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In this paper I discuss special features in traditional ethnic music; it is about the functional, social-psychological and genre-structural generative factors of the artistic text’s formation within multitude of predictable concrete texts existing in reality. The integral formulae of any art work of traditional music in a small or big form are derived on the basis of the mathematic theory of multitude.
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Today we often use term ‘authentic’ in relation to different appearances of Georgian folk music. Along with the unambiguous meaning ‘real’ this term also has other meanings: ‘ethnic’, ‘rural’, ‘old’, ‘function of usual environment’, ‘traditional-stylistic’, ‘authoritative’, or ‘reproductive’. In spite of some interconnections that arise from the term ‘authentic’ and its other meanings, the most relevant way to apply this popular term for performers and audiences of ‘real folklore’ is traditionality. This factor is manifested in the following contexts: a) performer (receiver and distributor of tradition, unobtrusively and orally), b) motivation/function (representative and spontaneous function, hereditary, utilitarian and aesthetic-daily motivation), c) repertoire (compliance of musical and verbal text’s sample with its social function, eluding canonized versions), d) expression (adequate articulation, performing regulation which is not determined by the stage, traditional instrument etc.). The problem of authenticity is more successfully regulated in traditional Georgian church music than in folk music. For the latter, in this regard the special difficulty is caused by identification of modern trends that contain folk motifs. The most popular among them is distinctive, with its stylistic reminiscent layer from the Eastern Georgian Mountains, which we refer as ‘para-folkore’. Notwithstanding the fact that Georgian folklore is not centrally authorized, modernization of folklore samples and also those manifestations of post-folklore that are further away from the traditional motifs attract a wide range of listeners. Essentially, the meaning of ‘authentic’ in the Georgian ethno-musical context is presented as performance of the traditional rural repertoire with traditional articulation. However, we think that it is convenient for the criteria of traditional, usual environment to be added to this perspective.
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The pioneering efforts of Ljubica (1894–1974) and Danica (1898–1960) Janković consisted of their systematic research and collecting of traditional dance practice (folk dances), the methodological transcription, analysis and systematizing of dances, as well as the theoretical interpretations of numerous aspects of traditional dance. Their work resulted in the establishment of Serbian ethnochoreology in the first half of the twentieth century. As the extent of their activity in terms of transcribing musical material in the form of the accompaniment to folk dances has not yet been fully grasped by ethnomusicologists so far, the goal of this paper is to present the results and to stress the contributions of Danica and Ljubica Janković to the processes of the foundation and subsequent development of ethnomusicology in Serbia. These contributions are to be seen in eight public volumes of Folk Dances (1934–1964), whose methodological frame follows several important empirical and theoretical scientific approaches: firstly, analyticaldescriptive methodology of research, based on intense fieldwork (resulting in 800 transcribed dances and melodies from former Yugoslavia); secondly, excellent acquaintance with international trends in the field of ethno-musicology, as well as with concepts of research concerning Serbian folk culture; lastly, their inter-textual and interdisciplinary approach that essentially looks for correlates between dance, music and the context of performance. In this paper I shall elaborate in detail on the comments and significant interpretations of vocal and instrumental melodies that accompany folk dances made by the Janković sisters. These comments refer to stylistic and genre characteristics, melodic and metro-rhythmic attributes, the features of rural and urban melodies, the local characteristics of songs and instruments, changes in the diachronic flow, and to the characteristic relations of choreological and musical structural elements.
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In this paper, parts of the memoir literary works from the second half of the nineteenth century are presented as important sources for the research of Serbian traditional church chant. The testimonies on church music from diaries, memoirs and autobiographical notes by famous Serbian writers, statesmen and politicians, namely Jovan Subotić, Jakov Ignjatović, Milan Savić, Milica Stojadinović Srpkinja, Todor Stefanović Vilovski, Vladimir Jovanović and Kosta Hristić, were analyzed. Those writings bring to light a time when church chant was appreciated as an important part of the spiritual, folk heritage and had an important role in everyday culture of Serbian people both in the Habsburg Monarchy and in the Principality and Kingdom of Serbia. The authors wrote about musical skills of chanters from clerical, church circles and about the practice of chanting among school teachers. They also described different kinds of musical performances of church chant among laymen and children. These sources testify to writers’ general and musical education and experiences, to their environment and its relation to the aesthetics of spiritual folk tradition. This paper also analyzes sources in the context of the history and theory of literature, having in mind the authors’ commentary techniques and narrative style. Those issues are discussed in relation to the poetics of romanticism, Biedermeier and realism in Serbian literature.
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Storytelling has been theorised as a performative, narrative practice, but it has not been employed often as a trope in studies of musical performance. This article outlines a theoretical context for exploring the possibilities of such a conceptual move within musicology by referring to the anthropological and performance studies approaches of Turner and Schechner. Benjamin’s reflection on the storyteller as a narrator of memory and history frames the presentation of a case-study on the Baltic Youth Philharmonic Orchestra.
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The Byzantine-musicological studies in Serbia during the last few decades have been at an unsatisfactory level. The fact that Serbian musicologists have not exhibited much interest in exploring this research area could be somewhat justified by the fact that its scope for new studies might seem limited. The efforts aimed towards reconstructing and ‘resounding’ the medieval liturgical melodies based on the anagogic sources (the primary sources – notated manuscripts are very deficient) seems, at first glance, discouraging, even futile. Nevertheless, the conditions for systematic research do exist, all the more because the current knowledge on music paleography, rhythmic and scale characteristics of Byzantine church chant has considerably changed the previous inquiry that had been limited to a few, although very precious musical pieces of only three known Serbian fifteenth-century composers – Ishaia, Nikola and Stefan. After a brief account on the topics and issues that have, until now, been in the scholarlyfocus, I draw attention to what has been done and what is currently underway in the research on Serbian medieval chant, while also indicating the areas that could be of greater interest for future explorations. I pay special critical attention to certain conclusions and methodological methods applied to the notated manuscripts that deal with liturgical music practice in medieval Serbia. According to some new findings in the field of Byzantine musicology, a new critical reading of available sources is necessary. Becoming acquainted with the earlier false approaches and conclusions made in haste and without particular evidence could be of significant help and serve as an important impulse for young researchers to get involved with explorations of Serbian music past.
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This article deals with Stevan Mokranjac’s fifthteen garlands (rukoveti), which are commonly regarded as the national project in Serbian art music that was accomplished through the producing of the tradition of the Serbian folk song. The garlands are examined by employing the concept of ethno-symbolism, theoretically associated with Anthony Smith. The elements of ethno-symbolism, and especially those aspects of this theory through which the articulation of a national identity activates connections with pre-modern myths, recollections and collective symbols, have proven useful in contextualization of folk material and its ethnological environment, with which the art work establishes intertextual connections. With his project Mokranjac created a rich network of ethno-symbols associated with the themes and motives of both rural and semi-urban communities that were characterized by their preservation of the model of patriarchal culture. Their strong attachment to ‘ethno-history’ as well as ‘symbolic geography’ produced various ‘ethno-scapes’, which established an increasingly symbiotic context of a ‘naturalized’ community and ‘historicized’ nature and territory. Mokranjac presented them as a representative sample in the process of legitimizing national consolidation and homogenization through the folk song. These aspects are observed in both textual and musical dimensions of Mokranjac’s garlands. The connection between his fieldwork and his compositions is also problematized. Mokranjac’s garlands are distinguished by their inclusiveness and a constant blending of older and newer ethno-historical elements, with an aim of constructing a unique tradition of national song, as an integral time-and-space image of the nation. Through this dimension of collectivism we can observe Mokranjac’s close connection to the patriarchal culture, as it remained an important ethno-symbolist element in both the politics and the poetics of his artistic project. At the same time, it provided a platform for free invention when it came to the more advanced stages of composition, when the patriarchal culture would be subjected to transfiguration by his individual creative imperatives. Mokranjac’s Garlands were the first works in Serbian music to emerge as results of an aesthetically rounded and ideologically grounded compositional project, which facilitated their canonization within the framework of Serbian art music.
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Review of: Jim Samson, Music in the Balkans. Brill: Leiden – Boston, 2013.
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Review of: Musical Practices in the Balkans: Ethnomusicological Perspectives, Dejan Despić, Jelena Jovanović, and Danka Lajić-Mihajlović (eds.) Belgrade: Institute of Musicology SASA and Department for Fine Arts and Music SASA, 2012.
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Organized by the Institute of Literature and Art, the Association of Folklorists of Serbia, the Center for Culture "Vuk Karadžić" from Loznica, Vuk's Endowment in Belgrade and the University Endowment of the library "Svetozar Marković", in Belgrade and Tršić, from 5th until September 7 of this year, the scientific meeting of Contemporary Serbian Folklore II was held.
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This text describes the Library of the Institute of Musicology of the SASA in the continuity of its existence since the foundation of the Institute in 1948 until today. The gradual enlargement of its funds is taken account of, as well as the ways of acquisition of books, journals, scores and sound editions. The structure of the Library is commented upon and its most valuable possessions named. It is also mentioned that the Institute has never had a professional librarian, so that the fellows of the Institute collectively took care of it.
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The paper is relating to audio collection of the Institute of Musicology SASA as extremely important part of this institution’s fund. The collection comprises of valuable sound materials, especially significant collections of fieldwork recordings of traditional folk and church music, as also recordings of pieces of the 19th and 20th century Serbian composers. Information on sound carriers, methodologies and circumstances in which the recordings have been made, their preservation and further treatment with modern technologies, are a part of ethnomusicological and musicological histories in Serbia. According to number of sound recordings, diachronical dimensions that encompass, geographical areas and genre diversity, this collection is one of the most important sound collections of scientific profile in Serbia.
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Microfilms of neumatic MSS, and photographs of some folia taken from neumed codices kept at the SASA Institute of Musicology Archives, are represented in this paper. In the microfilms, there are mainly heirmologia from Byzantine and late-Byzantine period and sticherarios and antologies as well. The selected folia from the Chilandar manuscripts, primarily with the Greek text, constitute the collection of photographs.
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The focus on the internalization of Western images in the Balkans has special significance in researching Serbian art. The functioning of Balkanism as it overlapped and intersected with Orientalism is indicated in the text by an examination of the cases of Petar Konjović, Miloje Milojević and Josip Slavenski, the three significant composers working in Serbia during the first half of the twentieth century. Their modernistic projects present different metaphors of the Balkans. Nevertheless each of them is marked by desire to change the Balkan image into a ‘positive’ one and thus stands as a special voice for Serbian and regional placing in European competition for musical spaces.
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The analysis offered in this paper is focused on the consideration of three examples of phenomenological aesthetics of music. Considerations of music which can be found in N. Hartmann, R. Ingarden and M. Dufrenne represent the focus of the analysis with respect to the key differences between their positions, which are the effect of a different use of the phenomenological method in view of the phenomenon of art. The analysis, therefore, is in all three cases conducted through focusing on the relationship between the phenomenological method and the specific character of music in relation to other arts, as well as through a comparison of these positions. The result of analysis represents an insight into new phenomenological understanding of the formal character of the music, as opposed to the tradition of aesthetics.
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Balkan folk music researchers have articulated various views on what they have considered Oriental or Turkish musical legacy. The discourses the article analyses are nationalism, Orientalism, Occidentalism and Balkanism. Scholars have handled the awkward Ottoman issue in several manners: They have represented ‘Oriental’ musical characteristics as domestic, claimed that Ottoman Turks merely imitated Arab and Persian culture, and viewed Indian classical raga scales as sources for Oriental scales in the Balkans. In addition, some scholars have viewed the ‘Oriental’ characteristics as stemming from ancient Greece. The treatment of the Segâh family of Ottoman makams in theories and analyses reveals several features of folk music research in the Balkans, the most important of which are the use of Western concepts and the exclusive dependence on printed sources. The strategies for handling the Orient within have meandered between Occidentalism and Orientalism, creating an ambiguity which is called Balkanism.
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This study has two parts: a general theory of experiment, and a descriptive part about Romanian experimental music in the second half of the 20th century. An experiment is an adventure and its nature depends on negation. Time is always the main enemy of an experiment, because in time the experiment transforms itself into tradition. So the concept has to be always redefined and interpreted in a fluid context. From this perspective our study researches experimental music in Romania between 1960-1996. Generations of composers are observed critically according to a chronological category: the decade. In that way one can see the flow and development, in time, of some important musical ideas in Romanian compositional thinking, like heterophony, archetypal music, spectralism, events, and folklore.
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The beginning of 2006 marked two decades since the death of Stana Djurić-Klajn, the first historian of Serbian musical literature. This is the exterior motive for presenting a summary of the state and results of up-to-date musicology research into Serbian musical criticism and essay writings during the XIXth and the first half of the XXth century, alongside the many works dedicated to this branch of national musical history, recently published. In this way the reader is given a detailed background of these studies – mainly the authors' names, books, studies, articles, as well as the problems of this branch of Serbian musicology. The first research is associated with the early years of the XXth century, that is, to the work of bibliography. The pioneer of Serbian ethnomusicology, Vladimir R. Djordjević, composed An Essay of the Serbian Musical Bibliography until 1914, noting selected XIXth century examples of Serbian literature on music. Bibliographic research was continued by various institutions and experts during the second half of the XXth century: in Zagreb (today Republic of Croatia); the Yugoslav Institute for Lexicography, Novi Sad (Matica srpska); and Belgrade (Institute for Literature and Art, Slobodan Turlakov, Ljubica Djordjević, Staniša Vojinović etc). In spite of the efforts of these institutions and individuals, a complete analytic bibliography of music in Serbian print of the last two centuries has unfortunately still not been made. The most important contributions to historical research, interpretation and validation of Serbian musical criticism and essay writings were given by Stana Djurić-Klajn, Dr Roksanda Pejović and Dr Slobodan Turlakov. Professor Stana Djurić-Klajn was the first Serbian musicologist to work in this field of Serbian music history. She wrote a significant number of studies and articles dedicated to Serbian musical writers and published their selected readings. Prof. Klajn is the author and editor of the first and only anthology of Serbian musical essay writings. Her student Roksanda Pejović published two books (along with numerous other factually abundant contributions), where she synthetically presented the history of Serbian criticism and essay writings from 1825 to 1941. Slobodan Turlakov, an expert in Serbian criticism between the World Wars, meritorious researcher and original interpreter, especially examined the reception of music of great European composers (W. A. Mozart, L. v. Beethoven, F. Chopin, G. Verdi, G. Puccini etc) by Serbian musical critics. Serbian musical criticism and essay writings were also the focus of attention of many other writers. The work quotes comments and additions of other musicologists, but also historians of theatre, literature and art, philosophers, aestheticians, sociologists, all members of different generations, who worked or still work on the history of the Serbian musical criticism and essay writings. The closing section of the text suggests directions for future research. Firstly, it is necessary to begin integral bibliographical research of texts about music published in our press during the cited period. That is a project of capital significance for national science and culture; realization needs adequate funding, the involvement of many academic experts, and time. Work on bibliography will also enable the collection and publication of sources: books and articles by Serbian music writers who worked before 1945. A separate problem is education of scholars. To study musical literature, a musicologist needs to be knowledgeable about the history of Serbian literature, aesthetic theory, and theatre, national social, political and cultural history, and methodology of literary study. That is why facilities for postgraduate and doctorial studies in musicology are necessary at the Faculties of Philology and Philosophy.
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It is without doubt that style, as one of the primary artistic categories for Ancient Greeks, is also their legacy to European architecture. The Parthenon represented an example of both the meaning and the scope of style for generations of Modernists. It should not be forgotten that the aims of architecture always went further - beyond stylistic balance - they surpassed and even exhausted themselves, all in an attempt to grasp the idea of the whole. That one and the whole gave, and still give, the basic direction to architecture. The question of modernity has always referred the actual reality to this. Can we observe it differently? Can we design outside of necessity to grasp the whole? Can we understand that necessity differently today? Could an architectural act be part of the whole while maintaining its own wholeness? The answers might be found on the path of their morphological origin, the path taken by many a ‘forgotten’ Modernist. Modernism was indeed invited to answer these global questions for the first time. The story of globalization in architecture was never anything but a story of the whole within itself, to which the modernist idea of the general within the particular belongs. The modernist attempt to answer this question refers to the ornament, but from todays perspective it seems that the answer always lay in the geometry. The origin of such striving of architecture is visible in Ancient Greece, even if not exactly at the point to which Le Corbusier turned in his Voyage d’Orient. Seemingly, all roads do lead to Rome.
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It is worth noting that the important journal of the history of Serbian literature and music, the Serbian Literary Magazine (1901 - 1914, 1920- 1941), became more Yugoslav-oriented within a relatively short period following its inception. From its early beginning to 1906, the Magazine’s musical critics did not actively express its Yugoslav ideology. But from 1907 there was an increase of interest in both the music and the musicians from Croatia and Slovenia. In 1911 the Croatian Opera spent almost two weeks in Belgrade performing; the composer and musicologist, Miloje Milojević, began to develop the idea of union with Slavs from the South in a critical analysis he rendered of their performance. Until the end of the first/old series, SLM highlighted a noticeable number of texts about Croatians and Slovenians: critical reviews of Croatian musical books, concerts of Slovenian artists in Belgrade, score editions of Slovenian music, performances of instrument soloists from Zagreb in Belgrade - as well as notes about the musical work of Croatian Academy (Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts, Zagreb). Echoes of rare tours of Serbian musicians in South Slavs cultural centers did not go unheard, either. In the older series of the journal, lasting and two-fold relations had already begun to lean towards Yugoslav ideology. From one side, even before World War I, Yugoslav ideology in the Magazine was accepted as a program objective of Serbian political and cultural elite. On the other, the journal does not appear to have negotiated any of its aesthetic criterion when estimating musical events that came from Zagreb and Ljubljana to Belgrade - at least not “in the name of Yugoslav ideology”. In later series of SLM, the Yugoslav platform was being represented as official ideological statehood of newly created Kingdoms of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians (1918), i.e., the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1929). At that time, the Magazine had occa¬sional literary7 cooperation from Croatian musical writers such as Lujo Šafranek-Kavić. Božidar Širola and Antun Dobronie. Their articles described activities of the Croatian National Theatre and evaluated new works of Croatian composers. But they were not at all remiss about acknowledging great masterpieces of European music being performed in Zagreb in their day, either. The works of Claude Debussy, Pelleas et Melisande; Ludwig van Beethoven, Missa solemnis; Richard Wagner, Lohengrin were also followed through reviews, albeit within a curious Croatian-paradigm of musical history which included musical and dramatic theatre from Ljubljana, Zagreb, Split, Sarajevo, Skoplje, Osijek. In other words, they seem to have been aware of the cultural differences without ignoring what from them were shared in common. Before the First World War, SLM classified Bulgarians together with Serbs, Croats and Slovenians, as the future “Yugoslav nation”. When the reality of politics clouded their vision, the Magazine’s musical critics nevertheless pursued a troupe of Bulgarian performers to visit Belgrade, and thus added to their repertoire from works of Bulgarian composers. Among musical contributors to the journal were the eminently known “Yugo¬slavs”, Dr Miloje Milojević (1884- 1946) and Dr Viktor Novak (1889-1977). From Croatia and Slovenia, musicians Juro Tkalčić and Ciril Ličar, Milojević spoke about “our national artists” and praised musicians who, in their program, included com¬positions of “all Yugoslav nations”. Dr Novak demanded that Belgrade become the musical capital of South Slavs, and invited Belgrade Opera to show on its scene the best Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian operas and ballets. From its onset, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was burdened by heavy political and economical problems. That would also lead to bitter dispute about Yugoslavian idealogy. Nevertheless, SLM did not renounce the system of its objectives and values upon which it was built. But there is one particular section where the Magazine’s inconsistency can be noticed - when seen from a Yugoslav dimension of the journal - is the necrology column. Magazine did not publish even one obituary7 of Croatian musicians, and wrote fragmentary7, unclear and unconvincing criterion about Slovenians. However, it would be neither appropriate, nor real, to interprete incompleteness of the Magazine’s musical necrological texts in purely ideological light. Namely, an insufficient number of musical contributors from all Yugoslav provinces - with the exception of Serbia - was probably the main reason for these omissions. After all, SLM was a literary7 journal and, as such, entertained numerous literary7 problems and questions. At some point, the editors must have agreed that the information in the field of musical posthumous articles was insufficient. The obvious absence of said would indicate that they did.
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