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III. THE
TORBAN:
pre-history
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 CHAPTER I :: UKRAINE IN THE 18th CENTURY: General outlook
CHAPTER II :: UKRAINIAN MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS: Historical
context
CHAPTER III-a :: TORBAN: Its origins and predecessors
CHAPTER III-b :: TORBAN: Illustrated Overview of Surviving
Instruments
CHAPTER IV-a :: UKRAINIAN MUSIC: Renaissance Era, Lute
CHAPTER IV-b :: Baroque & Classical Eras, Baroque Lute
& Torban
CHAPTER V :: PERSONALITIES: Known players and literary
citations
ICONOGRAPHY :: REGIONAL: Lutes in Early Eastern Europe
GUESTBOOK :: COMMENTS
FORUM :: DISCUSSIONS
CONTACT :: QUESTIONS
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The real origin of the TORBAN is shrouded
in mystery, and any attempts at elucidation would inevitably
cause some animosity among Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, Jews
and Czechs, all of whom are vying for the credit. Currently,
there is little or no reliable information on the TORBAN on the
Internet as well as in print. Most available material is scarce,
and usually tendentious, superficial, or simply erroneous, either
for some nationalistic reason or out of ignorance of the history
of the LUTE family of instruments.
An IMPORTANT NOTE: The
term TORBAN predates the existence of it as an instrument by
at least 50 years, and it previously (until the advent of the
instrument in question) denoted any European theorbo/lute that
found its way into Ukraine.
One European predecessor of the
TORBAN is the POLIPHANT (click on the image for a large photo),
a unique Italian Renaissance instrument. Here you may see a photo
of the one surviving specimen made circa 1590 by Wendelin Tieffenbrucker,
in Padua. It is preserved in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna,
together with the Razumovsky Torban.There are some guitar
type instruments that have similar characteristics,
such as Rafael
Vallego of Granada 1785:
A detail: 
The Torban has been erroneously claimed
to be a variant of the bandura even if it was often referred
to as "pans'ka", or "gentleman's" kobza/
bandura" (pictured here). In fact, it belongs to the LUTE family of instruments: it is
a GUT-strung instrument, involves left-hand fretting typical
of the lutes, (which is not the case with modern banduras, which
are WIRE-strung, held in a "lute grip", but incorporate
left-hand plucking rather than fretting. It must be noted here
that in the early 20 century some Torbans found use as banduras
in the hands of bandurists, who out of expediency (as well as
ignorance) removed the tied-on frets and used Torbans in the
manner of ordinary banduras, without stopping the frettable strings
on the neck. Furthermore, modern scholarship has finally established
that the TORBAN and the PANSKA KOBZA/BANDURA are not the same
instrument, the second being simply a torbanoid bandura.The evidence
of this can be found in a few instruments that look like torbans
but are constructed [often rather crudely] with the neck set-up
unfavorable to fretting, often with a curved saddle.The torban also differed
from the bandura in that it's body was composed of ribs, similar
to that of lutes. It had two pegboxes in the so-called "swan-neck"
style, the second of which housed a set of bass strings running
outsde the fingerboard, as in a German Baroque Lute/Theorbo. The majority of torbans had
either inlaid or tied-on frets on the neck which allowed them
to be a quite a universal instrument, combining lute aspects
with those of the bandura/psaltery/harp.
Organologically, the torban is a direct
descendant of the THEORBO, which the Ukrainian Cossaks under
the command of Colonel Ivan Sirko would have come across during
their part as mercenaries in the campaigns in Flanders on the
side of the French during
the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). The Cossak detachmnets (which
remained there for 15 [!!!] years) had kobzars amongst their
ranks, and it could have been one of these men who invented the
hybrid instrument.Not only is the construction
of the torban very similar to that of the theorbo, but the similarity
in name also testifies to this relationship. The spelling of
"torban" sometimes appears as "TEORBAN" which
is even closer to the French and Italian terms. There is a possibility
that TORBAN is a contraction of TEORbo+BANdura as well.There is also a distinct
possibility that the invention of Torban could be attributed
to a specific personality. Sometime between 1736-1740 a Polish
paulite monk from Jasna Gora named Tuliglowski invented an instrument
"per modi bandura aut teorban efformati". He named
his instrument "tuli di gambe" [sic!]. Tulignowski
was rewarded for his performance on his own instrument by the
Emperor Charled VI in Vienna, where Tuliglowski went in the retinue
of prince Lubomirski. To date we have not found any information
on Tuliglowski and his "tuli di gambe" beyond this.
All known "Polish" and "Ukrainian"
torbans are so similar, that it's impossible to distinguish their
national differences.
The TORBAN has also
some distinct "Germanic" characteristics in the construction
of its pegbox. This leads to the suspicion of a German/Bohemian
origin of the TORBAN, made likely by the fact that some early
known players were itinerant Czechs, such as Ignac vin Held and
Andrey Sychra, who were also known as virtuosi on the 7-string
Russian Guitar, and the Vidort family.
Here is an ANGELIQUE
from the Prague Museum:
Importantly, in the Western
part Ukraine (and very frequently during the 19th century in
the rest of the country) the term Torban denoted ANY type of
lute, including medieval cobza/lute, baroque lute, and even German
Romantic Wandervogel-Laute. Ditto the Bandura. This is evidenced
in literary examples, particularly in the work of Ivan Franko.
This explains misapplication of the term to some "torban"
personalities that were more likely to have been lutenists or
cobzars.
***Proceed to the TORBAN ILLUSTRATIONS page.
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