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Two-Part Singing From the Razlog District of Southwestern Bulgaria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2019

Irene Markoff
Irene Markoff*
Affiliation:
Freelance Broadcaster for C.B.C. Radio, 18A Hilo Road, Toronto 510, Canada
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Extract

Two-part singing, based predominantly on the drone type of polyphony, is a phenomenon which is still common in the Razlog district of Bulgaria. Ritual songs such as those for St. Lazarus’ Day, St. George's Day, and Easter, rain-begging, dance songs, and harvest songs are all well preserved though rarely performed, and are representative of what is known as the “old style” of singing. This type of singing is performed mainly by older women, recreating from the past songs which they once sang as young women and girls. Characteristic are narrow-range melodies commonly based on the following scale formations: ABC, ABCD, ABCDE, with or without the subtonic G, a major second below the tonic A, which ends all melodies in the collection (the melodies have been transposed for comparative purposes). Also characteristic are the traditional, harsh-sounding parallel majoren oinor seconds. Alongside this older style exists a “new style” of part singing which to a certain extent is limited to younger women. Melodies in the “new style” have a larger ambitus, with the range formulas 1-6, VII-6, 1-7, and VII-7. Although the younger women are relatively familiar with the older style and sometimes condescend to use it, they seem to prefer the modern style, in which the melodic range is less restricted and more consonant-sounding intervals are used.

Type
Articles
Information
Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council , Volume 7 , 1975 , pp. 134 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © 1976 By the International Folk Music Council 

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References

Notes

1. This article is an excerpt from the author's master's thesis, Muzikalen folklor ot Razlozhko (Sofia, 1972), presented at the Bulgaria State Conservatory. All materials were collected and transcribed by the author. There are four main musical-folklore regions within the boundaries of modern-day Bulgaria where multi-part singing in its various forms exists. These are Pirin (southwestern Bulgaria), Velingrad (central southern Bulgaria), Pazardzhik-Ihtimansko (central western Bulgaria), and Sophiisko (again central western Bulgaria, but much closer to the Yugoslav border). Each region, as can be expected, has its own individual concept of folk polyphony, from the strict “parallelism” found in Sophiisko to the songs na tresene (a vocal mannerism performed by one person, who sings the lower voice part, resembling long, richly ornamented, melismatic figures), which are common to the Pazardzhik-Ihtimansko area.Google Scholar

2. A total of 300 vocal and instrumental folk melodies resulted from field trips to the Razlog district of Bulgaria made in 1969 and 1970. Approximately 70 percent of these songs are examples of two-part singing and form the basis for the system of classification presented in this paper.Google Scholar

3. “VII” is employed, in accordance with Béla Bartók's method, as a symbolic representation of the subtonic or that tone which is located a second below the tonic.Google Scholar

4. Kaufman, Nikolai, Balgarska narodna muzika (Sofia, 1970), p. 49.Google Scholar

5. Abrasheva, Svetlana, “Problemi na balgarskata diaphonia,” “referat” of master's thesis (Sofia, 1969).Google Scholar

6. It is the general belief of many Bulgarian ethnomusicologists that the four most characteristic forms of primitive multi-part singing are heterophony, imitation, parallelism (singing in parallel seconds), and drone. Drone, however, is that form which predominates in those areas where two-part singing exists. A close analysis of parallelism and heterophony also gives evidence that “drone” influences all types of part singing.’ ‘One-tone, intermittent drone” is an interpretative rather than a purely literal translation of the Bulgarian term edno-osnoven burdon, which is used by Svetlana Abrasheva, Nikolai Kaufman, and other Bulgarian ethnomusicologists.Google Scholar

7. Djoudjeff, Stoyan, Balgarska narodna muzika (Sofia, 1970), p. 307.Google Scholar

8. Svetlana Abrasheva defines “zonal drone” as a hybrid form which incorporates elements of both drone and heterophony. See Svetlana Abrasheva, Balgarski naroden dvuglas (Sofia, 1974), p. 37.Google Scholar

9. Sachs, Curt, The Wellsprings of Music (New York, 1965), p. 180.Google Scholar

10. Kaufman, Nikolai, in Balgarskata mnogoglasna narodna pesen (Sofia, 1968), p. 96, writes of a similar case: “… this type of singing is close to heterophony-subconscious multi-part singing which lacks a fixed and consistent relationship between the voice parts, and is the result of a lack of coordination among the singers.” Svetlana Abrasheva comments further, in Balgarski naroden dvuglas (Sofia, 1974), p. 46, “Lack of coordination in group singing always suggests elements of heterophony.”Google Scholar