In the southern part of Africa there is a musical instrument that might be mistaken for a hunting bow. It has only one string which is bowed or struck with a wooden staff. The player would loosely put one fi nger of the left hand on the string to change the pitch at times. However, there are basically only two notes: one on the open string and another a whole note higher. The richness of the music is produced in the oral cavity of the player which serves as a resonating cavity. Different harmonics with sometimes shrill whistling sounds are produced by expansion or constriction of the cavity. Some variations of this instrument use a dried hollowed pumpkin for a resonating cavity but it is always the oral cavity that changes the pitch.
I heard this instrument in 2005 in an awe-inspiring performance by the Xhosawoman Madosini and was spontaneously inspired to a musical piece for violoncello solo. I wanted to adapt the, albeit all tonal richness, rather simple tonality of the Umrhubhe and connect it to a music from northern Africa that I could not forget since I heard it first many years ago: a song from the Nubian Kora-player Hamza El Din. Transferring these two musical styles to the virtuoso-played western violoncello, the piece “Redland” evolved which title shall remind of the dry red soil of the mysterious continent.
Klaus Hinrich Stahmer