ultimate dulcimer

Subject: ultimate dulcimer
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 05:40 PM

Three days ago I went to hear a lecture that was supposed to me about gypsy music in the opera. (yes, yes, I know 'gypsy' is supposedly not PC. I don't care)

What a disappointment that lecture was. The music was written by composers such as Verdi and Johann Strauss. I had gone with a friend, and I told her about hearing gypsies play music at our hotel in Prague. One played the cimbalom.

What is a cimbalom? It is a dulcimer on steroids.

All that encouraged me to search for cimbalom music on YouTube. Here is the URL of my favorite so far.

cimbalom

Please have a listen. I think you will enjoy it.

Subject: RE: ultimate dulcimer
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 06:46 PM

Check out Kalman Balogh...

Subject: RE: ultimate dulcimer
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 08:11 PM

Takes me back a half-century or so to the sidewalk outside Moscowitz and Lupowitz' restaurant on New York's lower east side. Every Sunday morning one of them (I think it was Lupowitz) would haul a cymbalom out
and treat the world to some music. Awesome!

Subject: RE: ultimate dulcimer
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 01:34 PM

Hi, Suibhne. I came across Kalman Balogh while exploring on YouTube. He's good.

Dick, that's a wonderful memory.

It's a little odd that gypsies are so associated with the cimbolom when the cimbolom is probably the most non-portable folk instrument ever invented. But of course many gypsies have left the nomadic life.

Subject: RE: ultimate dulcimer
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 01:44 PM

Here's another video that I like very much. It's in a format that seems typical of gypsy music and of much other music, from Brahms to 'I Left My Heart in San Francisco.' And that is the format called 'song and dance.' There is a slow, soulful first part (the song) followed by a jolly dance part.

I picture a man standing before the flickering campfire, bemoaning his fate at length. Suddenly a number of pretty girls bounce in, crying 'enough!' and dancing away. Another piece that does this is the so-called Anniversary Waltz.

I admit that that contrast is less noticeable in 'I Left My Heart in San Francisco,' but it's still the same form.

The dance part of the cimbolom piece has a most unusual rhythm. A fascinating rhythem. Don't tell me what it is. I want to remain mystified.

I'm going to put the link in the next post.

Subject: RE: ultimate dulcimer
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 01:47 PM

song and dance

Should I tell the local opera company to listen to this and get with it?

Subject: RE: ultimate dulcimer
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 01:50 PM

Somebody once said, "You've never heard the William Tell Overture until you've heard it on the hammered dulcimer!"

The wife of a friend of mine plays the hammered dulcimer. I made this comment to her, and she sat down at the dulcimer and started to work it out. Her eyes began to glow and she developed this sort of fiendish smile as she played.

My Gawd! I think I unleashed a monster!!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: ultimate dulcimer
From: GUEST,crazy little woman
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 02:29 PM

Heh heh! Good for her.

The faster and wilder pieces of Liszt sound great on cimbolom too. It's because they can play so darn fast! Makes me think Liszt made a mistake trying to play them on piano, especially the quiet pianos of his day.

Don, see if she can play Liszt or Brahms on her HD, then get back to us.

Subject: RE: ultimate dulcimer
From: Art Thieme
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 03:08 PM

...and a memory from my past too...

1962 my old friend,
Mike Sideman, and I had made our way to Mexico City on a bus---1200 miles from El Paso / Juarez. --- The very first hammered dulcimer / cymbolom I'd ever seen was one being played by a blind man in the bus station at Mexico City.
I never knew whether it had been a cymbolom of a hammer dulcimer that fellow was playing, but I never forgot it!

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: ultimate dulcimer
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 03:51 PM

Nice memory, Art.

I'll never forget a young black guy playing 'Fur Elise' on a steel drum in the London tube.

Subject: RE: ultimate dulcimer
From: Jack Campin
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 04:51 PM

The cimbalom is also used in art music in Hungary - Márta Fábián is one player to look out for. She's in her late 60s now, I think - I heard her and another player (her sister?) playing Bach keyboard music on cimbaloms in Glasgow about 20 years ago. Another (much younger) is Ildikó Vékony - I have a CD of Vékony playing far-out avant-garde music, mostly by György Kurtág.

Gypsy bands that use the full-size cimbalom are going to be the urban and not very mobile ones. Similar words are used for hammered dulcimers across Eastern Europe regardless of size - the "tsimbal" of klezmer music is usually a smaller one, and I've seen a fairly small dulcimer given the same name in Moldavia.

Subject: RE: ultimate dulcimer
From: Ptarmigan
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 09:49 PM

I got the following links to Cimbalom Videos, on the Cimbalom Board of the Dulcimer Player's Forum

1 - Irish String Quartet and Cimbalom.

2 - Milan Milák - a Moravien folklore song - "I pay for another glass of wine".

3 - 'Nicolae Feraru' playing as part of a Wedding Band, in Bucharest.

4 - Short clip of a string quintet performing outside the Grafton Arcade, Dublin.

5 - Hammered dulcimer player in Grafton Street, Dublin, Ireland - 1

6 - Hammered dulcimer player in Grafton Street, Dublin, Ireland - 2

7 - Music Documentary: The Soundscape of Miklós Lukács (Teaser1)

8 - Music Documentary: The Soundscape of Miklós Lukács (Teaser2)

9 - Music Documentary: The Soundscape of Miklós Lukács (Teaser3)

10 - GEORGE MIU - Concert 2

Cheers
Dick

Subject: RE: ultimate dulcimer
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 04 Sep 10 - 09:46 PM

Thanks. I'll check those out.