Barbat (lute)
The Barbat (DMG Barbat, Pl barabīṭ ) is a historical plucked lute instrument, which is occupied at least since the Sassanian period in the area of present-day Iran. He belongs to a group of short-necked lute with a pear-shaped body, which are available at the time of Christ in Central Asia and Northern India and have spread under different names to southern Arabia and Southeast Asia. The most famous descendant of Barbat is the Arabic lute ʿ ūd whose round bulbous shape is derived from an 8th century newly developed sound type. This larger instrument was not carved out of one piece of wood, but composed of several wood chips and a separate neck. It served as a model for the medieval European lute. Until about the 11th century, the Persian name Barbat for the different sounds disappeared, he was often used synonymously with the Arabic word ʿ ūd. In today's Iranian music Barbat said the Arabic lute game in Persian tradition.
Etymology
The etymology is uncertain. Frequently repeated the derivation from Persian bar ( " chest " ) and asked ( " duck " ) to those associated with a duck breast curvature of body and neck. Another derivation leads Barbat back on Pahlavi Barbut or Barbud to an ancient Greek lyre barbitos ( barbiton ), the design with the Barbat but hardly anything in common. In the 17th century, the bass sounds theorbo was sometimes called " barbiton ". From the ending- ud the word for the Arabic lute ʿ said to be descended ūd (Arabic " wood ").
The name could also refer to the musician Barbad the time of the Sassanid king Khosrau II early 7th century AD. Curt Sachs did not consider the origin of barbitos for secured and proposed instead the connection to Sanskrit bharbhi, " with your finger ( the strings ) strong mark out " before.
Origin
The earliest pictures of sounds are dated to the first half of the 2nd millennium BC and come from an area of northern Syria to Mesopotamia. Let the far-flung localities suggest that the lute instruments have been developed earlier by mountain peoples of the Caucasus and arrived with their migration to the Middle East. Coinciding with the presumably related Hyksos immigration in Ancient Egypt around 1700 BC, found there the first sounds. The figures show instruments with a long neck and a small cup-shaped body. Some had frets, but there were no eddy to tighten the two or three strings. These were instead tied with fabric or Bastknoten at the neck end.
The oldest long- necked lutes consisted of two parts: a long thin neck, which is inserted through a body, what " spit sounds " led to the designation. After Curt Sachs, the body was in the oldest According instruments of a natural material such as coconut shell, gourd or a turtle shell. By exporting to areas in which such manufacture natural forms were not available, would there arise the need to customize the body of wood.
V. For the first time in the 8th century BC is to see a new type of sound without a separate neck in Iran Elamite clay figures in outline. He was probably carved out of one piece of wood and formed the archetype for the Barbat and the large group of derived sounds. Maybe even older, though difficult to perceive is an ancient Egyptian oud. The presentation on a clay figure comes from the 19th - 20th Dynasty ( 13th to 12th century BC). On one of the life-like reliefs on the stupa of Bharhut ( in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh ), from the 2nd century BC, which is now located in the Indian Museum of Calcutta, a short-necked lute is clearly shown. A dated according to different views in the 1st century before or after Christ bas-relief of Chaltschajan in ancient Bactria and today the south of Uzbekistan shows a similar sounds, as well as a sculpture of the 2nd to 4th century AD from Gandhara in northern Pakistan. The short-necked lute is likely to judge to have been developed in the area of the Iranian highlands to northern India on the location of the sites.
After the Arab philosopher al - Mas ʿ udi (around 895-957 ) goes back to the Barbat mentioned in the first book of Moses person Lamech. Lamech's son Jubal invented the lyre kinnor based on the story and is considered the ancestor of all musicians. Elsewhere, al - Mas ʿ udi sees the origin of the sounds with the ancient Greeks. In fact, seem stringed instruments with fingerboards with the Greeks not to have been known, only some terracotta figurines from the Hellenistic period in the 3rd-2nd century BC represent According players
About the design of the Barbat is up to the Sassanian period ( 4th to 7th century), little is known. Perhaps the instrument was given a slightly different, more improved form during the reign of Shapur I ( 241-272 ). It is unclear whether the ceiling consisted of an animal skin or a thin wooden board. In Sassanid pictures that show musicians, the motif of a dancer comes to the fore within a music group. A silver plate, which is in the British Museum, shows a frontal view of a standing sound player on the edge of a banquet scene. He holds a pear-shaped instrument with three strings probably diagonally across his chest. On another silver plate sits in an unusual representation of a female figure with a lute in the center, without the usual dancers or banquet motif. Her head is surrounded by a nimbus, which is usually a sign of divinity and immortality.
The acclaimed for its musicality Sassanid Bahram V (reigned 420-438 ) helped the musicians to a higher reputation and promoted the immigration of thousands of singers and dancers from North India. The Balochistan over the country comers were called ẓuttī. Khosrau I (reigned 531-579 ) lowered the status of the musicians back to the previous low level. The most significant was the court musician under Khosrau II (r. 590-628 ) acting Barbad. He was regarded as a virtuoso Barbat player and coined by his compositions and music theories decisive, the then Persian music. In rock art, ceramic and metal dishes of the Sassanian period the two angular harps van besides the Barbat (lying played) and Cang (standing), the long-necked lute Rabab, the fork pool Cagan and to see a mouth organ.
The Sassanid Barbat usually had four strings, in contrast to ṭunbūr two-stringed long-necked lute. In addition, there must still have been announced at the end of the 7th century, a two-stringed lute in Iraq. A Barbat with two strings remained from the 8/9 Receive century. The four strings were partially double mounted, tuned in fourths and were plucked with a plectrum. When Arab tribal confederation of the Ghassanids in pre-Islamic times in space and Syria under the early Islamic Umayyad dynasty was the Barbat the most popular musical instrument. From the 5th century, he accompanied the singing of the Persian and Byzantine singing girl. On Ghassanid court occurred in the 7th century with barabīṭ ten or more vocal girl. About the culturally significant Lakhmids capital of al - Hira on the lower reaches of the Euphrates, where around the year 600 Arabs took over the sounds, they came in the course of the 7th century continues to Mecca and Medina, possibly in the luggage Persian slaves to work in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula were spent.
The lawyer and founder of the Hanbali school of law Ahmad ibn Hanbal - ( 780-855 ) forbade everything un-Islamic music, so practically remained only the religious poetry recital. In addition to singing, he forbade played by professional musicians instruments on which the Barbat, the ʿ ūd, the bamboo flute nay, the harp ṣandsch and included the Painted rabab lute. Users are, however were the tabl drum, frame drum daff and the clocking bat qaḍīb.
Next to the name Barbat there for sounds in pre-Islamic time nor the Arabic terms Mizhar and Kiran. If the should have Barbat had a solid wood ceiling, the latter, but otherwise identical two instruments could have been covered with a blanket of animal skin. Mizhar in contemporary sources, was also easily identified with the ʿ ūd and beside it in the Latin - Arabic dictionary translates as the 10th century tympanum (frame drum ). Stringed instruments and drums were often referred to with the same Arabic word. Muwattar what simply " stringed instrument " means the early writer also identified as a lute whose strings were obviously touched by the thumb.
Regardless of the naming emerged around the 7th or 8th century, an entirely new form of a short-necked lute. Their body was made not more narrow, and of a piece of wood, but had a deep bulbous shape of aneinandergeleimten wood chips ( planks ) and a separate fingerboard with a downwardly bent peg box. The Arab philosopher al -Kindi and musician (around 800-873 ) mentions that the sound body have to be as thin and even, although it is not clear whether he meant wood chips in this context. Unique to the new design calls for the Ikhwan al -Safa author of a ʾ -titled collection of Arabic writings on science and philosophy from the 10th century that the planks ( Alwah ) should be thin and made of lightweight wood. A hint on different constructions of the body gives the musician Ziryab, who refused to play in his first performance in front of Haaroon ar - Rashid (r. 786-809 ) on the lute of his teacher, Ishaq al - Manṣilī because they are " of a different structure " and was rather used his own, much lighter instrument.
The technique to bend by washing or steam wood panels is much older and was already known in ancient Greece, bent by the Romans woods are obtained from the 1st century AD. Egyptian chariots had in Thebes around 1500 BC curved wooden wheels. Nevertheless, the preparation of suitable thinner planks for instrument was costly and complicated, which could be one reason for the relatively late introduction. The Arabs may be considered the inventor of the lute with plank corpus.
In the new sounds, the number of strings increased from four to five double strings that ran on a fingerboard with seven frets. Other sound-forms existed in parallel. Around this time, and in the 11th century, the names were Barbat and ʿ ūd still used interchangeably. By the 10th century the Barbat reappeared in its older form in Persian figures on later disappeared name and instrument from the region of origin and the name ʿ ūd began for the new design to enforce.
Dissemination
During the Umayyad period, there were several different volume types: 1 ) Until the 9th century Abbasid period was known as the " Persian lute ," al - ʿ al - Farisi ūd. It is therefore likely to be of been Barbat meant the old slim shape. 2) ūd The new phonetic form, a model of today ʿ, is attributed to the music theorist and famous court musician of Baghdad Mansur ibn -Ca ʾ far Ḍārib Zalzal († 791 ), called ʿ ūd aš - šabbūṭ, after the name of a round- bellied fish. At its instrument a new covenant was available, which was to engage with the middle finger and a "neutral" third delivered. The scholar al -Farabi ( 870-950 order ) led this tone later in the Arabic music theory. 3) In the 10th century urged in Iraq, the long-necked lute ṭunbūr the ʿ ūd temporarily into the background. 4) the end of the 7th century, there was a two-stringed lute short. 5) described by al -Farabi al - ṭunbūr Mizani (also al - Baghdadi ṭunbūr ) in the 10th century with a long neck had frets, which allowed the game of quarter tones. After the 10th century, a variant of the old Barbat could with four double strings under the new name ʿ ūd e - Qadīm ("classical " sounds ) continues to exist and from the slightly larger five-stringed lute ʿ ūd -e Kamel ( "perfect" sounds ) have made a difference.
The older pear-shaped, made of a wood block sound type is in its region of origin practically disappeared, but has already begun about the same time with the advent of round bulbous shape to spread in Asia, Africa and Europe. From the two - or three-stringed lute Central Asian kopuz Curt Sachs derived a series of strung with animal skin short- necked lutes, whose names are related to the Arabic word al - qanbūs. A central role is played qanbus the Yemeni lute, which is also known as Gabus and gabbus on the Arabian Peninsula. Gabbusi ie the corresponding instrument in the Comoros.
Not later than the 15th century brought Arab traders from the Hadramaut region südostjemenitischen name and instrument type on the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, and later on to other Indonesian islands. The short-necked lute could as early as the 9th century, long before the founding of the Arab trading settlements, have been brought by Sufi missionaries from Persia to some Malay coastal settlements. All originating from Arab countries and in widespread use today in the Malay archipelago sounds are called Gambus and exclusively played in various musical styles associated with Islam. The early pear-shaped form, which is derived from the Yemeni qanbus, ie Gambus Melayu.
Since the 19th century, more merchants from the Hadramaut with the ʿ ūd in the luggage in large numbers came to Southeast Asia, the called according to their region of origin Gambus Hadramaut pot-bellied lute has urged the older Gambus Melayu in the background. Also in Yemen took over in the mid- 20th century, the ʿ ūd largely in place until then in the Arab past, from the old Barbat derived sounds. The qanbus is rarely heard in the medieval Yemenite folk music.
Another pear-shaped lute from Barbat type is the Chinese pipa, the (206 BC -220 AD) is said since the Han period known. In the 13th century it came in the wake of the Mongol conquests to Baghdad, where it was called mi ʿ zaf and compared with a ṭunbūr. Related to her the Japanese biwa lute.
How are the sounds came of the Andalusian music to Europe, can be seen on pictures of a collection of songs Cantigas de Santa Maria from the 13th century. Shown is a pot-bellied lute with nine lateral vertebrae. In addition to the sounds Mizhar and Barbat belonged to the other, brought by the Abbasids to the Iberian Peninsula, the Arab musical instruments lyres qītāra and kinnara.