After a nearly two-year hiatus, Standing Rock Cultural Arts'
"Around the World" Music Series returns for its first virtual concert, featuring the internationally renowned Cleveland, Ohio-based Romanian master musician Gheorghe Trambitas.
Trambitas will present a virtual solo concert consisting of a potpourri of traditional Romanian dance music and songs from Transylvania and the Carpathian Mountains, as well as from the Romani culture, played on his chosen instrument: the taragot, a rare wind instrument used in both the Hungarian and Romanian cultures, accompanied for some pieces with tracks prerecorded by the legendary Cluj-Napoca, Romania-based Ovidiu Barteș and his orchestra.
About the artist:
Born in 1964 in Beclean, near Făgăraş in the Transylvania region of Romania, Gheorghe Trambitas grew up in a musical home. His parents were both fine traditional dancers, and his father also played accordion at home. When he was 7 years old his uncle Nicolae began to teach him accordion and so young Gheorghe started playing Romanian folk music. His brother, John (Nelu), who was four years his senior, was already an accordionist. When Gheorghe was in eighth grade, he began to play the fluier, a Romanian folk flute, and almost immediately began playing on the stage. At one of his first concerts an audience member commented "Gheorghe, you play like a shepherd that lost his lamb!"
After that concert Gheorghe resolved to play a louder instrument. Gheorghe's brother John had begun playing saxophone a few years earlier and about that time was given a German-made sax and gave his brother his Romanian-made sax which Gheorghe began to play. Gheorghe first heard the taragot in elementary school and always loved it. However, it was very difficult to find a good taragot at that time in Romania. Gheorghe had great difficulty finding a good taragot and so primarily played soprano sax. Gheorghe attended the Braşov School of Music and Arts where he was taught by Ioan Heves.
In 1982 Gheorghe and his brother John formed their orchestra, Frații Trâmbițaş, and began playing weddings and christenings throughout Transylvania. The group played every weekend. Weddings typically lasted from 5 PM until 6 AM the next morning – often they would then start playing another wedding on Sunday morning continuing until 1 am and then would return back to the first wedding on Monday evening to play until the wee hours on Tuesday.
Such intense playing gave them a chance to seriously hone their skills. In 1984 the brothers joined the Plaiurile Bârsei folk ensemble led by Gheorghe Tânase and under the musical direction of Ioan Ailoae. With Plaiurile Bârsei they played concerts throughout Romania as well as in Belgium and in Yugoslavia. Both Gheorghe and his brother John also played with the ensemble Poenița in Braşov.
During this period, Gheorghe received many awards: in 1985 he received the people’s choice award at the Maria Lâtârețu folk festival. In 1986 he received an award in duet with his brother at the Argeşule Plai de Dor. In 1987 he received first place in all Romania both as a taragot soloist and in duet with his brother John. So it continued until 1990.
During the period of communist rule in Romania it was almost impossible to get permission to play in other countries; consequently Gheorghe had to turn down many offers to play abroad. In 1990, just as the old regime in Romania was crumbling, Gheorghe came to the United States with Plaiurile Bârsei. In the United States he played with his own orchestra Transilvania for thirteen years.
Highlights of Gheorghe's musical career in the United States include performances at the National Folk Festival in 1996 with Transilvania and in 2000 with Harmonia. He has also been a frequent guest soloist with Harmonia since 1992. He was featured at the ClarFest in Cincinnati in 1992 and was the subject of an article written by Professor Michele Gingras in December 1999 in Clarinet Magazine. Gheorghe continues to be in demand as a soloist and with his own group performing for Romanian communities throughout the United States.
"Why does Gheorghe Trambitas play? Because he has a talent; but also in memory of those who taught him. Of course, he also plays because he is far from his beloved native land. In spite of the adversity he faces, the challenges posed by his difficult instrument, he overcomes this all with his sincere interpretations and nostalgia for his native place. I don’t know how it is to live in a foreign country, but through him I found out how horas are really supposed to be played. I believe that at moments when he felt the sorrow of loneliness and isolation, playing the taragot was a balm for Gheorghe Trambitas’ soul. This is my opinion; you - the listener - can make up your own mind."
--Sergiu Vitalian Vaida
Radio-TV Cluj, Cluj, Romania
About the instrument:
The taragot (Hungarian: tárogató) is a woodwind instrument with a single reed mouthpiece and a wooden body with a conical bore. The taragot is in many ways quite similar to the soprano saxophone; however its wooden body and significantly smaller tone holes produce a unique, darker timbre. The present day taragot is a 19th-century reinterpretation of an earlier double reed instrument also called tárogató (or töröksíp, literally "Turkish pipe") which was played in the Carpathian basin from the 16th through 18th centuries. The early tárogató was clearly related to the Turkish zurna and other folk shawms found in the Balkans, Middle East, and throughout central Asia. It is not known if the instrument was brought to Europe by the Magyars or was later introduced by the Ottoman Turks. The tárogató became associated with military uses in Hungary. It became a symbol of Hungarian nationalism during the Kuruc Uprising of 1703-1711 led by Prince Ferenc Rákóczi, to the point that its use was banned by the imperial Austrian government. The period after the Hungarian revolution in the 1840s sparked a revival of interest in the taragot. In the mid-nineteenth century there were several attempts to introduce a new double reed version of the tárogató – including an 1860 13-keyed model by Albert Skripsky - but none became popular. As the 1895 Hungarian millennium celebration approached, instrument maker Vencel József Schunda (1845-1923) became interested in designing "national" instruments. His experiments led to the introduction of the modern single reed taragot in 1894-1896. Schunda worked in conjunction with composer and performer Gyula Káldy who wrote the first method book for the instrument. Schunda introduced his instrument at the 1900 Paris World Exhibition and at the 1904 Wagner festival in Bayreuth where it was used in a performance of "Tristan und Isolde." Shortly thereafter, several other instrument makers developed their own versions of the instrument, most notably János Stowasser (b. 1865) whose instruments are generally recognized as the best ever made and remain in high demand today. Unfortunately Stowasser's factory was bombed during World War II and his original mandrels for shaping the bores were destroyed. Taragots are still being manufactured in Germany, Hungary, and Romania. Within Hungary, the taragot has developed as a lyrical instrument used primarily for the playing of patriotic melodies, particularly kuruc dálok associated with Rakoczi's uprising. Csaba Nagy is perhaps the best known exponent of this style in Hungary today. In Romania the taragot followed a very different trajectory. When the taragot was introduced into Romania it did not have the romantic nationalistic associations it had among the Hungarians. Folk violinist Luța Ioviță introduced the taragot among the Romanians of Banat in 1913. During the next 30 years the taragot came to be regarded as a Romanian national instrument. While the taragot was still used lyrically in Romania for playing doinas, over time a distinctive virtuosic, very fast, and highly ornamented style of playing developed. In particular, a rapid staccato style using double and
triple tonguing has become the signature of Banat taragot playing. During the mid-20th century Dumitru Farcaş popularized the taragot in Transylvania. Timbre and style differ between the two regions: Banat players favor a reedier sound and more staccato technique, while in Transylvania a darker sound and a more legato style of playing are favored. In addition to facing the usual challenges of technique – fingering, embouchure – Romanian taragot players also typically make their own mouthpieces. The details are a closely guarded art. The process generally involves radically modifying a commercial clarinet mouthpiece by grinding, filing and filling. Players do this in part to enable rapid tonguing, but also to provide the different timbres that distinguish the Banat and Transylvanian styles, as well as to help compensate for the difficult problems of intonation presented by the instrument. Gheorghe Trambitas spent years perfecting his mouthpieces and, in fact, uses different mouthpieces depending on the type of music he is playing.
(The above biography and notes about the taragot are excerpted from Walt Mahovlich's liner notes for Gheorghe Trambitas's 2007 CD "Voice of the Taragot.")
