In one of the courtyards of the Rascani sector an older monument was hidden. Supposedly erected around 1960-1964, it is dedicated to the most famous national musical instrument – the Nai.

General name: Nai

Local name: Fluierar, Fluieraș, Fluierici, Fluierător, Moscal, Muscal, Șuieriță

Short definition: The Nai is a traditional end-blown woodwind instrument of the flute family.

Circular: The Nai is one of the oldest musical instruments in the world and one of the most perfect archaic instruments. The origin of the nai is lost in times long gone. Neither the inventor nor the area of origin of the nai has yet been established. As with other traditional musical instruments, polygenesis also applies to this aerophone. According to some sources, the instrument is about six thousand years old. Six thousand years ago, musical sounds were defined by the order of this reed-pipe link, which was the primordial pipe. Archaeological and historical records prove the presence of the pipe in all corners of the world. Under different names, the nai is found in many countries around the world: antara – in Peru and Bolivia; biwabon – in Japan; kuviklî, kuviciki or pipe – in Russia; lalave, palina, rihe or tenaho – in the Solomon Islands; mishi – in the Democratic Republic of Congo; musikâr – in Turkey;

syrinx – in Greece; skuduciai or skadutas – in Lithuania; zuffolo or zuffolo pastorale – in Italy, etc. Throughout the world, the instrument has circulated and still circulates under the name of Pan’s flute, a name that has become established due to the legend that depicts the Greek god Pan playing this instrument, attributing to this deity the role of creator of the flute. Philologists explain the etymology of the instrument’s name in the Persian-Arabic-Turkish word nay or ney, which, according to Curt Sachs, means reed whistle. Nay mus in Persian means Pan’s whistle, and miskal, musikâr or musqal in Persian, Arabic and Turkish also means Pan’s whistle.

In our cultural-ethnic space, the flute has been known since ancient times. Pictorial evidence from antiquity, found in centres inhabited by the Geto-Dacians, depicts musical-choreographic scenes with the presence of mythological divinities (heroes dancing to the sounds of the flute, fauns with a flute, Pan with a kettledrum and flute, etc.), all dating from long before our era (from the 6th century BC). Sculptural images and inscriptions attested at Histria, Tomis, Callatis depict several musicians (instrumentalists) playing musical instruments, including the syrinx (nai), in various poses. We find it depicted on the bas-relief on the wall of the sarcophagus from the discovered in Oltenia. In the historical and literary writings of the Roman poet Ovid (1st century AD) the presence of the nai in the musical practice of the Geto-Dacians is mentioned. Mention of the presence of the syrinx in choreographic performance is attested in the 1st century AD. 2nd century AD north of the Danube by the Greek writer Lucian of Samosata. The Dionysian deity’s relief appears on a marble slab with an inscription (241 AD), discovered at Tomis, two corybanites armed with swords and shields rhythmically support a war dance in the presence of Pan (with the traditional nai) and Dionysus. The nai is referred to as a pipe in the work ‘The Teachings of Neagoe Basarab to his son Theodosius’ (1512-1521). In the Principality of Monaco, the nai began to be popularised on a massive scale in the 18th century, when it was included in lute bands alongside the violin and the cobza. The organologist Tiberiu Alexandru suggests the hypothesis that the construction of the reed-pipe nai proves its primary functionality in the rustic and bucolic environment. The next mention of the functioning of the pipe in our traditional musical culture comes from 1774, when the Russian General-feldmarshal Pyotr Rumyantsev, who took part in the Russian-Turkish war of 1768-1774, including the battles of Larga and Cahul (1770), addresses the Divan of Moldavia and Wallachia with the request to send to the imperial palace in St. Petersburg the instrumental ensemble composed of the violinist-brothers Ivanta and the naist Stancu. Fr.J. Sulzer in his work History of Transalpine Dacia (1781, Vienna, vol. II, p. 417) also reports on the existence of the nai in the lute inlays in the lowlands of Moldavia and Wallachia. The fame of the naijo reached beyond the borders of the country from the second half of the 18th century, and the former French secretary to Grigore III Ghica Jean-Louis Carra noted in 1777 in Histoire de la Moldavie et de la Valachie, avec une dissertation sur l ‘etat actuel de ces deux Provinces that the naijo (‘the eight-holed whistle’), together with the violin and the cobza, was one of the country’s instruments. History has preserved several names of famous instrumentalists, who delighted listeners in the country and abroad with their interpretive art: Stancu, Năstasă Muscalagiul, Paraschiv Muscalagiul, Mihalachi Roșu – a member of the Taraf led by the famous Barbu Lăutarul who is said to have possessed the naiola, T. Teodorescu, I. Pădureanu, Angheluș Dinicu, Radu Ciolac and others. Under different names the naius is recorded in several written sources published in the country and abroad: Papageno’s flute (in the German Allgemeine Musikalsche Zeitung, nos. 46 and 47, 1821), muscal (in Dionysius Fotino’s General History of Dacia, 1819, reed (in the travel notes of the Russian officer V. Gorceakov, 1820-23), Pan’s flute (in the work of the English traveller W. Wilkinson’s Tableau historique, géographique et politique de la Moldavie, 1821), nai (in the songbook of the Austrian violinist and critic Alfred Henrich Ehrlich Air nationeax roumains, 1850 and in the novel by the German writer Wilhelm de Kotzebue Lascar Viorescu, 1851).
In the second half of the 19th century, the art of playing the nai was presented and appreciated abroad: in Belgium, in Russia – in Sankt-Petersburg, Moscow, Baku, the nai performers were accompanied by the tarafols led by G. Ochialb, S. Pădureanu. It is even believed that it was under the impression of these ensembles that the Russian composer N. Rimsky-Korsakov introduced the naiola in the third act of the score of his opera “Mlada” (1893). However, it was also during this period that the naius was gradually suppressed from the composition of the inlays. In the ensembles conducted by I. Perja, C. Marin, C. Parno, Gh. Heraru – the most representative for the late sec. XIX – înc. sec. 20th century in Moldova on the left of the Prut – the nai mike is not recorded. It gradually returns again in the composition of instrumental ensembles in the second half of the 20th century. Nowadays, the nai is mainly used in non-traditional environments as a component instrument in folk music bands and folk ensembles.