Роля на припевите в процеса на ладообразуване в някои коледни песни
Role of the Refrain in the Process of Mode Formation in Certain Christmas Songs

Summary/Abstract: An essential feature of the greater part of Christmas songs is the presence of specific refrains, which depend directly on the content and purpose of the respective examples. The variety of structures in refrains is exceptionally great, as regards their length, place and content which, for its part, opens up an. extensive range for variety in those forms which have crystallized. An interesting phenomenon in the process of the development of their mode is to be observed in more than a few of the Christmas songs. Under the influence of their antiphonic performance, the following groups stepping in with the preceding ones at the end of the melody, and also as a result of the closeness in building up the two semi-sentences and the incessant repetition of each strophe, the final refrain appears as a literal copy or the first, directly after the principal verse. In certain Christmas songs, widespread chiefly in Northern Bulgaria, the second refrain often ends at the fourth or fifth degree of the tone order. Being mechanically repeated at the end of every melodic line, the refrain creates indefiniteness of the modal structure and infringes the stability of the basic degree of the mode. The moments marked in the process of modal orientation in the final part of another section of Christmas songs, show the role of the refrain as an active mode-forming factor. The striving to legitimize the isophonic outer cadenza, traced in its fundamental stages, shows the process of a gradual modal orientation, achieved mainly by a trend towards stabilizing a principal tonal centre. The use of isophony at the end of a two-linestrophe, a phenomenon which has become predominant in the folk Christmas usage, marks the moment of the final stabilization of the mode under the influence of the outer refrain. Confirming their importance as essential structural components, bearers of a preserved historical information, researches on the songs emphasize the refrains as one of the principal factors which influence the process of mode formation in a large part of the Christmas melodies.

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