The Torban is a variant of the bandura and is often called the
gentlemen's or pans'ka bandura. The torban
differs from the standard bandura in that the body is glued from ribs like
that of a lute or mandolin. It has two
pegboxes on the end of the neck, the additional one of which houses a
second set of bass strings. Some torbans
have frets on the neck which made them into a more universal instrument by
combining aspects of the bandura and
kobza. The torban has approximately 30 strings, usually made of gut,
although instruments having up to 60 strings
are known to have existed. These instruments were very popular among the
gentry and nobility of Poland, Russia
and Ukraine, and it is known that prominent Ukrainians such as Hetman
Mazepa and Kyrylo Rozumovsky played
the torban.
Torbans from "The Guitar review" N 33
It is thought that the Torban was influenced by the French theorbo
(teorbe) which the Cossacks under the
command of Colonel Ivan Sirko would have observed during their campaigns
with the French during the Thirty
Years War (1618-1648). The Cossacks would have had bandurists among their
ranks and it is thought that these
bandurists may have been the first to develop the hybrid instrument. The
torban began to fall into disuse in the
19th century. It was more difficult to play and make, and more expensive.
In the early 1920's the torban was
branded antiproletarian, because of its association with court
aristocratic musical traditions. This marked the end
of its use in Ukraine, where it was replaced by the guitar and bandura.
Certain structural peculiarities of the torban
have made an appearance in the contemporary bandura. These include such
peculiarities as the doubled bass
pegbox and the glued back. The later feature is being used extensively on
the Lviv banduras.
No 8 Photo: (p.10) Kobzar Hnat Honcharenko and Olexander Borodai
(standing)
The bandura is a uniquely Ukrainian instrument that does not have any
direct analogies in neighboring
countries. The classical or folk bandura is thought to have evolved
developed from its predecessor, the kobza, in
the 14-15th centuries. First mentions of a Ukrainian bandurist date back
to Polish chronicles of 1441. The bandura
differed from the kobza in that it had no frets along the neck and the
major playing was done on treble strings
known as prystrunky. These were placed to one side of the strings strung
across the neck. The classical bandura
became very popular among the Ukrainian Cossacks and was often played in
the courts of Poland and Russia.
The size and shape of the classical bandura has remained remarkably
stable for the past 300 years.
Instruments which date from the 1600's are very similar to those used at
the turn of the century by the wandering
minstrels known as kobzars. The classical bandura had 20 to 24 metal
strings tuned diatonically. The back was
hewn from of a single piece of timber, with a soundboard of spruce or
pine. Wooden tuning pegs were used and
there was hardly any metal on the instrument. The instrument often had a
belt to aid in holding it when being
played or carried.
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Left - Classical bandura made by William Vetzal. Right - Kobzar Tkachenko with his students. |
The classical bandura was chiefly used by kobzars in solo performance
as an accompaniment to epic
ballads called dumy, also for religious psalms and historic folk songs. It
was also used for the playing of dance
tunes. Several exponents of the traditional classical bandura such as
Julian Kytasty, Volodymyr Kushpet, and
Mykola Budnyk are now coming to the forefront. Interest in this traditional bandura playing in Ukraine and the West is growing. Instruments of
this type are now being made by individual craftspeople in Ukraine and
Canada. Occasionally in music sources one comes across the incorrect politicaly motivated use of the word "bandore", instead of bandura.
This has resulted because of the suggestion by the Russian academic A.
Famintsyn that the Ukrainian
people had borrowed the bandura from England from a guitar-like instrument
developed invented in 1561 by John
Rose that he called a bandore. This has since been disproved. The first
mentions of the bandura in Ukraine now date to
more than a hundred years earlier.
(No 11 Picture of Kobzar)
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