Ukrainian hurdy gurdy player (лирник)
On the rare occasions when APL uses instrument to accompany our vocal harmonies on stage, we are deliberate and strategic about the specific instruments chosen. For our adaptation of Dostoevsky’s great novel, we determined that the hurdy gurdy was not only appropriate but necessary.
Hurdy gurdists (lirnyki | лирники) played an important role in pre-Soviet Russian traditions, especially in places such as Ukraine and Belarus.
They are commonly described today as itinerant musicians who performed religious, historical and epic songs to the accompaniment of a hurdy gurdy (lira | лира).
But more than merely itinerant beggars, these wandering and usually blind musicians had a ritual mission: to go from village to village, visiting every house and praying for each family’s deceased. They were received as spiritual messengers of God who served as a bridge between this world and the heavenly realm.
(Is it any wonder the Stalinist regime targeted and executed hurdy gurdists, fully erasing them and their mystical power from the Soviet empire?)
In APL’s Crime + Punishment, the hurdy gurdy functions both musically as accompaniment and dramaturgically as signal of this bridge between realms.
