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Torban
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The torban or teorban is a Ukrainian musical instrument that combines the features of the Baroque Lute with those of the psaltery. It was invented ca. 1700, probably influenced by the central European Theorbo and the Angelique which Cossack mercenaries would have encountered in the Thirty Years' War, although there is a distinct possibility that Tuliglowski, a paulite monk, was its inventor. The Torban was made and used mainly in Ukraine, but also occasionally encountered in neighbouring Poland and Russia.
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Encyclopedia
The torban or teorban is a Ukrainian musical instrument that combines the features of the Baroque Lute with those of the psaltery. It was invented ca. 1700, probably influenced by the central European Theorbo and the Angelique which Cossack mercenaries would have encountered in the Thirty Years' War, although there is a distinct possibility that Tuliglowski, a paulite monk, was its inventor. The Torban was made and used mainly in Ukraine, but also occasionally encountered in neighbouring Poland and Russia. There are about two dozen torbans in museums around the world, with the largest group of 14 instruments in St. Petersburg.
The surviving printed musical literature for torban is extremely limited, notwithstanding the widespread use of the instrument in Eastern Europe. It was an integral part of the urban oral culture in Ukraine, both in Russian and Polish (later Austro-Hungarian Empire) controlled parts of the country (after the split). The term "torban" was often misapplied in western Ukraine to any instrument of the Baroque Lute type.
The multi-strung, expensive-to-manufacture, and technically-difficult fretted torban was considered an instrument of Ukrainian gentry, although most of its practitioners were Jews and Ukrainians of low birth, with a few aristocratic exceptions (e.g. Mazepa, Razumovsky, Padura, Rzewucki). This sealed the instrument's fate in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution: it was deemed insufficiently proletarian and was discouraged. A predecessor of the torban called kobza (also known as bandura) was the instrument of the common folk. It differed from the torban by the absence of the bass strings, and was closely related in its organology to central European Mandora and Pandora (see Lute).
Later in the 20th century, banduras were often manufactured to imitate the look of the torban, which has also contributed to its misidentification.
Sources
- Cherkasky, L. - Ukrainski narodni muzychni instrumenty // Tekhnika, Kyiv, Ukraine, 2003 - 262 pages. ISBN 966-575-111-5
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