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This is the Breath of the Motherland…
From the experience of mastering the ancestral tamga. Latif Khamidi and Masguda Shamsutdinova. Source of the fatherland! Motherland’s spring! All my life I have searched for your living source. — Därdmänd.
Against the backdrop of others at the "Miras" festival, two works stood out for their texture, created by composers who spent months immersed in ethnographic expeditions. I would like to draw attention to the "Kazakh Waltz" (1940) by Latif Khamidi, in a magnificent performance by Ilyusa Khuzina, and the symphonic cycle "Tamgalar" ("Signs") by composer Masguda Shamsutdinova. These two works clearly demonstrated the powerful potential of Tatar national music.
The gaze of composer Masguda Shamsutdinova is turned toward the archetypes of the Turkic world. The word "tamga" is Turkic-Mongolian in origin and carries several meanings in these languages: "brand," "stamp," or "seal." During the Tatar-Mongol expansion in the 13th–15th centuries, the word acquired additional meanings: "a document with a khan's seal" or "a monetary pledge." It is obvious that in the composer's artistic world, the tamga acts as a sign system carrying information about the specific nature of national culture.
I would like to highlight the polysemy of the symphonic cycle’s title. The prominent historian V. Olkhovsky points out that a tamga is, above all, a sign of ethnic belonging, ownership, authorship, territorial presence, a sign of personification, a protective charm (amulet), and a chronological indicator. Thanks to its title alone, Shamsutdinova's musical composition elevates us to the level of the author’s philosophical reflections on man, and his sacred space and time.
Arkaim: The First Tamga
The name of the first musical tamga, "Arkaim," is Turkic in origin: arka—back, ridge, foundation. This is the name of an ancient city, a contemporary of the Egyptian pyramids and Babylon, located in the Chelyabinsk region; it is associated with the cradle of human civilization. To convey the atmosphere of Arkaim to the audience, the composer uses the alto oboe. The muted sound of this instrument is perfectly suited for a stylization of antiquity. Soon, it is replaced by violins, which play a huge role in conveying the boundless steppe surrounding Arkaim. We hear the pulse of ancient life. A cavalry gallops past... and now the steppe wind brings us the dance rhythms of a bazaar, interrupted by the ringing of blacksmith hammers on an anvil.
To write herself into the "Great History," Masguda Shamsutdinova resorts to musical quotation. She seeks inspiration in the Bashkir folk melody "Kara Tavyk" (The Black Hen). This dance melody has roots in Scythian-Sarmatian ideology, which left its mark on Bashkir art. During the dance, the performer imitates the movement of birds—a tribute to the traditions of pre-Islamic beliefs in totem animals. Self-irony permeates the folk song: the people mock the empty hopes of a poor man who dreamed of getting rich thanks to a chicken gifted by a neighbor, which caused a general stir when it started crowing like a rooster. The composer’s grandmother sang this song to her in early childhood. Thus, in "Tamgalar," the theme of Arkaim—the cradle of humanity—organically intertwines with the theme of Masguda Shamsutdinova’s own childhood cradle, as she hails from these parts.
The clarity of the rhythmic structure and the repetitions in the composition are intended to convey the graphic structure of the tamga of an ancient civilization, to which various peoples claim kinship. Arkaim was a settlement with a well-thought-out infrastructure, the remains of which resemble a tamga from the air. Scientists believe ancient nomads used this settlement as a production base. The most amazing find is considered to be the war chariots discovered here. Scientists assert with great confidence that the technology for producing light chariots originated in the Urals. The composer ironizes modern myths that abound today in the vicinity of the Arkaim museum complex (for example, that it is a "place of power" for ancient Aryans, a place of worship for esotericists, etc.).
Sea of Grass: The Second Tamga
The second musical tamga is titled "Sea of Grass." Masguda Shamsutdinova constructs the musical space of the Turkic steppe through timbre-register division. It is well known that steppe spaces contributed significantly to the formation of long, drawn-out sounds. This is why the composer resorts to this "sound wave" that meets no obstacle in its path. The density of the sound conveys the concept of the steppe horizontal. Soon, the long-sustained notes are interrupted by low-frequency sounds. Overtone melodies allow Masguda Shamsutdinova to characterize the steppe "vertical."
Thus, the image of a vast sea of grass gradually arises in the listener's mind, where each blade has its own unique melody. Just as the steppe shimmers with different shades, Shamsutdinova's music in the second tamga shimmers with tonal nuances. The composer focuses the listener's attention on the "play with sound" characteristic of ancient Turkic peoples. The presence of noise-like overtones makes the music ethnically distinctive. The composer brilliantly succeeded in conveying the Turkic striving for harmony between the internal and external worlds.
Good Day!: The Third Tamga
The third part—the tamga "Good Day!"—carries the idea of the cyclicity of life. The composer is convinced that every morning, a person waking up and turning their gaze toward the sun's rays is, in a sense, born anew. We are what we absorbed in childhood... Every territory leaves its mark on those born of that land. The main thing is to listen to the voice of ancestral memory.
Masguda Shamsutdinova comes from the village of Kshlau-Yelga. In the past, peasants from the village of Iske-Kazanchi visited here to harvest timber and bast. Because these places were impassable in summer and spring, they could only make use of the fruits of their labor in the depths of winter. Hence the name. The pastoral tonality of the music in the third part perfectly reflects the sunny character of the composer's childhood memories, filled with ancient chants and rivayats (legends) heard from her grandmother, which are sorted through by the voices of the steppe herbs.
Enjoying the content and texture of Masguda Shamsutdinova's musical composition, I involuntarily recalled the songs of Susylu from "The Bashkir Mermaid," which the daughter of the Water King sang while saying goodbye to her native land—Lake Achysu. Here is how they appeared in V. Dal's interpretation. Consider the philosophical depth of these folklore images:
"The red sun looks back from the sunset to the past sunrise, but it shall not return; the evening glow shall not see the morning dawn! Look back, sisters, at your morning dawn, but you cannot bring it back, you cannot admire it all at once! And twice the cornflower lies in the ground: it came out of the earth, and into the earth its dust shall fall. And you are no better than the sky-colored cornflower: you should not have come into the light, but since you have, you will suffer until you lean against the bosom of your birth mother."
"Tamgalar" by Masguda Shamsutdinova is distinguished by its meditativeness. The composer prepares the audience for a serious conversation about the national images of the Turkic world. By developing the "language of the tamga" through music, the composer seeks to overcome the weight of forgetfulness; she leaves traces that descendants can cling to in the future to reconstruct a complete picture of the history of Turkic civilization, which served as a cradle for Tatar art. One never ceases to be amazed by the philosophical nature of Masguda Shamsutdinova's musical creativity and her ability to reconstruct history in vivid colors through sound.
This is the breath of the Motherland…
Mileusha Khabutdinova 2022, No. 9 (1071), March 12–18, 2022. Zvezda Povolzhya (Star of the Volga Region).
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