Chinbat Baasankhuu The Art of the Mongolian Yatga (CD)
EUCD2516
The Art of the Mongolian Yatga by Chinbat Baasankhuu is likely to be the first full Mongolian yatga recording widely available outside Mongolia and includes techniques only possible at the highest levels of yatga accomplishment.
Traditionally the yatga – a bowed zither with movable bridges – was played vertically during royal occasions at Mongolian court, complete with an ornate swan’s head and strings made from animal intestines. Today, the yatga is played horizontally with strings of silk and steel without the décor of a swan’s head, Mongolian wolf or deer.
On The Art of the Mongolian Yatga, Chinbat Baasankhuu performs the 13 and 21-string master yatga. Space, speed and intricacy define the musical pieces which mirror the landscape of Chinbat’s birthplace,
‘I was born in a village in the Altai, a western province of Mongolia whose capital city is Altai. It's a very diversified region in which you can find massive mountain ranges, large rivers, the Gobi desert and large steppe areas.’
The Altai Mountains – or ‘golden mountains’ as they are known in Mongolian – connect Mongolia, Russia, China and Kazakhstan. From Altai, Chinbat went on to study in the Mongolian capital Ulan Bator’s College of Music and Dance, then to the National University of Culture and Art where she progressed to become professor of the yatga in the Department of Traditional Music.
Chinbat has carefully selected pieces for both the 13 and 21-string yatga from well-known Mongolian composers on The Art of the Mongolian Yatga including B. Naranbaatar’s The Trot of the Horse with the Black Velvet Coat. B. Naranbaatar was one of the first musicians to play the yatga in concert. Other pieces written by well-known composers include A. Mend Amar’s Variation 2; The Colt of the Kherlen River composed by L. Murdorj and Variations on Two Traditional Songs by J. Chuluun.
Chinbat effortlessly plays the 21-stringed master yatga known colloquially as ikh gariing yatga on tracks 4-10 - including An Elegant Saddle – written by the renowned Mongolian composer B. Sharav in which Chinbat’s prowess shines: fast fingers plucking simultaneous strings in an aural ballet. Other Mongolian folk classics include My Mother, Sunrise (Chinbat’s favourite) and Variations which includes high-end string-bending.
The Mongolian yatga belongs to the zither family of ancient stringed instruments from which the guitar evolved including the Japanese koto, Chinese gu-zheng, Vietnamese dan tranh and the Korean gayageum.
Chinbat has performed with the National Mongolian Philharmonic Theatre and in world music concerts from China, Inner Mongolia, Japan, India, France and by invitation only for the South Korea Yatga Society. Chinbat Baasankhuu may come from a town that boasts one unpaved runway but on The Art of the Mongolian Yatga, there is no doubt Chinbat is taking us to a whole new height of yatga performance.
Published: 2014
Genre:
Asia & Oceanic
Label:
Arc Music
Tags: Mongolia, World Music
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CD
€15.65
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