Czech Bagpipe Music*

Extract

In a form that has changed but slightly in recent times, the bagpipe is still used in several European countries, and in Czechoslovak folk music it has played a very important role—perhaps a more important role than that played anywhere else in the world (Markl, 1962).

In Czechoslovak territory, bagpipes, called by various names, are mentioned in chronicles from the Middle Ages, and it may be assumed that they have been one of the most popular of folk instruments since the thirteenth, or at the latest the fourteenth century. Usually played solo, but also together with drum, pipe, and later fiddle, they accompanied folk songs and dances. Unlike bagpipes in France, for example, they never took root in composed music in Czechoslovakia. Only at a very late date, in the thirties of the nineteenth century, and then to a limited extent, were they technically improved by the addition of a second, auxiliary bag. The use of several drones, though known, has never become popular in Czechoslovakia. In the course of six centuries a type of bagpipe with one frontal (melody) pipe and one drone has become predominant.