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Selected bibliography in the field of Bulgarian Studies published in the current year.
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The article is devoted to the life and work of Jacek Kaczmarski during martial law in Poland (1981-1983). First, attention is paid to the life of poet who was in France when decision to impose martial law in Poland was taken. Exile deprived him very important to the bards direct contact with the national audience. Then, the authors undertake the analysis of selected works which Kaczmarski wrote in the period of martial law or otherwise related to it. The main aim of the research is to consider the problem of the role of creator of culture in creating the memory of important historical events.
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Data about scientific events in the field of the humanities in Bulgaria in 2011
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This article presents contemporary sound studies by outlining its field of interest as well as its main problems and concepts. Brzostek contextualizes sound studies with discussions on media and collective memory, the dialectics of voice and power, as well as the reproduction of sound and cultural identity. This context also includes thematically and methodologically diverse studies on the media coverage of acoustic experience through electronic media (from ‘archaeological’ forms such as the Walkman or the Discman to such ‘futuristic’ forms as mobile phones and iPods), as well as studies on these media’s effect on the transformation of the acoustic environment. Brzostek presents works inspired by R. Murray Shafer’s acoustic ecology, which touch on sound in the public sphere, urban soundscapes marked by noise pollution, as well as the acoustic environments of lo-fi and hi-fi.
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Sound presents a unique subject of study, functioning in culture not only as a conveyor of meaning, but also as a sensory and affective intensity. To perform a cultural analysis of acoustic phenomena, therefore, we must take into account both the semiotic/interpretive dimension of soundedness and its bodily/material dimension. Szarecki illustrates his approach with the example of the internet site Coffitivity, which supports creative thinking by reproducing the ambient noise of a cafe. Szarecki draws on the theoretical tools of sound studies and of posthegemonic political theory to show how by arranging and controlling the sound environment Coffitivity broadens the possibilities – in time and space – of performing creative work, thus turning such work into an omnipresent component of everyday life.
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Tuszyńska confronts two seemingly distant notions, namely representation as an aesthetic category, and one type of phonography, namely musique concrète and the technology of open-air recording that goes with it. Thus she highlights a question that has been overlooked by theorists of representation as well as by musicologists. By confronting Michał Paweł Markowski’s models of representation with Pierre Schaeffer’s theory of musique concrète, Tuscyńska points to problems in representation that do not appear when we apply this concept to other artistic forms. This problem provides an impetus to examine musique concrète from a non-musicological perspective.
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Hejmej reflects on two fundamental questions: the first relates to sound (including voice) and the soundscape as a phenomenon that influences contemporary literature and its functioning in today’s media-dominated society; the second question, which builds on the first, explores the prospects of contemporary literary scholarship drawing on the anthropology of sound. Hejmej traces various scholars’ recent work in sound studies to highlight aural perception – ‘listening to culture,’ which leads him to argue for a new anthropology of the audiovisual – one that would build on analyses of both visual and acoustic space. Thus he analyses the new situation of a literature that, in today’s media-dominated world, relates to acoustic and acousmatic experiences. He proposes to treat literature not merely in terms of the written word (as accepted in traditional literary scholarship) but voice and scriptorality.
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Review: Maciej Jabłoński, Przeciw muzykologii niewrażliwej [Against Insensitive Musicology], Wydawnictwo Nauka i Innowacje, Poznań 2014.
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In Gnawa music, the three-stringed lute called guembri plays a central role. According to Sum (2012, p. 52), “the guembri attracts the mluk (supernatural entities summoned in gnawa ceremonies) by sounding their musical identities, effectively sounding their names (...), (as well as) calling on the adept (...). Upon arrival of the spirit, the guembri, as the adept, becomes possessed.” The guembri is equipped with a detachable idiophone consisting of metal loops or rings fixed around the edges of a metal sheet, inserted into the neck. This device, called the sersera, is mostly audible during solo moments. It has been often noticed, or briefly described (Baldassarre 1999), but never analyzed in detail. However, it seems important for us to include the sersera in the analysis of the status, meaning and roles of the guembri timbre. Taking it into consideration will provide a new approach leading to better understanding of many facets of the instrument, including its cultural value. The sersera was used before and it is still made and carried by musicians, but nowadays it is barely employed either in Morocco or in Belgium. Through confrontation of the acoustical analysis and the information found in literature with the musicians’ experience, this paper tries to find the reasons of this obsolescence.
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The paper concentrates itself on the figure of the Alevi-Bektashi musician (zakir, Imam Jafer) in Kardzhali region, who has at the same time religious, social, and artistic roles in society. Because of his characteristics, this figure could be categorized as an epic musician. His non-professional, but specialized activity is presented through the insiders‘ views on the specifics, educational manners, musicians’ quality assessment and their differences in performing styles. A young Bektashi musician from the region, whose biography and performing manner are marked by the complex interaction between his great talent and strong religious feelings is also portrayed in the paper. The interaction itself determines his complicated path as a musician and as a member of a community of heterodox Muslims.
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The article is dedicated to the folklore singing of the Gagauzs in Eastern Thrace. The authors analyze primarily archival and published material from the early twentieth century war period and the following displacement of large groups of populations, which raises the question of their cultural traditions and specifics. The songs are used as a source allowing the outlining of a number of specific characteristics of the ethnic and cultural identity of the Gagauzs. Special attention is paid to bilingualism in some records and its ritual functions. The article is reminiscent of Adela Peeva’s film “ Whose is this song?”. Undoubtedly it will again show the development and the fate of the spiritual heritage from the Ottoman period bequeathed to the later national societies and countries in the Balkans, where the heritage (which was previously common) is “assigne” and began to be felt “our” and “native” or, in other cases, is strongly rejected. The aim of the article, however, is to show that this initial space was not always so common and open and that the relationships in it (respectively in the culture in general) depended on local developments, different situations and participants. At least in terms of knowledge about the various cultures and traditions on the Balkans, together with the question “Whose is this song?” goes the question “Whose song is the best?”. That is, except the origin of the songs, which in many cases is common, it is also important to understand it, to know how it is valorized and constantly acknowledged.
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Rhetorical figures and rhetorical strategies in The Minotaur by Harrison Birtwistle The Minotaur is the opera composed by Harrison Birtwistle to libretto by David Harsent. It was premiered in 2008 in Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Birtwistle’s musical language is basically modernist: atonal, centralised, based on interval or number patterns, pre-compositional operations, scales invented by the composer himself. His music is recognised as generally intellectual and connected with great avantgarde of 20th century. On the other hand, Birtwistle has never denied expression in his pieces. Titles and extra-musical inspirations are common (i.e. Melencolia 1). Birtwistle is inspired by music of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and, less often, Baroque. The score of The Minotaur is full of rhetorical figures: both hypothyposis and emphasis. They are evident and immediately recognised in spite of contemporary, atonal language of the opera. Mostly, they are inspired by Baroque musical-rhetorical figures but there are examples of individual, contemporary means. Figures are local and connected with only one or few words. General atmosphere of fear and isolation can be created with ‘rhetorical strategies’, which are active much longer than figures. Birtwistle uses musical symbols as well. There are two main symbols in The Minotaur: the iambic ‘glissando gesture’ which opens the opera and appears in its key moments, and the ‘motif of fate’ – repetition connected with powers of fate and with tragic irony. The question is, why Birtwistle used so traditional and instantly recognisable means, as he is known for his highly intellectual music. Answer given in this text is that they stay in service of narration. They are audible and visible signs of telling the story.
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In this paper, the author compares aesthetic and stylistic attitude of two composers who worked in Jasna Góra Monastery at the turn of Baroque and Classical eras. The aim of this article is to capture the differences and similarities between the creative output of both artists by comparison of their pro processione pieces, which are a local variant of a church symphony. Collating complexive analysis, the author points characteristic solutions implemented by the composers, which gives rise to denotation their output as baroque or classical. In this way both composers were located on a stylistic timeline – Riepel as a baroque composer who already has implemented some classical elements into his style, and Żebrowski as a representant of galant style with baroque remainders. Outline of the compositional technique was depicted, what in the future can be a starting point for the further researches.
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Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf (1739–1799) has been remembered in history of music in the 18th century as a significant contributor in developing singspiel (comic opera) genre and as a composer famous among double bass players because of two double bass concertos. But recent studies brought to the fore information about a variety of his instrumental music. Between the others, there are more than 120 symphonies. This paper is a report-attempt about present condition of extant Dittersdorf symphonies’ manuscripts, preserved in the contemporary Polish area. There are nine archives and libraries mentioned, where these manuscripts are stored. The richest collection of Dittersdorf’s symphonies is located in Pauline Monastery Archive in Jasna Góra in Częstochowa (PL-CZ), where seventeen manuscripts are stored. All of them preserved in good condition, arisen in last quarter of the 18th century. Other manuscripts we can find in: Archive of Polish Dominicans Province in Kraków (PL-Kd), Cistercian Abbey in Kraków-Mogiła (PL-MO), Benedictine Abbey in Krzeszów/Grüssau (PL-KRZ), Library of Theological Faculty of Opole University (PL-OPsm), Archdiocesan Archive in Poznań (PL-Pa Muz MM), Diocesan Library in Sandomierz (PL-SA) and Special Collections Department of Wrocław University Library (PL-WRu). There is also a piece of information about the manuscript from Pilica (PL-PIk), presumably lost in recent time, which was one of very few examples Dittersdorf’s manuscripts written in the 19th century.
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The article describes the group of seventeen early English prints from the second half of the 17th century. The prints are part of the collection of the former Preußische Staatsbibliothek in Berlin kept in The Jagiellonian University and contain ayres and religious songs. Fourteen of them were published by John and Henry Playford. The first part of the paper shows the biographies of the publishers and brings the state of research on their work. The second part includes the detailed description of the seventeen of early English prints. The final part presents the content of the prints and biographies of its most important composers.
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Creation of film music is only an episode in all of Witold Lutosławski’s way of oeuvre. He composed music to five films – three of which were not preserved (short films from the 1930s), two others that have been preserved were middle-feature films from the 1940s. This article is an attempt to reconstruct the character of the cooperation between Lutosławski and the directors, outlining the historical context and the circumstances of the works’ creation, and in case of the preserved films, to discuss their musical aspect. Uwaga – komunikat filmowy z frontu pracy (Beware! A Film Communiqué from the Front Lines of Work, 1934) and Gore! (Fire!, 1936) were directed by Eugeniusz Cękalski in cooperation with Stanisław Wohl. Zwarcie (Short Circuit, 1935) was created by Franciszka and Stefan Themerson. We know very little about Lutoslawski’s music in these films, but it was always appreciated in press reviews. After the Second World War documentary films became popular, but they contained propaganda features, which aimed to inform about the scale of devastation of Polish territory. One of them was Odrą do Bałtyku (Via the Oder to the Baltic, 1946) directed by Stanisław Urbanowicz. The sound element of the film has largely an illustrative character (in neoclassical style), it is a background for the narrative’s comment. Various arrangements of songs (Zasiali górale [The mountain people have sown], Przybyli ułani pod okienko [The lancers have come to the window]) which are incorporated in the soundtrack, underline the propaganda message of the film. The last film with Lutosławski’s music was Suita warszawska (Warsaw Suite, 1946) directed by Tadeusz Makarczyński. Again we can hear illustrative music, even real music (urban folk – polka and waltz), but sometimes music is more independent and abstract. After that the composer got several proposal to write film music, but he did not undertake this anymore (mainly for financial and time reasons).
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Nowadays, Leopold Stokowski is recognized as one of the most important conductors of the 20th Century. The artist was very proud of his Polish origin and conducted twenty two compositions written by eleven Polish composers, including Chopin, Wieniawski, Fitelberg, Szymanowski, Tansman, Szabelski, Moniuszko, Lutosławski, Panufnik, Jarecki and Paderewski. During his career Stokowski visited Poland four times. The first two visits (1924 and 1958) were private. The conductor’s first Polish concert took place in Warsaw in May 1959 – on this occasion Stokowski conducted Lutosławski’s Symphony No. 1 and Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater. The press praised Stokowski for bringing from the orchestra his own rich sonorities and for his great sensitivity, and at the same time criticized him for lack of formal discipline. Also Lutosławski was dissatisfied with Stokowski’s interpretation. Stokowski conducted in Poland also in May 1960, when he gave a couple of concerts in Zabrze and Bydgoszcz. Both programmes included compositions by Polish composers – Szabelski and Moniuszko. The conductor was also a close friend of Andrzej Panufnik. Stokowski collaborated with Panufnik when conducting his Symphony for peace and later led the world premiere performance of revised version of the work, entitled Sinfonia Elegiaca. He also conducted Sinfonia sacra and two other world premiere performances of Panufnik’s works – Katyń Epitaph and Universal Prayer. Stokowski recorded some of Polish compositions – both in studio and during concerts. Some of these performances are still unpublished (Fitelberg’s Polish rhapsody, Moniuszko’s Fairy tale overture and Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater), while others have been published (Panufnik’s Universal Prayer, Lutosławski’s Symphony No. 1 and Szabelski’s Toccata). Stokowski’s Polish episodes are intriguing and the present study is the first one to bring to light this forgotten episodes from the great conductor’s biography.
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The music of Polish composers of the Romanticism is still quite a forgotten and undiscovered area. One of the examples of that issue are the works of Joseph Poniatowski (1816–1873), a composer who spent a significant part of his life abroad. His work concentrates mainly on the opera music, which was largely dictated by the environment from which he descended and in which he stayed. The purpose of this article is to draw attention to one of the composer’s forgotten works – Mass in F major, and also to presently selected topics related to this work.
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