Two musical languages
Greatly simplified, Albanian traditional music speaks two languages. In the south, singing in several parts dominates: groups of men or women whose voices interlock over a common drone. In the north and in Kosovo, the solo singer stands at the centre, often accompanied by a string instrument, telling long stories in verse. Both worlds overlap, and in every region there are exceptions, but this division helps to understand what you are hearing.
Iso-polyphony: singing over a drone
In southern Albanian polyphony, one singer leads with the melody and a second voice answers or weaves around it. Underneath, the rest of the group holds the iso, a long sustained note on which everything else rests. UNESCO explains that the term is related to the ison of Byzantine church music, the held drone that accompanies chant. At Albanian gatherings you can hear people encouraging each other to hold the drone before a song begins.
Researchers distinguish two main styles. The Tosk style is sung in the regions of Toskëria, Myzeqeja and Chameria; the Lab style belongs to Labëria in the far south. Lab songs are considered especially complex and can be performed in four parts. The themes range from love and emigration to lament and heroic deeds; the same technique carries a wedding song and a song of mourning.
UNESCO and the festival of Gjirokastër
In 2005 UNESCO proclaimed Albanian folk iso-polyphony a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. In 2008 it was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The recognition came with a safeguarding project, because like many oral traditions the polyphony depends on being passed on from one generation to the next, and emigration has thinned out many of the villages where it was sung.
The safeguarding project that UNESCO began after the recognition was financed by Japan from 2006 to 2010 through its funds-in-trust at UNESCO. Its aim was to keep the singing alive where it is actually practised: in the villages and towns of the south, with the groups that still sing it.
The great stage for this music is the National Folklore Festival in Gjirokastër, the stone city in the south. It has been held since 1968, as a rule every five years, and groups from all regions perform in the castle above the town. After delays caused by the pandemic, an edition took place in 2023.
The çifteli: two strings, one sound
In the north and in Kosovo, one instrument stands for traditional music more than any other: the çifteli. It is a long-necked lute with a small body and only two strings, played by plucking. One string carries the melody, the other provides the drone, so the principle of the iso returns here in a single instrument. The name comes from the Turkish words for double and string.
The çifteli is played among Albanians in Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia, at family celebrations, in cafés and on stage. Its bright, slightly nasal sound is instantly recognisable, and for many families in the diaspora it is the sound of home.
The lahuta and the Songs of the Frontier Warriors
Older than the çifteli in its role is the lahuta, a bowed instrument with a single string. It has one purpose above all: to accompany epic song. The best-known body of northern Albanian epic verse is the Songs of the Frontier Warriors, in Albanian Këngë Kreshnikësh. Their heroes are the brothers Gjeto Basho Mujo and Halili, who lead a band of thirty warriors in a frontier region between the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary.
The translator Robert Elsie compared the cycle with the great epics of Europe, from the Iliad to the Nibelungenlied. Unlike many other oral epic traditions in the Balkans, it is still alive: singers can still be found in the Rugova highlands of Kosovo, in northern Albania and in parts of Montenegro, most of them elderly men. Before that, Milman Parry had recorded Albanian singers in Novi Pazar; in 1937 the American scholar Albert Lord recorded epic singers in the northern Albanian highlands. An English translation by Robert Elsie and Janice Mathie-Heck appeared in 2004.
Not to be confused with these songs is the Lahuta e Malcís, The Highland Lute, by the priest and poet Gjergj Fishta. It is a written literary epic that borrows the name and the tone of the oral tradition; its final version was published in 1937.
Listening instead of reading
No text replaces the sound. Anyone who wants to hear what the iso is about should look for recordings from the festival in Gjirokastër or the material UNESCO has published with its listing. And anyone who has a grandfather or an aunt who still knows the old songs should ask them to sing once more, and record it. That is exactly how these traditions have survived for centuries: from one voice to the next.
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SEE THE SHIRT →What is Albanian iso-polyphony?+
Multi-part singing from southern Albania in which one or two solo voices sing over a sustained drone, the iso, held by the rest of the group. UNESCO has listed it as intangible cultural heritage since 2008.
What is a çifteli?+
A plucked long-necked lute with two strings, one for the melody and one for the drone. It is played above all in northern Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia.
What is a lahuta?+
A bowed instrument with a single string that accompanies epic songs in northern Albania and Kosovo, above all the Songs of the Frontier Warriors about Mujo and Halili.
When is the folklore festival in Gjirokastër?+
It has been held since 1968, as a rule every five years. The most recent edition took place in 2023 after pandemic-related delays.
- UNESCO: Albanian folk iso-polyphony (Representative List)
- Wikipedia: Albanian iso-polyphony
- Wikipedia: Çifteli
- Wikipedia: Kosovan folk music
- Folklorica (University of Kansas): on the Albanian epic of the frontier warriors
- Approaching Religion: Albanian epic singers today
- UNESCO / Japan: Safeguarding of Albanian Folk Iso-Polyphony (2006–2010)
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