Cauld-wind from the Steppes The LBPS has members across the world, including two in Russia. We invited them to tell us about bel- lows-piping in the Russian Federation

ccording to musician Pavel However, it is clear that during the last Stepanov, who both studies ten years enthusiasm has been growing A Russian musical traditions and in Russia for Scottish piping; both St makes and teaches Russian , Petersburg and Moscow have Pipe and “Russians played the bagpipe the most Drum bands; in September of 2009 the often under Ivan the Terrible. The Tsar Moscow band took part in a festival ordered the con- of military music in Red Square, Mos- struction of a set- cow. More surprising, however, and tlement rather more exclusive, is the small group specifically for of players of bellows pipes. bagpipers. The Sergey Romanenkov has been a Society bagpipe grew still member since January 2008; he de- more important scribed to me his experience of Russian under Tsar Fyo- piping: dor Ivanovich “The most people in the Russia very Romanov. Musi- likes celtic music- Scottish, Irish, but our cians were invari- celtic scene develop only 10 years (or so) ably invited to the ago. I think it was a "Fresh wind from entertainment the West" :-) and now, we have a lot of rooms to play the Scottish Festivals every year, such as Volynka made by music, and were Burns’ Supper and St. Andrews Day. In Pavel Stepanov paid for their Moscow there are several Scottish work. But the sit- Dance Schools. uation made a U-turn, once Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich ascended the throne [in “During this time, in the big cities there 1645]. He was western-minded, liked began to appear celtic-folk groups and European classical music, but could pipers. Most pipers first played only the barely stand the Russian folk instrument GHB (and me too). Sometime later, bagpipe. So he banned the bagpipe some of us buy the smallpipes. But we throughout the country. Bagpipes were don't know about Scottish Lowland pip- brought to the Moskva-river by cart- ing tradition and play on them highland loads and burnt down. A whole cultural and Irish tunes with other instruments. stratum was thus destroyed in Russia.” Some pipers in Russia play the Gaita and 41 uillean pipes. In the Belarus are more sic and piping. And I hope, what the pipers, playing the ‘duda’ and this tradi- more and more greatest musicians from tion is still alive there. Today I don't play Scotland will comes to Russia and will the GHB regularly, I concentrate on the take pleasure of our friendship and -my main and favou- Russian grateful listeners! rite instrument and I play on I playing on the pipes made by Ian them lowland repertoire regularly, trav- Kinnear A/D combo set, blackwood elling to the Russian towns and playing and cocobolla. Maybe the next year, I'll with fiddler and bodhran player. come to Scotland on the master class. Sometimes to Moscow come folk Thank you for your interest and sorry bands from the Scotland and Ireland- for my english! All the best, Sergey.” Anna Murray, Burach, Solas, Paddy Keenan, Paul Martin and many more. I This summer Sergey was joined on the think is great and very interesting for LBPS eastern wing by Phil Ershov; Russian people who loves Scottish mu- here’s his reply to our enquiry: “As far as I know - there are 6 players [of bellows pipes] in Russia: 5 in Mos- cow and one in Saint-Petersburg (this is me). Most of them come to bellows- pipes from great highland pipes. Two of them have grade certificates of College of Piping. First, Anatoly Isaev; he is holder of the Senior Certificate of the College of Piping. He also plays on smallpipes and border pipes, but he pre- fers highland style, even on these pipes. He plays in the Tin Thistle Ceilidh Band. Also he teaches the bagpipes - the great highland bagpipes, and the smallpipes. Recently however he has played the but- ton accordion more than the pipes. Sec- ond is Sergey Kovalev. He has 3rd Grade Certificate. He also plays the smallpipes as well as the highland pipes. He is the founder member of The White Heather Band. Third of the Moscow Sergey Ramanenkov at the 2010 pipers is Sergey Romanenkov. I can’t say Moscow Bagpipe Fest.| anything about the other two. 42 I began learning in highland tradition musicians interested in this amazing mu- too, but I'm interested in lowland tradi- sic. tion and dance music. I played the shut- I came to Irish and Scottish Music from tle-pipe until recently, but about week dances. Firstly I've discovered dances ago I received a set of smallpipes from and then I thought about playing for Ian Kinnear and begin learning to play dancers. All musicians in my band also bellows-blown pipes. My general instru- began from dances, but it is exception in ment is the fiddle. I play in an Irish the Russia. Most of the musicians, who traditional music band, called "The Slog- play trad. music, don't know dances. gers". We play some Scottish tunes too, Irish and Scottish dances are popular in but in the band I play only on the fiddle Russia - most of our bands play for now. We play dance tunes and slow airs dancers. Our bands often play in two or and some ballads (mostly because of my more traditions - Scottish and Irish or love to Phil Cunningham, Aly Bain and Irish and Breton. But White Heather Battlefield Band), but I think about play- Band play only Scottish tunes and Slua ing Scottish dance tunes too. Si (one of the oldest and most popular Here in St Petersburg we have the Bag- band in the Russia) play only Irish music pipes & Drums of Saint-Petersburg and songs. Tin Thistle generally play Band, but there isn't any other piper, Scottish tunes and songs, but also they except me, who is interested in bellows- have some Irish and Cape Breton tunes blown pipes now. But I think that when in their repertoire. I will play the smallpipes, there will be

Anatoly Isaev, piper with the Tin Thistle Ceilidh Band 43 The Lowland piping tradition is almost such as Tartan Dreams and Moscow unknown in Russia. Russian pipers School of Scottish Dance. know that it exists, but don't know much about it. We all play in highland fingering style - almost all pipers play highland pipes first. I didn't play high- land, but I learn piping from the College of Piping Tutor. And we play with the drone over the bellows arm too. By the way, many of our musicians, who play Irish and Scottish music aren't profes- sional musicians. They have some kind of the job and play music as a hobby. But sometimes this hobby takes much more time and energy than a job. I know of only two pipers who play the border pipes in bands: Anatoly Isaev plays the border pipes made by Nate Banton which he has had since the be- ginning of the autumn. And Alexander Anistratov plays the border pipes of his own make.” Informed by Sergey and Philip we in- vestigated a little more and learnt that Sergey Kovalev, founder last autumn of Sergey Kovalev, piper with the the White Heather Band, started his bagpipes studies in 2006 in Moscow, White Heather Band class of Anatoly Isayev. In 2008 he came to the College of Piping in Glasgow, Pipe-making class of PM Joe Wilson where he got his Level 3 Piping Certificate. In June 2010 Sergey Ramonenkov put us in touch he participated in the 1st Moscow Inter- with Alexandre Anistratov, known not national Piper Festival and became the only in Moscow, but also in many other Laureate of the first Russian Piper Con- cities of Russia as a musician playing a test. His band plays mostly Scottish tra- variety of “celtic” instruments of mod- ditional songs and dancing sets of , ern and ancient music. He sent this re- reels, strathspeys, waltzes and sponse to our interest in his pipe-making: and co-operates with leading Moscow “I started to paint and sculpt around 2 schools of Scottish traditional dance, years old, because my father is a famous

44 Russian sculptor. Partly my choice of it is the influence of the ancient music profession was predestined. I use to try that was present at our conservatories. many materials everyday which gave me My second bagpipe was the Scottish the right feeling for the materials I work smallpipe. That was the first smallpipe with now. At 6 years old I started to play with bellows in Russia. So, I’ve had to a recorder, it has shown that I have a study how to play on it by myself. And talent for music. Afterwards I play a only afterwards I’ve learned to play on bagpipe and make it nowadays. Highland – usually it happens vice versa. It is curious that at the end of my I had no intention to become a master. studies, inspired by some pictures for a I’ve just started to make a reed for my story from the middle-ages I even made own instruments because I needed it. a sculpture which was named Later on I needed to make bags and “Bagpipers”. However everybody knew bellows. I needed to tune up the instru- nothing about bagpipes at the end of ments that I’ve been taught by Moscow 90’s in Russia. I didn’t know that there musical master Fedor Nekrasov, an ex- are so many varieties and styles of bag- pert of the wind instruments at the mu- pipes. seum of Glinka. During my visits to his Just at the end of 90’s I got a chance to studio I was watching all his accessories, listen to a concert of Vladimir Lazerson his engineering tools; step by step I’ve and his band. Vladimir Lazerson is a learnt everything: how it’s made, how to patriarch of bagpipe music in Russia. At work with different materials and so on. that moment he was the only one to play Knowledge from that period really has a bagpipe in Russia. There are rumors helped me when I started my own work- that he had started playing on an oxygen shop. bag. After this concert my conception I had a workplace because I’m a mem- has changed totally. I couldn’t think ber of Moscow Union of Artists. Little about anything except for the bagpipes by little I’ve transformed one half of it and Scottish and Irish folk music. Vladi- to my workspace for bagpipe produc- mir Laserson became my teacher for a tion. My main tools were bought from long time. He was the one who had the professional manufactories. But shown me such masters as Hamish some of the tools did not exist at all so I Moore, Colin Ross, Robert Mathieson, had to invent and to make it by myself. Gordon Duncan, Martyn Bennett, Nigel I ordered certain details at the factories. Richards, Alan MacDonald. Those are And afterwards I constructed it all my- whom I follow nowadays. At some self - from the handles for my chisels to sense they are my teachers too. vacuum plant for impregnation of The Galician gaita was the one I started wood. to study making. Gaitas and dudelzaks At this moment I had graduated from became prevalent in our country. Maybe the Russian Academy of Painting, Sculp- 45 ture, and Architecture as a sculptor. Many hours I’ve spent studying World history of Art. I spent plenty of time meeting the variety of the bagpipes and their design from different countries and ages. I was interested not only in the bagpipes but all the woodwind instru- ments. Final conclusion was that such complicated instrument as the small- pipes or border pipes is the harmonic consolidation of lines, shapes and values that make a unique sound for each in- strument and it influences the relation- ship of instrument and its owner. Some Alexandre Astrinatov plays his new box- of my designs are inspired by my archi- wood pipes at a Samhain concert in tectural view of plants and also by the Krasnodar city designs of baroque and classicism. For example, the design of my border pipes Of course, I prefer to use for my instru- model “Dal Riata” was based on a litho- ments metals such as brass, silver, nickel graph of 19th century from The New silver, anodized bronze (golden or silver York Public Library. plated) and natural materials as horn, I use all range of wood. Most of the mammoth ivory (Russia is motherland exotic wood I get from Germany. My of the mammoth) and the tooth of the favourite wood is boxwood, which sperm whale. grows not in Europe but in Caucasus. The instruments are authentic so the This type of wood has much in common materials should be the authentic too. It with south English boxwood that was is also valid for the reeds that I use for highly rated by the masters of baroque my instruments. Certainly I make drone instruments, like Stanesby, for example. reeds of ebonite and carbon or of ebo- Its steadiness and acoustic properties are nite and glass-fibre plastic, chanter reeds similar. I take the boxwood 20 years of plastic because it is easy to use for the after cutting. And then I keep it for client. But the fact is that the cane reeds about a year cut by parts. The exterior have inimitable sound. So, I play only and the sound could be incomparable if the bagpipes with the cane reeds myself the conditions of drying and other phas- and popularize this way at my master- es were done right. classes. I am aware that we live in a I use fruit trees such as plum , pear or modern world where everything keeps cherry for the medieval and renaissance changing and simplifying, but I never instruments, never for the smallpipes. replace the authentic details by modern and easier ones. In my work I try to keep 46 an authenticity. This is important, be- I try to tell a little bit of history of this cause the fineness and the materials instrument at my concerts at different alone keep the tradition living. clubs and concert halls such as The I get orders from all over Russia from Moscow International House of Music. Vladivostok to Murmansk. Also I have In such concerts border and smallpipes clients from Australia, England, Spain combine their sound with that of lute, and Germany. Unfortunately most of harp, baroque guitar and harpsichord. the potential clients from Russia don’t We are working on an album which I know the difference between types of hope will be out next year. bagpipes. Each year more and more people be- I teach master classes and other events come interested in Lowland bagpipe, to popularize the bagpipes in Russia, and buy this kind of instrument and start to I`m proud of playing for Princess of play. I hope that our collaboration with Kent my own smallpipes D set at the LBPS would promote an information banquet at the opening of a design exhi- support for this music trend, which is bition. new for Russia.”

Alexandre Anistratov at his workbench

Alexandre Anistratov’s web site [with an English version] is at http:// pipesland.com/bagpipes/. You can watch a brief video of Sergey playing at the 2010 Moscow Bagpipe festival at http://il.youtube.com/watch?v= 4B74IP5YrKo. The Tin Thistle Band can be seen at LBPSoc Youtube channel. Many thanks to Alexandre and to Sergey and Phil for offering this insight into a select and unexpected corner of lowland piping. 47