Lahuta Epic Singing

The lahuta is a one-stringed bowed instrument with a carved wooden body and a skin belly, played in the northern Albanian highlands and in Kosovo and Montenegro to accompany the singing of long narrative epics, above all the Kreshnik cycle of heroic songs about the brothers Muji and Halili that runs to many thousands of lines and is transmitted orally. The singer bows a drone and half-sung, half-spoken lines over it, performing from memory and improvising within formulaic patterns, sometimes for hours. Recordings of these singers made by Milman Parry and Albert Lord in the 1930s in the region became the basis of a whole theory of how the Homeric epics were composed. Very few practitioners remain and most are old.

What you actually see

• A one-stringed bowed instrument - the lahuta and its drone.
• The Kreshnik heroic cycle - epics of thousands of lines held in memory.
• Formulaic improvisation - composition in performance rather than recitation.
• The Parry and Lord connection - the fieldwork that reshaped Homeric scholarship.

When to go

Year round in principle, but performances are rare and mostly at festivals in summer or arranged privately. An evening. Ask at museums in Shkoder or through guesthouses in the northern villages.

Honest expectations

Practitioners are few and elderly and performances are not scheduled; hearing one requires luck or arrangement. Restaurant versions are shortened and staged. The singing is demanding to listen to for anyone not following the language.

Nearby

Shkoder is the main town; the highland villages lie north and east.