Хоровото дело в България като култура на Новото време – през прочита на Агапия Баларева
Choral Work in Bulgaria as a Culture of the New of Time – Through the Eyes of Agapiya Balareva

Summary/Abstract: The text is dedicated to the book of Prof. Agapiya Balareva, D.Sc. Choral Work in Bulgaria From mid 1800’s until 1944 (Sofia, BAS Publishing, 1992). In Bulgarian musicological science the book has received (for some time now) the highest evaluation as a fundamental historic musicological study. First, because of the importance of its object of analysis – the culture of modern times (from late National Revival – mid 1800’s to the 1940’s). Second, as methodology, in which the document and its scientific interpretation are organically linked. Agapiya Balareva has built a cultural model, presenting current for the time diachronic and synchronic concepts. Viewed in the context of these ideas, the choral work is revealed in terms of genres as part of the Bulgarian musical culture in which at different periods are recorded artifacts of different order. The changing image of the choral work has been examined by the author as a changing image of spirituality, Europeanization and professionalization of the Bulgarian, the legitimization of his cultural aspirations. Agapiya Balareva collected, structured and analyzed a large amount of facts and resolved a number of problems that stood open to the Bulgarian historic musicology. The text has opened spaces for reflection, related to topics such as the actual timing of choral work, and the music culture in national and Balkan context, and hence as culture in sync with the matching processes in the countries of Central and Western Europe. Another way of thinking is related to terms like “cultural contemporaneity” – through which the author brought up the spirit of the time / the spirit of the times. I am convinced that in the interpretation and the comments of the generations of readers to come, in the context of their present and future time, will be discovered also the living presence of the times, about which Prof. Agapiya Balareva had written.

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