a medieval hurdy gurdy - Youtube clips

[Ernic Kamerich]

For playing medieval music on hurdy gurdy, solo and in consorts, I have been using a box hurdy gurdy. It has a nice sound that mixes very well with singers, medieval fiddles, recorders, etc. It does so much better than most modern hurdy gurdies, but it is rather modest in character and loudness. Moreover, box hurdy gurdies seem to have been rare in the middle ages: most paintings and sculptures with a hurdy gurdy show an instrument that looks rather much like a fiddle with a wheel.

With my combined interest in medieval (and renaissance) music, which I play in consorts already nearly 40 years, and in bourdon music, especially of the hurdy gurdy, I wished to get a medieval hurdy gurdy. However, apart from the organistrum, which surely is not a melody+drone instrument but meant to supply a variable drone in parallel organum to a melody, and the box hurdy gurdy, often called with the general medieval name for hurdy gurdy, "symphonie", none of the renowned makers of hurdy gurdies offered such an instrument. De oldest type I have seen is of about 1500 after the "Garden of earthly delights" of Jeroen Bosch or comparable.

I could persuade Chris Allen and Sabina Kormylo (http://www.hurdygurdy.org) to make a medieval hurdy gurdy for me. First we discussed more than a year on model and many details, then they started and last summer it got ready. It was a thrilling moment when I got the instrument in my hands: I knew rather well what I wanted to hear, what character I had hoped for. It was a revelation: it was even better. It is really a wonderful instrument for medieval music, a joy to play.

Now I have been making some recordings and uploaded them on Youtube, one well known piece, La Manfredina, and some clips demonstrating and explaining the instrument (some not ready at this moment). I hope that these clips are worth while both for who has a general interest as for who knows already more about the subject.

- La Manfredina

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR_R3FhkQ4E

- A medieval hurdy gurdy 1: introduction

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0J41t_XV5g

- A medieval hurdy gurdy 2: early history - the drone

(not ready at this moment)

- A medieval hurdy gurdy 3: sound and model

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j1KmZuU-dw

- A medieval hurdy gurdy 4: playing modal music - strings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ciEmQOZlAs

- A medieval hurdy gurdy 5: repertoire - range and available accidentals

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hAvGYyrKCY)

- A medieval hurdy gurdy 6: a buzz string on a medieval hurdy gurdy?

(not ready at this moment)

- A medieval hurdy gurdy 7: temperament

(not ready at this moment)

I would like to draw your attention you for this.

With kind regards

Ernic Kamerich (Doede de Draaier)

[Wolodymyr Smishkewych]

Dear Ernic,

Many thanks for your message and for the YouTube links. It is wonderful to hear about the Aachen and your role in developing it with Chris and Sabina; I have been considering getting their sinfonie and it is very good to know that perhaps this might be an option as well.

Many thoughts have always been on my mind regarding the issue of the HG in the medieval, and what we now do in our "early music ensembles." The instrument which I play with ensemble Sequentia is one developed in conjunction with my brother Eugene Smishkewych, and it is based on the body of instruments found on the porticoes of the cathedrals in Leon, Burgos, and Burgo de Osma (you can google "smishkewych & smishkewych organistrum" and see images of it). It, too, is an amalgam of various hypothesis and desires, and even such an instrument which could be described as "limited" in range or use fulfills the needs we ask of it in the ensemble. This comes, of course, of limiting its use to its capabilities, but I also included some individual, anachronistic additions, such as a release-capo to provide the subfinalis on the melody string, and it has many more keys than on the models in stone. It is in that sense based on the order of gamut-tangents such as in Odo of Cluny's drawing, so it includes B and Bb (or in the case f concrete pitches, F and F#) at the top of the octave, which makes my instrument in effect have the range F-G-a-b-c-d-e-f-f#-g.

I have often considered that what we ask of these reproductions and reconstructions of medieval instruments is o informed by our present-day needs and wants that they depart from being reconstructions--which can be OK so long as we acknowledge it. We are even in our music--perhaps especially so in our music-making!--representing really only what our 21st century, present-day imaginations can make of artifacts and a collective memory of something approaching a "Repertoire." I use that word with caution, because of course the HG has both everything and nothing as a repertoire when it comes to the medieval. It can be sued on so much, and to it belongs so little (pretty much nothing). 'La Manfredina' fits beautifully on the "Aachen", and now so does 'Ghaëtta', thanks to the chromatic key-option you requested of the makers. But would 'Ghaëtta' ever have been played by a HG player, a 'sinfoniator'? Not likely, but perhaps s/he dreamt of the option, whereas a fidula or tibia (bagpipe) or fistula (flute) player would have been able to and not so restricted by the instrument, since chromatic alterations were easier to achieve. The instrument was possibly both unable to respond to trends and faithful to its original conceptions by its nature (that of a vocal accompaniment instrument). And of course there is the important consideration that we now respond very much more to the dance-element of medieval music and our modern culture has much less patience for the poetic, slower, (and often sung) repertoire. We are forever making rationales (I have been guilty of this myself!) for cutting numbers of verses (e.g. "public will not listen or have patience," "presenter/radio/CD needs X amount of minutes," etc) and the audience always seems to want sets or concerts to end with "Drums and fun." These are of course all modern considerations and since they often involve our livelihoods we definitely respond to them, but they are still of our times as far as we can tell. It is not to say they were not ideas present in the medieval but we cannot see that far back with any clarity and can only make our best educated assumptions.

Nonetheless, it is wonderful that you are adding to the possibilities available for medieval HGs. I myself have considered the sinfonie as I mentioned above, as well as one that was reconstructed by Antonio Poves (http://www.organistrum.com/ap.htm), based on a triptych from the monasteria de Piedra in Zaragoza. These instruments have similar constructions and they appear to head from the concept of making "organum sine magister" to a more melodic use of the instrument. 

But even so, the concept of a medieval HG as solely an instrumental enterprise is an intriguing and difficult one. We could quote the miniatures from the Cantigas to say "there is an example of sinfonias playing alone" but there is always the problem that the Cantigas miniatures were likely meant more as an encyclopedia cataloguing the many things going on at Alfonso's court, a veritable propaganda book for his kingdom as much as a valuable codex of songs (but even that was a state-sponsored sort of ethnomusicological enterprise). So truly, while this is all of great interest and use to us today, we must take so much of it with the proverbial "grain of salt."

I am interested in knowing more of the balance of the "Aachen:" how well does it work as an instrument accompanying singing? Is it too loud for accompanying solo singing, but could it work for ensemble singing, such as we do in the Sequentia men's ensemble (5-6 voices)?

In the end what we ask of our HG choice is to do what we want it to do best. I don't play certain types of music, so I don't need certain features on my instrument, and adding them on would take away from something else I value, which is the ability to have an instrument that responds to my approach to studying history and performing music that has a certain historical context. I respect that many other musicians have the need and desire to play multiple repertoires and in various concert contexts and therefore I think it is great that all of these options are open, and even better that we continue to push the envelope in all directions.

Thank you though, Ernic, for adding to the "medieval corner" which often gets a bit hidden or obscured by other influences in our HG world! I look forward to being in touch!

All best,

Vlad

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[Wolodymyr Smishkewych]

OOps! Sorry all, I intended that to be a private response to Ernic. Somehow the HG group  name isn't visible propeorly in my "to" field...Oh well, now you all have my homily for your entertainment.

Have a great week!

Vlad

[Margarita Rankin]

As a sinfonia player myself, I enjoyed that. Nothing to be sorry about!

--Margarita