P Narantsogt

P. Narantsogt is a Mongolian tsuur player, the rare three-holed end-blown flute of the Altai Uriankhai tradition of western Mongolia. Born in 1921 in the locality of Buyant, in Bayan-Ölgii aimag, he is significant because he preserves a repertoire and the craft of instrument-making, which have been passed down from generation to generation.

He learnt from his grandfather, Gar'd, a highly respected musician, from whom he inherited both the way of playing and the way of making the tsuur. At the age of seventeen he moved to Duut sum in Hovd aimag, where he worked as a herdsman in the Altai mountains. Narantsogt also plays the jew's harp and makes sounds with stones and pieces of wood. For much of the communist period he hid his instrument to keep it from being destroyed.

His improvisations often imitate the sounds of the natural surroundings, as in Balchin Heer Mor' ("The Chestnut Stallion") or Har Huryn Naadgai ("The Song of the Black Grouse"), or they praise the spirits that, he believes, inhabit and form nature, as in Altain Magtaal ("Praise of the Altai"). In post-Soviet Mongolia, his son Gombojav continues the tradition, performing at national and international concerts.