Music from the edge of Pre-History: Peter Pringle’s researches into and deep love for the ancient bardic heritages of Sumeria and Egypt….

People either hate, adore, or are mystified by this stuff. I am happily located within the final two categories. This music which modern-day re-imaginer Peter Pringle, a native Canadian who hailed from Nova Scotia, originated in the flowing together of two streams of interest. First off, Pringle delved fervently, not without early acclaim, into world music instruments at an early age, learning sitar, subrahar, and exploring the Arabic oud and lute. After some decades of professional detour into conventional and popular musical veins, he returned to his original love propelled by the second stream: an abiding curiosity towards the ancient epic poems of civilization’s cradle 4000 years ago. Having studied the Mesopotamian and Egyptian lore in depth, he began mastering the near Eastern musical instruments most suited to reconstructing the sounds for accompanying the sung recitations of these ancient epics: pricipally the Iranan setar and Iraqi gishgudi.

Tale Of Gilgamesh

We do not actually have preserved any music, notated, recorded, or otherwise from this halcyon period — an era when week-long poetic recitations of traditional tales at feasts and festivals were performed from memory and when sheet music was a completely unknown abstract concept for the far, far future. But we do know that the further one recedes into the past, the more like music speech becomes, and a simple bland speaking style re-telling of a beloved ancient epic, regarded as sacred, would have seemed less than human. Pringle noted from the available artistic sources how the musical instruments of the day physically appeared and went to work adapting and re-imagining the epics, beginning with Gilgamesh — one of the absolutely oldest known extant literary works on the planet. Pringle also had to weave linguistic researches into this project while crafting and honing his product, for the precise sounds of the old languages require some educated guesswork. The results are a pure delight.

It helps, of course, to have a sense of the Gilgamesh story. One must bear in mind, in order not to descend into dry and banal factual narrative, that this tale, like all similar old mystery stories, were meant to convey instructive images about true happenings in the spiritual realms and would always have been approached meditatively. Until centuries passed and semantic corruption set in. As Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) recites at the beginning of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, “for none now live who remember it… things which should have been remembered were forgotten”.

For seven days and seven nights
Enkidu remained erect and made love to Shamkat
And the woman opened her mouth, Speaking thus to Enkidu:
“Enkidu – I look at you, And you stand before me as a God.
Why do you roam through the wilds, With the animals?
Come now with me, And I will lead you into the grand avenue of Uruk.”

The myth tells primarily of two great figures, Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Both may be thought of as initiates, men of great power and capability with insights into the Divine, thus occupying an intermediate status between human and god. The first is a wise ruler of great and famed strength and achievement, but the second, Enkidu, is of a singularly wild, natural, and primitive nature, preferring to reside in the wilderness regions beyond the civilized centers of people. Yet tales of Enkidu spread, and Gilgamesh longs to know and contest with him, And so he sends the uncommonly beautiful Sumerian temptress Shamkat into the wilds to seduce Enkidu and coax him into his city, Uruk. Shamkat succeeds in this, for Enkidu never has known of woman. The two first battle spectacularly for hours but neither man is victorious. At last they become inseperable friends, journeying upon many legendary quests and missions. Until one day one of them perishes during one such perilous excusrion. And the other inconsolably laments his companion for the rest of his days..

Beyond Sumeria

Pringle has looked into many other mythical realms besides that of old Sumeria, always working to adapt the old texts to instumentation appropriate for the region. The long-necked lute in the previous two videos is actually a contemporary Turkish folk instrument known as a saz, or baglama saz. I actually obtained one of these years ago in an Istanbul market, subjecting a patient friend to a two hour wait while I examined the choices. All were beautifully decoratesd. They have but one sound hole in the very bottom of the instrument below the face where the the three metal strings are visible. (I think this is what helps to effect the unusual timbre of the plucked sounds.) The frets are so arranged upon the ‘forever’ neck so as to allow peculiar quartertones to sound, which are commonplace in Turkish and Arabic music.

But for the old Egyptian creation myth Pringle has outdone himself, collaborating with a talented luthier to reconstruct an authentic Egyptian harp, played only in the presence of a Phahroh and only in a highly ceremonial and sacramental manner. Its size and physical embellishments are impressive, meticulously copied from ancient tomb wall illustrations. Note how the singing style shifts here, into an almost prayerful or devotional style. The first half of the video contains an interesting talk by Pringle about the meaning and use of the harp and how it arose, plus some details of its playing techniques. It is fascinating in both the Mesopotamian and Egyptian performances how frankly and yet sacredly the sexual function is depicted, i.e. thought about.

The papyrus, found in 1861, which provides the lyrics for this performance, tells of the lone sungod Ra who first created his two ‘children’ gods thereby producing the Divine Trinity. Ra then wept over the sublimity and beauty of his creation and these tears became humanity..