The brilliant Moravian cimbalom player Dalibor Štrunc (1966) came from a folk environment in Wallachia and after graduating from the Brno Conservatory had a number of musical engagements – from classical through folk to being a member for many years of Hana and Petr Ulrych’s group Javory. It is an unbelievable twenty-five years since he formed the group Cimbal Classic, in which he began to make use of his song-writing as well as musical skills. In that time Cimbal Classic has become a fixture on our folk scene. This year they are celebrating their anniversary with a new CD and a tour.
Who first thought up the name Cimbal Classic and when? The first appearance of the first line-up took place under the neutral-sounding “Dalibor Štrunc and the Cimbalom Music of Jiří Čihák of Ponědrážka”.
The original long name was thought up on the spur of the moment, by chance and a bit of a joke since the hamlet of Ponědrážka, birthplace of our leader Jirka Čihák, happens to be close to the place where we first performed in public. Our ambitions then were only to have an “adventurous” trip in 1991, as part of which we would play at the festival Okolo Třeboně a bit of classical music and folklore but also add colour to the songs of the rising star Vlasta Redl. We were over twenty and no-one imagined that people would like our spontaneous music-making so much and that there would be offers for further concerts. So then in our collective digs in Prague with the cellist Pavel Barnáš we had to come up with a shorter and catchier name. I think it was his idea to add the word classic.
Today the group Cimbal Classic is seen as a special part of Czech folk. The majority of their repertoire is now made up of their own songs. But it did not look like that at the start. How did the change happen to more or less your own conception of programmes?
Our beginnings of course were connected with our name, which later became a bit of a liability and slightly unfortunate. We wanted to play renaissance and baroque music based primarily on the solo cimbalom and so it appeared appropriate. However we quickly realised that this was not going to work. We were woken from our folly by the whistles of part of the audience in a production with renaissance dance for folk-country devotees in Prague’s Sports Hall. We quickly made up for it with Redl, Scott Joplin and Paul McCartney, but it was clear that such a range of music made us hard to classify and that classical (ancient) music isn’t for everyone.
And so, because we are mostly classically educated musicians, but also love folk and the free and bohemian ambience of folk festivals, we started to change our plans a bit. We were at the beginnings of an unexpected journey, not mapped out, and I don’t think that we compromised our ideals in this. Otherwise I was young and Cimbal Classic was to be only one of the possible forms of my musical engagement.
You set up Cimbal Classic while you were still living in Prague. Were you aware there, as a native of Wallachia, of roots that nourished you and helped shape you as a musician and singer-songwriter?
At that time, more than my roots I was ware of a desire to be musically creative. It began when I was twelve or thirteen in my first group, where, hardly able to read music, I was happy to play and despite my limited technical skills I discovered a free world of improvisation. For a child I had a very original and inventive accompanying style on the cimbalom. I was lucky that my bandleaders left me to get on with it in my style from the start.
It was only a little later that I started to study the sources of the energy that makes my cimbalom tones flow and transforms it into a kind of personal, unmistakable expression.
On looking back you realise how important it is to have those first roots that bind you to your native region, to its traditions and its music, from your parents. You can carry that bond deep inside for a lifetime. Sometimes you can be pleasantly surprised when at a decisive moment those roots can unexpectedly and beautifully put forth something creative and you wonder where it came from.
I sense a certain mix of influences in you. Sometimes you come across as a native Wallachian, but alongside that I feel your affection for melodious Bohemian tunes and the poetry of Czech songs. Where does it come from?
My grandfather on my father’s side was born on the banks of the Blanice in Maletice in South Bohemia. In the same village and in the same year was born the father of Jindřich Hovorka – leader of the Brno Folk Radio Orchestra, who deserves much of the credit for my return from Prague to Brno. Was it by chance? - My mother’s parents were from the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands. Both parents, even with that “Bohemian” ancestry, actively and lovingly got involved in the folk movement in Wallachia. We sang folk songs frequently and enthusiastically and they were picked not by region but by mood and need. Emotionally I can perceive the soft and gentle poetry of Bohemian song flowing somewhere within me while the native Wallachian is racier and more realistic.
When did you write your first song and why? After all, on graduating from the conservatory I would have anticipated rather a purely instrumental path …
I was sitting with my guitar one morning on the porch of my South Bohemian uncle by Lipno Reservoir. I was on my own on a trip with my kids and was just tentatively strumming. From out of nowhere the song Koníčky moje (My Hobbies) came to me. Feeling the peace and joy of fatherhood I came up with a folk song with clear references to my native Wallachia and also my grandparents’ roots. It was completely spontaneous and effortless. That is why even after all those years it still seems so natural. At that moment I had no idea that Koníčky would be the first of many that took Cimbal Classic into the field of playing their own songs. Pure chance or a sign? You can choose.
Looking back the simplicity and naturalness of my transformation and further development is quite fascinating. It's like a game for little boys. First, you learn a few chords, then understand where to put them in a song, then hat stops being enough and you begin to decorate it. From the cimbalom and folk songs I went on to arranging the songs of Vlasta Redl, Slávek Janoušek, Samson and other folk musicians that we played with. Soon came the aforementioned Koníčky and other songs, but at the same time we were creating instrumental incidental music for the theatre and moved on to my momentary fondness for classical music. On this journey the peak to date is the CD “Malované na cimbál” (“Painted with the Cimbalom”).
When you write a song, do you have an idea of what it should specifically be about, or are you rather trying to fit it to a certain feeling and tone of the text (with the support of the tune)?
I come at song-writing from three sides and each has a slightly different approach. They differ in whether I give the lyricist a completed melody or if rather I am putting someone else’s text to music or whether I am simultaneously writing music for my own text or the opposite. The first option is simpler and freer for me, but I only worked that way in the beginning with Josef Prudil (a friend and also lyricist and radio presenter). The second alternative is also pleasant because I concentrate only on the music. I try to capture the mood of the text which appealed to me and transform it into a musical image that captures and enhances it so that the words do not lose their strength. In the last case, I write the text and I leave the music on one side and work more with the rhythm and melodic line.
The problem occurs when the text is done and the music is only a half-idea, but one that does not want to disconnect. I see the hardest nut to crack as being the final arrangement. I spend the most time on that because it can help a song a lot, but also has the potential to harm it. Generally, I proceed very emotionally, let my thoughts run free, and I'm often surprised at where it takes me. Or better said it can be deceptive, because sometimes I have the beginning of an idea but the result is quite different. It is mostly an exciting and beautiful game, often with a surprise ending. But they are always stories that resonate in some way with my life, emotions, moods, emotions, simply with what is close to me and what I would like to share.
Do you take some kind of inspiration from poetry? And do you have any favourite poets?
I initially perceived poetry solely through folk songs, and then within the shared poetry of my favourite songwriters, namely Karel Kryl, Jarek Nohavica, Marek Eben and Karel Plíhal. In my thirties I began to quote on a regular basis. I like to return to Wallachia and my roots with Ladislav Nezdařil, and I get a lot from among others the verse of Orten, Kainar, Seifert and of course Jan Skácel. Above my bed I always have Shakespeare's Sonnets and when I am in pain I read one at random. Due to its timelessness and rush of today's world the one that evokes a year of my birth resonates within me. Sixty-six.
Have you had any responses to your songs? Any interesting specific reactions from individuals …
I have in my head the apt words of one journalist, who wrote: “The music of Cimbal Classic is from the family of those that if it finds a prepared, perceptive and spiritually attuned listener, digs deep into his heart and he remains faithful to it. In the opposite case it goes past and they will not notice.”
This year as a group you are celebrating a birthday. You are recording a new CD. What will it contain? A summing up?
On the occasion of the anniversary I thought up a motto which would looked back and encapsulated our musical endeavours I went with the concise statement "a quarter-century of loving music." In my understanding of the world, music is an element that can harmonise and heal the soul. It not only provides emotions, but also peace, purity, clarity and reassurance that we belong and have roots somewhere. I am leading the music of Cimbal Classic along this path. In folk projects I am going back to the roots and traditions that I got in the cradle from my ancestors, and images of those changes, and these stories transformed and decorated by imagination still shine through in the song-writing. In other words the songs change and mature, just as we do. Each of our ten (including the new one) CDs have their shape and place in time as testimony to that period. Perhaps we will see that we got somewhere – all of us: the band, me and Katka as singers, my musical inventiveness and the lyrical legacy not just of me, but also Alena Binterová, and the inheritance from the still close Joseph Prudil.
How do you want to commemorate your twenty-five years aside from the issue of the CD?
We are going to be giving a number of concerts in places which are highly significant in the history of the group. I will point out the three most important and I trust that audiences will find the remainder on our website. The first commemoration will be the 2 July concert in Třeboň, our birthplace. Then on 5 August there will be our dearest and most constant musical stop at the festival Prázdniny v Telči and all should culminate in the Brno concert on 3 September in the Chateau Park in Líšen. The day before that, just for the joy of it we will be playing at a local feast with mostly cimbalom players from Prague and Brno. Each concert will of course include a surprise. And we will close it all with a series of about ten Christmas concerts, where we will bring to life our jubilee tenth CD. The Christmas atmosphere is probably best associated with our music, as evidenced by annual audience figures, so it will probably be the high point of our celebrations and we are much looking forward to it.
Further information on the planned concert and CDs.
No comment added yet..