We encountered this street musician in Cossack costume by the banks of the River Elbe in Dresden, the East German city 30miles from the Czechoslovakian border, a city reminding me of all those black and white Cold War spy films watched as a child on Sunday matinee television, films like Carol Reed’s “The Third Man” filmed in the ruins of post war Vienna (1949), tales of love and intrigue, separation and reunion. Here then is the new old city of Dresden once burnt to the ground, now rising up again into baroque alternations of black and white stone.
This man plays the Ukrainian bandura, an instrument related to harp/lute/torban/zither, probably of Byzantine origin where it appears on 10C frescoes. (Remember the zither music from “The Third Man”?).Like the harp its an instrument that spans both classical and folk traditions, so where as this man plays in the street, in 16C Saxony the bandurist was also found playing at court as the King’s chess companion and royal bard….much like the Celtic harpists of Old Ireland. For music sits close to governance with its sense of harmonies and balance.
There is power in this music, strange enticing cadences in descending minor scales accompanied by a recitative voice that is barely audible(to the ear anyway), tales of love and intrigue, separation and reunion. It seems to come from deep inside, soul songs that trickle out their lifeblood onto busy oblivious streets. We were compelled to stop and listen.
Subsequently I found him named as Ostap Kindraczuk on several internet sites including Youtube and the Wikipedia entry for Cossacks. He seems to be a wandering minstrel through Ukraine, Poland, Russia, Serbia and now East Germany. So lucky to find him in Dresden, perhaps inevitable.
Listen to him yourself. You can find him on Youtube under Ukranian Bard in Krakow by mortimerburns. Part 2 is best because the camera follows the sound winding through the crowd before you see him, much as it happened to us that day as he hooked us in.
