Russia: The Tradition of Wind Instruments

If you imagine the sound of Russian folk music, it is probably folk choirs that come to mind – women in headscarves gathered in a circle. That is something you can still find in Russia if you go to the right villages at the right times. What you'll hear on this album, however, is a revival of folk wind playing by Boris Efremov, who leads two different ensembles: the Moscow Chorus of Horn Players and the Folk Ensemble Ulitsa. The horns in question here are not gleaming brass instruments but rough peasant instruments made from wood, cane and bark.

It opens with a solo by Efremov on a cane and birch-bark instrument from the Upper Volga region. The instrument is raucous, but the melody is clearly Russian, with the melodic phrases familiar from many folksongs. However, there are also tracks here, such as ‘Batyushka’ – played on panpipes – that sounds like it might have been recorded in the Solomon Islands. But surprises like these aside, many of these tunes tie into the old Russian khorovod, circle dances, and there's also a version of ‘Kamarinskaya’ a popular tune used by Glinka, ‘the father of Russian music’ in his most famous piece of the same name in 1848. Efremov and his colleagues are drawing on 18th and 19th century sources for many of their reconstructions. While the Chorus of Horn Players pieces seem like demonstrations, the Ensemble Ulitsa pieces also include voices, violin and other instruments, and make more engaging music.