Cambodian researchers, musicians revive ancient harp

Updated 20 May 2013, 

Listen to audio at Radio Australia

The story of the revival of an ancient Cambodian musical instrument: the pin harp.

Cambodian researchers, musicians revive ancient harp (Credit: ABC)  It's shown as being played by maidens on the walls of the great Angkor Wat.

But no modern ear has known the sound of the pin, until recently.

Now, thanks to the work of Cambodian researchers and musicians, the sound of Angkor Wat's lost harp will be heard again.

Presenter: Rosa Ellen, Phnom Penh

Speakers: Keo Sonan Kavei, harp maker and lecturer at the Royal University of Fine Arts (RUFA); Preap Chanmara, archaeologist at RUFA; Him Sophy, composer

ELLEN: ( SFX) This could be the sound that once graced the courts and temples of Angkor.

For more than eight centuries, the ancient pin harp has been set in stone - carved in the stone bas-reliefs of Angkor Wat and Bayon, but never heard.

PREAP CHANMARA: We know that there are many music instruments on the sculptures - some even dating back to the time before Angkor Era: the 7th century to the 13th century. There were many temples and sculptures back then, so there were also many different kinds of music instruments. Some are still being used today, whereas some others were lost. But there are just too many to count.

ELLEN: Specialising in ancient instruments, archaeology lecturer Preap Chanmara says that despite the pin's disappearance with the fall of the Empire in the 15th century, it was not the fate of other Cambodian musical instruments of the era.

The instruments of today's popular Pin peat orchestras -- cymbals, xylophones, flutes and drums -- are all depicted in the carvings of ancient Angkor.

Including the orchestra's missing namesake - the pin.

For composer Him Sophy, even as a music student in Russia after the Khmer Rouge, the puzzle of Cambodia's missing harp had always haunted him.

HIM SOPHY: I read about the history of Cambodia, especially about the inscriptions and the inscription told me a lot about information about ancient Khmer harp. So I feel enthusiastically to know what and why it disappeared - and the other side, as a composer, I love harp very much. All of my compositions I use harp, even for my symphony.

With instrument maker and musician Keo Sonan Kavei and a French researcher, Him Sophy was finally able to lead a project to make the harp this year.

Using the carvings and other harps as a blueprint, the team recreated the small boat-like instrument using animal hide and silk strings. Keo Sonan Kavei:

KEO SONAN KAVEI: After I finished making the instrument, I had a mixture of emotions: happy and sad. It was something that was newly made, so I was worried as to whether or not it could be played. Secondly, I was worried as to whether or not somebody before me has made it before. There were two types of happiness. I also wondered if my daughter was gifted in that field. But when she started to learn it, I could see that she was talented.

ELLEN: Like the Apsara maidens in the bas-reliefs of Angkor Wat, the only person to play the harp so far has been Keo Sonan Kavei's 13-year-old daughter, Sereyroth.

KEO SONAN KAVEI: There are five generations of musicians in my family. When it was my turn, I had to rediscover something that was once lost and update it so that the world can see Cambodia's ancient music instruments. I want to add that this is an ancient instrument; we're just putting it back out in the world.

ELLEN: With arts, music and dance almost destroyed during the Khmer Rouge regime, the effort to revive Cambodia's traditional music has been embraced by international arts bodies, culminating in the festival Season of Cambodia this month in New York.

No one knows how exactly to play the pin harp or what it should sound like, but for Him Sophy, its value lies in what it represents - and the future compositions it will inspire.

HIM SOPHY: Now we not only revive music during the Khmer Rouge we revive since the Angkor period...the Angkor period we call an empire, a great empire. For 300 years that controlled the whole of Southeast Asia and now we are building our culture also, that is the pride of Cambodia and the pride of the world... that is the value of what we are creating.