5
As one of the major elements of national identity and self-consciousness, music has always played a
special role in the life of the Azerbaijani people. Musical legacy of Azerbaijan is enormously rich and
versatile, so are the traditional Azerbaijani musical instruments.
Gaval dash (tambourine stone) is the oldest musical instrument discovered in Azerbaijan’s Gobustan
area with rock carvings and archaeologic finds dating back to the 10 millennium B.C. nowadays, part
of UNESCO’s World Cultural Heritage. Tambourine stone is believed to be a predecessor of
Azerbaijani drums, naghara. Primitive humans played on it, which gave a harmonious sound.
Although many Azerbaijani musical instruments have been integrated into other world nations’
cultures, historical documents preserved to date show that these instruments belonged to the
Azerbaijani people.
Fawaid-I Ashara (The Ten Benefits) and Maqasidu-l-Alhan (Objectives of Tunes) treatises by
Kamaladdin Abdulqadyr bin Qeybi al hafiz Maraghaly (1353-1435), a renown Azerbaijani expert in
music, provide information concerning almost 40 musical instruments.
A number of mediaeval travellers like I.Barbaro, F.Kotov, A.Oleary, E.Kempfer, Brin, P.Vostrikov, etc.
provided extremely interesting information concerning that-time Azerbaijani musical instruments.
However the way they try to present the tools described is not through their original names but
through the names of similar European musical instruments. E.g., back in 1623-1624, Fedot Kotov, a
Russian merchant, uses the following names for traditional Azerbaijani instruments: ‘truby’ for pipes
(
boru in Azerbaijani), surenki for zurna, ‘litavry’ for timpani (naghara), nabat for hand bells.
The Russian sources also provide references of the musical instruments described by German traveller
Adam Oleary during his trip to Shamakhy and Ardabil in 1636-1638. The way the tools are presented
in the Russian transcription is the following: svirel (reed pipe standing for Azerbaijani ney, balaban
or tutek), truba (pipe or garaney in Azerbaijani), barabany (drums, kos or tebil in Azerbaijani),
ruchniye barabany (hand drums, standing for Azerbaijani naghara), buben (tambourine, qaval or def
in Azerbaijani), gudok (whistle or special type of whistle for Azerbaijani kamancha), zytry (zither for
Azerbaijani qanun, chang and santur), fleyta (flute for Azerbaijani balaban), lyuntnya (lute for
Azerbaijani oud), snake hypnotizing reed flute (for Azerbaijani tutek and ney), rozhok (horn for
Azerbaijani zurna), dudochnik (piper for Azerbaijani balabanchy), kriviye roga (curved horns,
presumably for Azerbaijani shahnefir), symbal (copper disks or dulcimers for Azerbaijani sinjler), dudki
(
pipes for Azerbaijani tutek or balaban), turetskiy baraban (Turkish drum for Azerbaijani Turk davul),
fafroroviye chashi (7 porcelain tubes filled with various amounts of water and played with double
sticks, chini kasa in Azerbaijani).
Engelbert Kempfer (1651-1716), another German traveller and naturalist, staying in Shamakhy on
December 19, 1683 and in Baku on January 6-9 1684, left an interesting legacy of 23 sketches depicting
local musical instruments and written comments regarding a number of non sketched tools.