Swan Songs

The town of Mestia, seen from the road into the mountains

After many encounters with Georgian church music in Tbilisi (as well as a number of dinners and toasts at the quintessentially Georgian "Racha" restaurant), I set out with the group from ZAR for Upper Svaneti, a region of Georgia high in the Caucasus mountains. The people here, known as Svans, speak a quite distinct dialect of Georgian – many would say a different language – and preserve local traditions and customs, especially their ritual and folk music. Teatr ZAR's history with this region goes back at least ten years, to the musical expeditions that led to the group's first performance. As Jarek tells me, it took them some time to locate what singers they could learn from, eventually finding a place with the famous Pilpani family of singers. They've become famous partly because of their ability – especially the elder Pilpani, Islam, and his son Vakho – as teachers. After witnessing the truly ancient funeral song of Svaneti, the "zar," Jarek and his collaborators, in 2001, asked to learn it, and ultimately based their first performance around, and took the name of their group from, the "zar." So, this is an old friendship, and I was privileged to be present for the reunion.

Seen somewhere on the road to Zugdidi:
Quijote, for my friends at Double Edge

The trip to Svaneti from Tbilisi is quite long, 9 hours or more in all. Our main stop was in Zugdidi, a city only 28 km from the Black Sea. Along the way, I was reminded of the perhaps quixotic nature of my Georgian adventures (see left). The road from Zugdidi to Mestia has been recently improved, apparently, shortening that leg of the trip from 6 hours to about 4. I must admit, as our hired marshrutka sped around mountain curves, dodging debris from rock slides and the ever-present cows, I shuddered to think what the road used to be like. We arrived after dark, finally, and were welcomed, exhausted and cramped, into the home of the Pilpanis. A huge meal (the first of many) was laid out for us, followed by the obligatory toasts. Members of the Pilpani family and friends sang for us in welcome. Here's a short excerpt, recorded that night, of a Svani song, "Jgragish" :




We later learned this song from Islam Pilpani, though listening to it again, I can see that we never quite achieved the particular tuning and resonance that typify this music in its native environment. It snowed that first night, at least three or four inches, which gave an amazing stillness and silence to our first glimpses of Lenderji, the village where we were staying, and Mestia, the main town in Upper Svaneti.

The view from my bedroom window

The village, with its typical Svan defensive towers

Our mornings in Svaneti were our own to wander through the villages as a group, marveling at the natural beauty of the surrounding mountains, the age and often dilapidated state of the homes, and the incongruity of the new building projects, which include a tiny airport, ski lodges, and a tourist information building where we found neither tourists nor information.

An age-old sight in Svaneti

Not so age-old: the police station

We were unable to see the magnificent collection of icons and artifacts normally on-view at Mestia's Ethnographic Museum, as the Museum was undergoing renovation (read: had been completely demolished), another part of President Saakashvili's program of modernization at all costs. The precious items had been put in hiding during the construction. Fortunately, Jarek had gotten to know the priest in Mestia, and the next morning he took us to the oldest church in the town.

This is a two-tiered structure. The upper church, dedicated to the Transfiguration of Jesus, dates to the 11th-13th centuries. The lower church, which was completely hidden by soil when Mama Giorgi, the priest, first took his post, dates to the 8th-9th centuries, and was dedicated to St. Barbara. The frescoes in both churches had been restored – in the lower church especially, many layers of artwork can be seen at once, with earlier strata becoming visible through cracks in the newer.

The Crucifixion, in the upper church

Eyes peer through from an earlier age, in the lower church

On our way back down the hill from this church, Mama Giorgi – a man of maybe 55, with a long scraggly beard and gentle, sad eyes – began sliding down the slippery, packed streets, his feet in front of each other like an expert skier, a childlike joy in motion, pausing only when villagers paid their respects.

Islam Pilpani had promised to work us hard on the songs, and he did – we learned 10 songs in two packed days. I found myself singing the bani, the third, bottom part. Being a tenor, I normally would sing either the second or first, but also being the least experienced in Georgian singing, I was happy to tackle the relatively simple bass lines. From this position, I really could hear the structure of the two voices moving above me, and could start to pick up how to make the micro-adjustments of tuning necessary to hold the whole together. I recorded these singing lessons, but don't really think they're meant for public consumption – certainly not as any kind of substitution for the teaching of Islam Pilpani. The in-person transmission is essential to this kind of singing, with adjustments of notes and corrections of pronunciation by the teacher. Islam does also lead a chorus of men from Svaneti, called "Riho," and there are a bunch of their recordings online, where you can hear more of these rough-hewn harmonies. Many of the songs we learned were truly ancient – one of my favorites, "Lajgvashi," describes the different huge, magnificent animals that are to be sacrificed to various "pagan" gods. I was surprised to learn about newer songs, though, including one moving, relentless song called "Gaul Gavkhe," which describes the massacre of villagers in the town of Qalde by Russians in the 19th century. Clearly the sources of inspiration were not shut off deep in the immemorial past.

These marathon singing sessions were always followed by generous meals where everything was homemade – the bread, cheese, vegetables, yogurt and meat all grown, raised, baked, or cultured in the Pilpani household. I had never been so moved by hospitality, even if that's the thing I was most led to expect when traveling to Georgia. I'm very happy to be in the country for another five months, especially if it means I can travel back here in the spring, to see these wonderful people again and perhaps learn some more music. In the meantime, I will carry these memories, my recordings, and my cryptic musical notes, which I hope to be able to decipher after the songs have faded from my ears.

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