Issue #60
Last Update October 22, 2008
Reviews Music of Armenia by David Katz February 29, 2008 While the Cleveland Museum of Art is being renovated, its music programs have been relocated to a number of other local venues. On February 16, as part of the Museum of Art's mini-series "Music of Central Asia and the Near East", the Cleveland Museum of Natural History played host to "Music of Armenia: the Shoghaken Ensemble". Eighteen ethnic pieces, played on Armenian folk instruments, with singing and dancing, introduced the Cleveland audience to the folk culture of this little-known land.
Armenia is an ancient land, located in the eastern Anatolian highlands, near the headwaters of the Euphrates. Older than either, it was a buffer state between the Roman and Parthian empires, and endured off and on as an independent kingdom until the Ottoman Empire. Its language is a branch of Indo-European that is outside the Latin and Germanic language families. Mountainous and largely rural, Armenia's folk culture is rich and colorful. The Shaghoken Ensemble, interpreters of that culture, reflect the Armenians who fled Eastward in the wake of Turkish oppression, to what became Soviet Armenia.
The instruments used by the Ensemble include duduk, a double reed pipe considered to be the Armenian national instrument; zurna, a double reed oboe, like a short, harsh shawm; various flutes and whistles (blul, shvi, tav shvi); kamancha, a three-stringed fiddle played vertically like a cello; kanon, a zither played with tortoiseshell plectra; ud, a short-necked fretless lute used in this concert mostly as continuo; and the dhol and dap, percussion instruments.
The music itself was a mixture of dances and songs, with a few purely instrument pieces thrown in. The dances were in 6/8 and 9/8 meters, some of them couple dances and some of them the kind of athletic dance that allows the young men of the village to show off their strength and skill before the village maidens. The songs included work songs, romantic songs, lullabies and dance songs. The instrumental pieces included a suite of folk melodies composed by Komitas, who integrated the modal Armenian melodies with European polyphony.
Of special note are several of the musicians: Levon Tavanyan, who played the tav shvi, a large, low-pitched recorder-like instrument which is used as a drone, was able to keep a steady, uninterrupted note going for an entire piece through the use of circular breathing, a difficult technique in which air is taken in through the nose as it is being expelled through the mouth; Karine Hovhannisyan, the kanon (zither) player, whose bravura technique awed the audience; and Hasmik Haratyunyan, the female vocalist, whose sweet voice and expressiveness made vocal numbers soar. These were the outstanding musicians of an outstanding group.
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