The Divertimento – Projection and Dynamics of the Classical Idea of Entertainment in the Context of Bulgarian Musical Culture during the Twentieth Century Cover Image

Жанрът дивертименто – проекции и динамика на класическата идея за „развлечение” в контекста на българската музикална култура през ХХ век
The Divertimento – Projection and Dynamics of the Classical Idea of Entertainment in the Context of Bulgarian Musical Culture during the Twentieth Century

Author(s): Snezhina Vrangova
Subject(s): Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Music, Sociology, History of Art
Published by: Издателство НМА „Проф. Панчо Владигеров”
Keywords: Bulgarian divertimento; concert; stylization; genre pattern;

Summary/Abstract: The divertimento’s crystallization as a genre in European musical culture in the second half of the eighteenth century connects it to different social activities and expressions, presupposing entertainment for both the audience and the performers. Viewed in the context of Classicism, this gives it an applied rather than artistic value and locates it somewhere between the suite and the sonata/ symphony. However, its character as a proto-genre causes the designation ‘divertimento’ to lean towards works that include the participation of solo instruments, which inevitably fuses aspects of the divertimento with those of the concerto. From the perspective of European twentieth century music, the early divertimento repertoire manifests its link with the concerto in many ways. Bulgarian culture, however, breaks with the different phases of the genre’s evolution and creates simultaneously ‘classical’, ‘new’ and ‘national’ examples in which the role of entertainment possesses different expressive signs or is entirely absent. This article investigates these pieces and the various solutions for incorporating the genre into the national musical aesthetic.

  • Issue Year: 2017
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 132-148
  • Page Count: 17
  • Language: Bulgarian