Mohaori

Mohaori (មហោរី, Mohaori) is a Cambodian ensemble of strings, winds and percussion that plays gentle songs of nature and love for entertainment. The word names both the ensemble and its repertoire, and in full the ensemble is called Vung Phleng Mohaori (វង់ភ្លេងមហោរី), "Mohaori musical ensemble."

Illustration inspired by a wedding ensemble's instruments.

Tradition details
Khmer name	មហោរី
Also known as	Mahori; Mohori; Mahaori; Vung Phleng Mohaori
Practice type	Performing art
Usual occasion	Celebrations and social events
Subjects	Music & Sound; Dance & Theatre

Names

The name is also spelled mahori, mohori and mahaori. It comes from the Sanskrit manohara, "that which delights or charms the soul," with manohari as the feminine form. In Old Khmer inscriptions, manohara and manoharī are names for servants of the gods who were probably musicians. Inscription K 400, from the ninth century, records both forms, and inscription K 806 at Pre Rup, from the tenth century, ties the word to the poem "Kavei Manohar." In popular Khmer speech the word slowly changed from manohari to mohaori. Mohaori is also the Khmer name of a bird known for its beautiful, melodious voice.

Practice

Mohaori is secular music. It is played at banquets and other social and traditional events, with Mohaori drama, and for folk dances such as the Clappers' Dance, the Pestle Dance and the Rice Harvest Dance. It is also heard in the evening after dinner, for entertainment or simple pleasure, and in public places. The sound is usually soft and fluid, and it can turn lively, depending on how the instruments are used. The ensemble has nine to twelve instruments.

A typical performance alternates between the singer and the ensemble. The singer sings one or two verses, accompanied only by the thaun-rumanea drums and chhing cymbals, and the full ensemble then repeats the passage without voice. Instruments ornament a shared melody, with slides, grace notes and trills, and the pieces move in cycles marked by the chhing.

The ideal ensemble includes the roneat ek and roneat thung, high and low xylophones; the khloy flute; the two-stringed fiddles tror che and tror so toch; the krapeu, a three-stringed zither; the khim, a hammered dulcimer; chhing cymbals; and two sets of thaun-rumanea drums. Instruments vary from one ensemble to another, with the musicians available and with the patron or owner.

Repertoire

The repertoire holds hundreds of songs. Their words tell of nature, love and the small joys of everyday life. Songs include "Bot O Sat Mohaori" ("The Mohaori Bird"), "Bot Khmer Chrot Srov" (rice harvesting), "Bot Khmer Dombaanh" (weaving) and "Bot Khmer Bompe Kon" (a lullaby), along with songs of flower braiding and leaf blowing. "Preah Thong" (ព្រះថោង), played by Mohaori ensembles, is regarded as one of the oldest songs in the classical Khmer repertoire. Sounds of Angkor presents it sung by Pich Chakrya with an ensemble like the one at the court of King Norodom I, plus a two-stringed tro fiddle.

History

Mohaori is thought to be older than the Angkor period, perhaps dating to the ninth century, and Sounds of Angkor traces earlier roots to southern India. Bayon bas-reliefs of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries already show singers performing with the musicians. The oldest ensembles used stringed instruments, with percussion and a flute. Xylophones and gong circles were added later, without replacing the strings.

Mohaori began as court and aristocratic entertainment in Cambodia, Siam and Laos. It then spread to wealthy families and at last to the wider population. Some believed it was first kept to the palace, the king, ministers and high officials. It grew more popular after Angkor. It was taken up at the Thai court of Ayutthaya and developed further at the Khmer court of Longvek. In 1931 Prince Damrong of Siam wrote that Thai mahori began with the ancient Khmer. In the Longvek era only men played Mohaori; in the Udong period the players were mostly women, and a woman sang.

Many of its instruments come from the phleng kar wedding ensemble and the pinpeat, and the ensemble may have grown from a combination of the two. Sounds of Angkor gives the pinpeat a Siamese origin and holds that Mohaori borrowed from it for more volume and to innovate. Over time the ensemble took different forms, and five types are named: the Pinpeat-instrument, stringed-instrument, Royal, large and modified Mohaori.

The royal Mohaori of the late nineteenth and most of the twentieth century drew instruments from India, Siam, the Middle East by way of Malaysia, Burma and China. Around 1870 to 1871, Émile Gsell took the earliest photographs of the court ensemble of King Norodom I (reigned 1860 to 1904) in Phnom Penh, including portraits of nearly all its women musicians. The Royal Palace ensemble in Phnom Penh counted sixteen instruments, and its size changed with the musicians and instruments at hand. It included the roneat ek and roneat thung, small and large gong circles, several tror fiddles, the khloy, the skor arakk drum, the chapei dong veng and the now obsolete krapeu ek and krapeu thung. The Mahori ensemble of the Royal Palace recorded "Mohori" for the Smithsonian Folkways album Cambodia: Traditional Music, Vol. 1.

Community

Mohaori remains popular in Cambodia and is played at many festivities. Near Siem Reap, small ensembles of men and women who are victims of landmines play Mohaori at the temples. An ensemble filmed at Ta Prohm in 2006 played roneat ek, tro sau, krapeu, khim, chhing and skor daey. One filmed at Banteay Srei in 2010 added a tro ou, a khloy and a banjo.

In January 2014 Cambodian Living Arts gave new instruments to Mohaori troupes. During UNESCO's Global Arts Education Week that year, it held Mohaori demonstrations for 450 students at Preah Sisowath High School, Mith Samlanh and Norton University in Phnom Penh, and a Mohaori singing demonstration for more than 50 children at Tiny Toones. Teacher Sour Vanna and students from its Mohaori and pinpeat classes formed the Dondrey Mongkol troupe in Kandal Province.

References