theatre”,which will soon be published). This is a theatre

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not in its traditional dramatic concept, but as partof everyday life, where song and traditions areinseparable. Ethnomusicology studies folkexamples as components of a traditional context.This is why we selected the name “EthnomusicTheatre”; together with folk songs we revive thetraditions and rituals, which accompanied thesongs in the original environment. This is thecontinuation of Edisher’s path. We try to main-tain the character of a folk example in form andmanner of performance, and in mode system asmuch as we can, just like Edisher did.

M.K. Mtiebi’s repertoire was rich in the folkexamples that Edisher came across during fieldexpeditions. How do you select the repertoire?

G.G. As time passes the number of bearers oftraditions is reducing, together with the numberof living folk examples. When seeking for scien-tific material I also keep musical material in myrange of vision. Besides, we often select songsfrom the anthology of Georgian folklore.

M.K. As it is known, Mtiebi always ledactive educational activity in various parts ofGeorgia.

G.G. One of the meanings of the word“mtiebi”, apart from “morning star”, is “enlight-ener”. One of the main reasons when selectingthis name was to “enlighten” and familiarize thepeople, distanced from folk culture, with truefolklore. Mtiebi traveled a lot around the countryand performed in concerts, during which the pro-grams with annotations for each performed songwere distributed among the audience. Within thelimits of possibility, we keep to this tradition.Last year we performed in the village ofJikhaishi in Imereti. We plan to perform inSvaneti in near future. Just recently we had aconcert in Tsnori. Here we created children’sgroup, which is directed by TinatinShervashidze, a Mtiebi member. We visit schoolafter school, organize concert-lessons, sing forsick children, etc. Unfortunately our wishes donot always correspond to our availableresources, as everything that we do is with our

own financial possibilities. . .

M.K. You are former member of the chil-dren’s studio Amer-Imeri, which was founded byEdisher. As far as I know, this studio still exists.What is the age of children in the studio andwhat do they study?

G.G. Amer-Imeri is a studio at the Andrewthe First Called Church (also called the BlueMonastery). The members are of 6-12 years ofage. The studio aims at bringing up children in atraditional Georgian environment. They studyvarious dialects of Georgian musical folklore,folk dances, children’s traditional games, folkmusical instruments, oral folklore, ethnographyand mythology. They also acquire theoreticalknowledge of the peculiarities of folk craftsman-ship; the examples of the latter, made by variousmasters, are displayed for them. They also studyGeorgian chant and attend discussions on theol-ogy. In short the studio teaches one general sub-ject – “Study of the Homeland” (my motherNino Baghaturia introduced this notion, whichprecisely shows Edisher’s outlook as well asthat of Mtiebi). Besides, this is a kind of SundaySchool for the congregation of the church. ThusAmer-Imeri continues the traditions and we havehope that the studio will bring up many morefans of Georgian folklore.

M.K. How much does Edisher’s name andheritage help you?

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G.G. Edisher’s name makes our work easywherever we go and whatever we do. We, andnot just us, practically walk on the road paved byhim. Edisher sowed and we are reaping.

M.K. I wish you success. Maka Khardziani

Mtiebi Discography:

Mtiebi – Traditionelle Gesange ausGeorgien. Stuttgart, 1996

Mtiebi – With You and Without You(eZRvneba ediSer garayaniZis xsovnas). UK,1998

Mtiebi – Polyfone zang uit Georgie.Holland, 2000

Mtiebi – 24 years have passed throughsinging. Rehearsals, performances, studiorecordings. Tbilisi, 2004

Mtiebi – Georgian Ethnomusic Theatre AfterEdisher Garakanidze. Tbilisi, 2005

Mtiebi – Edisher Garakanidze EthnomusicTheatre. Tbilisi, 2007

Interview with Anzor Erkomaishvili, asongmaster, director of the State Ensembleof Georgian Folk Song and Dance Rustavi

- Batono Anzor, your have made greatcontribution to the search of the earliestGeorgian recordings. What gave you theincentive for this activity?

- My family has borne musical folk tradi-tions for 300 years. I remeber my great-grand-father Gigo Erkomaishvili – my grandfatherArtem’s father - who died at the age of 107. Ilearned songs from him too. Gigo directed thefamous folk ensemble from Makvaneti, whichrecorded 49 songs for the Tbilisi office ofGramophone Company in 1907. These songswere later published and were on sale in manycountries of the world.

And also, I still have a 100-year-oldfamily gramophone. As a boy I would listen tothe records of Gigo Erkomaishvili, SamuelChavleishvili and other great folk singers fromgrandfather Artem’s fairly large collection. Hehad great respect for all of the singers. When Igrew up and became a student at Tbilisi StateConservatoire in the 1950s, Georgian folk songwas ill-esteemed. Georgian pop music wasmaking its very first steps; but the status folksong was shameful. Only elderly people would

sing at wedding parties or other celebrationgatherings. The epoch of national folk contestsand inspections was coming to end. Nobodyremembered the records mentioned above. Irealized that it was urgently necessary to retainthis heritage and started seeking recordings.First I brought to Tbilisi my family collection.Later I obtained a number of recordings, withnot only Gurian folk songs, from families inTbilisi and other parts of Georgia. FromGrandfather Artem I knew a lot about DedasLevana, Mikho Jighauri, Maro Tarkhnishvili,Vano Mchedlishvili, Dzuku Lolua, RemaShelegia, Noko Khurtsia and other renownedfolk songmasters. I took these recordings forrestoration to the Melodiya sound recordingstudio in Moscow.

- Did anybody else apart from you workin this direction?

- These were hard times. I was the only oneto work in this field. My conservatoire teacherShalva Aslanishvili believed that these record-

A Song DiesWhen Young

People Forget It

ings would be of great scientific value. Before starting the restoration of this huge

amount of material, I was given advice tosearch for their originals in Moscow. Andindeed, they were in the Moscow PhonoArchive. I spend a lot of time searching for theright recordings and finally found a carton boxinscribed: “Babilodze”, “D. Levana” (i.e therenowned song-masters Giorgi Babilodze andDedas Levana); I immediately understood thatI had found what I was looking for. A film pro-ducer Soso Chkhaidze was with me then. Hewas shooting a documentary “Shvidkatsa” andincluded the whole technological pocess intothe film.

Georgian people welcomed the news aboutthe restoration of old gramophone recordingswith great enthusiasm; the press and televisionbroadly covered each new discovery. Thesound of Vano Sarajishvili’s voice was metwith special interest. Manana Akhmeteli, arenowned Georgian musicologist, publishedthe first article on this topic in the journalSabchota Khelovneba. On my part I revivedand included the discovered material in therepertoire of the newly-established ensembleRustavi.

In addition, I tell my recollections in thebooks Babua (“Grandfather” about grandfatherArtem) and Ori Ansamblis Istoria (“TheHistory of Two Ensembles”). In the 1980s acollection of 5 LPs entitled “FirstGramophone Recordings in Georgia’ was pub-lished. This collection was also sent toMoscow archive, where anyone, who is inter-ested in old Georgian songs, can get familiar-ized with the folk examples from these record-ings.

As I know you also carried your activitiesoutside Russia.

Undoubtedly. At that time I had concerttours with ensemble Rustavi in various coun-tries of the

world. This enabled me to conduct search-ing activities there too. I worked in the centralarchives of Germany, Britain and France. Forinstance, in Berlin and Vienna phonoarchives,together with the songs recorded from the pris-oners of World War I, there is fairly rich pho-

netic material as well. This includes examplesof Svan dialect, texts in Megrelian dialect andfolk poetry recorded by Derzhavin.

Separate mention should be made ofGeorgian recordings in the Leningrad (today’sSt. Petersburg) archive. I was given permissionfor their recopying only after I persuaded a cer-tain Korguzalov, head of department, of myintentions. Sometimes it was necessary to payor give presents (which would often be ourrecords) to people like him in order to get con-sent. Having the right contacts was extremelyimportant.

I would like to make special mention of:Givi Enukidze, then director of GeorgianTelevison Station - without his assitance wewould not have been able to restore therecords and bring them to Tbilisi; SosoChkhaidze, who absorbed the expenses forrecopying the Georgian material in Leningradinto the budget of his film; and renowned eth-nomusicologists Alan Lomax and Ted Levin,whose help in London was invaluable. I hap-pened to visit London after the breakdown ofthe Soviet Union. This time our finances wereample and I recopied Vano Srajishvili’s col-lection together with other material.

Significant recordings were also made byPathé sound recording company, whose officewas opened in Tbilisi in 1906. We obtainedtheir collection from the Paris archive.

All this material is preserved at GeorgianState Radio and Television Archive, StateArchive of Georgia, my personal fund and thatof the International Centre for Georgian FolkSong. The Centre also posseses the recodingsmade by Melodiya, which we are slowly re-releasing. We recently published a book“Catalogue of Georgian PhonorecordingsAbroad”. The book presents all the cataloguesof Georgian folk songs, published in Georgiaand elsewhere, in the beginning of the 20thcentury: Riga, London, Vienna, Berlin andLeningrad catalogues giving a full view ofwhich song was recorded where and by whomas well as where exactly it is kept.

It took us 40-45 years to collect and publishthis material. I can say that songs which hadbeen practically lost were saved and names,

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long forgotten, were reintroduced.It must also be noted that some of the songs

can be found on the Rustavi LPs “60 GeorgianFolk Songs” and later on “100 Georgian FolkSongs”. It can be said without exaggerationthat these songs were taken up all overGoergia.

- On my part, I also learned manysongs from these collections. They alsoincluded hymns - Georgian sacred chants.

- You are right. This was our initiative.Singing sacred hymns was forbidden. I grewup in a family of chanters, but I never learneda single one. Grandfather Artem would concealeven from me the invaluable treasury heowned. He knew more than two thousandchurch hymns.

In the 1970s, when the family members ofour great singers and chanters were still alive,I would write down their recollections. I woulduse them in my TV programs, where I wouldapeak about the performers and play oldrecordings with their performance. These pro-grams generated public excitement. Anothernoteworthy event was the creation of Martve –a children’s folk ensemble – in the late 1970s.Most thrilled were these children’s grandpar-ents. Today most of those little boys, nowskilled singers, sing in various youth ensem-bles or lead them in Tbilisi and other parts ofthe country. Martve’s biggest contribution wasthat it revived the interest in native folk song.The best way to preserve songs, is to teachthem to young people. A song dies when youngpeople forget it.

- In your opinion, was the Soviet practiceof folk song contests and inspections anygood?

- This tradition had both positive and nega-tive sides. Negative was the mass character ofperformance and the repertoire - songs aboutcommunist party, Lenin, Stalin and Politburo.It was thanks to the wisdom of our songmastersthe choirs would first perform the obligatorymodern songs, and only then true folk songslike Chakrulo, Odoia, Khasanbegura and oth-ers would follow. For an opportunity like this,the renowned songmasters themselves com-posed songs about tractors, heroes of work, etc.

- But those so-called modern songs alsohad some artistic value, did not they?

- Of course, they did. Some songs are stillnice to listen to. Let us not pay attention to thetext and not forget that those songmasters cre-ated their own new variants of folk songs; theywere somewhat like public composers, this iswhy they could easily compose songs on newtexts and of course, they would use old intona-tions in them.

- Batono Anzor, I would like to knowyour opinion about the following: there aresongs, whose authors are well-known - folkperformers, with distinguished talent andexperience. Could the songs be consideredfolk?

- There were talented musicians, who madeinvaluable contributions to safeguarding andarrangement of many songs. For instance:Dzuku Lolua – the saviour of Megrelian songs,also composed songs; and Vano Mchedlishvili,who would walk from village to village andcollect folk examples. Sometimes it happenedso, that he would forget a song, that he hadmemorized (as he had no knowledge of notesand only relied on his memory); he would goback to the village and learn the song again.These people also made new variants of theirown. From this viewpoint we can call SamuelChavleishvili a reformer of Gurian song. Hisvariants of songs significantly differ fromthose of Gigo Erkomaishvili. I do not mean,

that the latter was a less important figure, butChavleishvili brought the performance ofGurian song up to virtuoso level as comparedto simpler variants of the same song as widelysung by other people.

- But there are songs such as Dila andTsintsqaro, which are considered folkdespite knowing the names of the authors.These songs have their prototypes, do notthey?

- Of course. One song often resemblesanother. A talented singer would usually addnew intonation to the song. But people arewise; they are the principal measure of qualityin oral traditions. One person created an exam-ple, but others beautified and polished it. Goodvariants survived; poor variants were forgot-ten. This kind of creativity always went on. Weare lucky to live in times when the recordingsof our recent ancestors are available. In thetimes of oral transmission, the names ofauthors were usually lost.

I remember in Soviet times, governmentrepresentatives would come to grandfatherArtem and ask him to compose a song to somecommunist holiday. In fact this was not arequest, but an order. And grandfather Artemwould obey. Other songmasters had the sameexperience. Later, but without any pressure, Ialso created few songs, for example KharebaDa Gogia for a film, Mival Guriashi (my ownvariant) for the theatre play, Tu Ase Turpa Iqaviand others.

In general, there are as many variants of asong as good performers. Don’t take this asboasting, but each time I sing the same songdifferently. But this does not mean that this myown variant. People still remember VanoMchedlishvili’s and Varlam Simonishvili’svariants. If a song stands up to the test of time,people will accept it and then it is a true folkexample. The name of the author might not beremembered. Though the author sometimessays: “This is my song!”, but other people con-sider it as theirs. And so the names of theauthors were forgotten throughout the cen-turies. Moreover, people added their own

nuances to the newly created variant and evenchanged it.

- Batono Anzor, most of today’s ensem-bles are busy restoring song variants. Doesthis mean that the songs, performed withsuch photographic accuracy, will petrify?Maybe a more free approach to old record-ings would do better?

- The thing is that the old singers had thisability from their ancestors; their knowledgeand experience was transmitted from genera-tion to generation. They could allow them-selves to be more audacious in the search ofnovelty. Today we must be grateful to theyoung generation for what they are doing; theyseek for old examples, to learn and imitate. Inthe present time I regard this as a normalprocess. The most important thing is that theyhave love for folk song. And when they knowthe songs well, the desire for new variants willemerge. There have already been few attempts.

- Batono Anzor, most of today’s yougsingers do their best to approximate theirperformance manner to that of old, villagestyle. Some of them go even further andblame you for Rustavi’s non-traditional andtoo “vocal” singing. What would you say tosuch reproach?

- The attitude of such people is understand-able to me. My family holds three hundredyears of traditional singing; not many peoplemight know better than me how a folk songshould be sung. The thing is that in the timewhen Shvidkatsa and Gordela were created,the main purpose was to popularize Georgiansong both in Georgia and elsewhere. By theway, Jansugh Kakhidze’s Shvidkatsa was firstto pave way for Georgian song abroad. SoonGordelaand Rustavi followed. We must notforget that we lived in the Soviet Union, wherethere were such organizations as Goskontsertand Soyuzkontsert. They would never permityou to go abroad unless the ensemble had anacademic manner of performance. But weaimed at exporting Georgian song to the bigcities of the Soviet Union and the West, whichclearly explains the academic manner of our

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performance. When one comes onto the stageof Madison Square Garden, Royal Albert Hallor Paris Olympia, where thousands of peoplehave come to listen to Georgian folk song andare ready to watch the show, it is extremelyhard to do with the village style of singing. Theacademic manner of performance was best forbetter perception.

Sometimes this kind of performance isnot so estranged from the folk one as isdepicted.

- I agree. Besides, when a large state ensem-ble come on stage, it is hard to speak aboutauthenticity. Exactly this academic mannerroused interest of young people to our nationaltreasury. It is not fair to blame Rustavi for itssinging manner. It cannot sing differently.Scientific approach is one thing and scenic per-formance is other. Thanks to Rustavi’s academicsinging, UNESCO proclaimed Georgian poly-phonic singing “A Masterpiece of the Oral andIntable Heritage of Humanity” on May 18, 2001.This was declared by the international jury of 19members (including me), most of which werenot at all musicians. I believe, that another kindof singing might not have resulted in this.

I do not propagate that people should singthe way Rustavi does. By the way, a number ofGeorgian ensembles, singing in the mannerapproximated to village style, take part in vari-ous international festivals. But when an impre-sario plans commercial concert tour, he takesinto account many things including the taste ofaudiences. There was a big rumor about theconcert show of another Georgian folk songand dance ensemble Erisioni. Jemal Chkuaseli,Erisioni’s director, is one of those who is wellaware of folk performance, but there was price

to be paid to the genre. With its show Erisionibrought fame to Georgian culture.

- Batono Anzor, I think it it doubtless,that Gurian song is distinguished from thesongs from other regions of Georgia. I do notmean high artistic merit, but special attitudeto song and inclination to improvisation.There are many evidences from history onthis matter. In the beginning of the 20th cen-tury Gurian singers would specially gatherto sing. What explains such special attitudeto singing?

- It is difficult to say, now when there arevery few highly skilled singers in Guria. Butprobably this was a strong tradition consolidat-ed throughout centuries. Singing was vitallyimportant for Guria. Here everybody tried tosing. My grandparents used to say, that if a mancould not sing, he wouldn’t be considered adesirable groom. A young lady had to play thechonguri and sing in order to find a goodfiancé. Apolon Tsuladze wrote about oneyoung lady: ”Her singing with the chonguriaccompaniment would revive the dead”.

I remember from grandfather Artem, that asinger was highly respected by everybody.Such great singers as Varlam Simonishvili andSamuel Chavleishvili were regarded as publicfigures: they would be invited to parties andseated in a special honorary place. They wouldbehave in a different way too, as they werealways in the centre of attention. Everybodystrived for a status like that. Such attitudesgreatly determined the success of singing.

Thank you for such an interesting con-versation.

Tamaz Gabisonia

Next issue will be published in December, 2007

Georgian Folk Song - New Transcription

transcribed byTamaz Gabisonia