Nirha Efendić, Sevdalinka – od prve vijesti do savremenih pjevača
Review of: Nirha Efendić, Sevdalinka – od prve vijesti do savremenih pjevača, Sarajevo: Zemaljski muzej Bosne i Hercegovine, 2022. 93 str.
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Review of: Nirha Efendić, Sevdalinka – od prve vijesti do savremenih pjevača, Sarajevo: Zemaljski muzej Bosne i Hercegovine, 2022. 93 str.
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The roles of horses, falcons, nightingales and doves in sevdalinke are varied. On one level, horses and falcons played an important role in a young man’s life in Bosnia. They were both valuable and valued possessions, with horses used for transportation, and trained falcons for hunting small game. In some of these songs, this value is highlighted. Their attributes of power and swiftness appear in sevdalinke, often in riddles, as in ‘what is swifter than a falcon’s eye.’ On another level, a most important function of these animals is as messengers, which is common in Slavic folklore. They communicate with and aid humans, telling them information about their beloved. On yet another level, falcons can be direct representations of young men. Doves symbolized young women, and also appear as affectionate epithets. These birds represent he emotion of love, for young women, and also for couples. Nightingales, as in much of world literature, symbolize passion and longing.
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Sevdalinka, an urban love song of Bosnia and Herzegovina, has sprung from a local oral melopoetic tradition that had been under the strong influence of Ottoman musical culture over several centuries. As part of the modernization of musical traditions in the 19th and 20th centuries, professional performers of Sevdalinka gradually adopted a modern twelve-tone system by using tempered instruments such as the accordion. That process resulted in what we today might call “modern Sevdalinka”. The main thesis of this article is that certain elements inherited from oral musical practices not only survived this change but were also preferred in the modern transformation of the repertoire. Particularly prominent among them were influences from the Ottoman musical culture that can still be recognized in the melodic idioms of Sevdalinka today. One among them, “makam hijaz”, can be seen as representative of this whole process and is recognized even in authorship within modern Sevdalinka.
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The traditional methodology of archival research has faced challenges posed by the emergence of “New Musicology” since the 1990s. The application of new research methods has prompted the exploration of fresh inquiries: What is the contemporary significance of archival methods for scholars? What strengths and weaknesses does this methodology present for music historians? Furthermore, how has archival research been effectively combined with other methodologies in recent music scholarship? This essay aims to address these questions by delving into two examples within the realm of traditional Chinese music: the unearthing of the Epic of Darkness and the exploration of the oral tradition of Shijing chanting recorded in Fang county. Through these cases, I endeavour to shed light on oral-textual studies in the present-day landscape of music scholarship.
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Review of: Maja Vasiljević: Jevrejski muzičari u Beogradu: od Balfurove deklaracije do Holokausta, HERAedu, Muzikološki institut SANU, Beograd, 2021, str. 323, ISBN 978-86-7956- 181-7 (The Jewish Musicians in Belgrade: From the Balfour Declaration to Holocaust, HERAedu, Institute for Musicology SASA, Belgrade, 2023, ISBN 978-86- 7956-198-5).
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The article aims to reconstruct and contextualize a parchment fragment stored at the Franciscan Nunnery of the Saint Clare Order at Stary Sącz. The fragment has unusual features: the Latin text, music staff, and music notation are enormously large, contrasting features of other Stary Sącz liturgical books. The analysis reveals that the fragment is in line with other Kraków diocese manuscripts and was not originally part of the nunnery’s collection. The reconstruction of the folio indicates that the original manuscript, whether gradual or sequentiary, was unusually large, even larger than the famous Krakow Jan Olbracht Gradual. Moreover, the fragment bears witness to the production of at least one oversized liturgical book – an elephant-sized manuscript –, which took place on the territory of the Krakow diocese, probably in the late 15th century.
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Although the subject of the Przemyśl Fortress has been incessantly popular for years, little space has been devoted so far to the merging of power and entertainment, whereas for the distribution of power the culture of leisure and its development was vital; developing appropriate habits and tastes as well as promoting appropriate (from the point of view of the authorities) forms of spending free time was by no means neutral in terms of content and form. The article discusses the relations between the Przemyśl garrison under Commandant Anton von Galgótzy (i.e., between 1891 and 1905) and the local civilians. Galgótzy used specific practices, abusing his power, compared with the commandants of other garrison towns. Concerts of military bands were supposed to warm up his image of an all-powerful general and, through appropriately selected repertoire, develop loyalty towards the Imperial-Royal Monarchy on its outskirts.
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In the collection of the University of Warsaw Library, there are three musical sources that testify to the musical culture of the monastery of Canons Regular of the Lateran in Fulnek. The paper focuses on three manuscripts (probably autographs) of sacred vocal-instrumental music by unknown composer Carolus Weldamon (d. 1736). He was a Canon Regular active in the Fulnek monastery in the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. His compositions from the first decade of the 18th century were obtained by Conventual Franciscans in Głogów monastery in Silesia. The paper contains a biography of the composer and a brief overview of the sources and the music written inside. The Appendix contains a list of organists, cantors, rectors, and musicians associated with the monastery in Fulnek.
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Presentation of the project in the frame of conference Towards a Common Regional History of Nation Building Strategies. Institute for Musicology, RCH, Bartók Hall Budapest, 27th May 2022.
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The paper discusses the importance of micro-historiography in music history research, which involves studying the everyday lives of individuals and events to uncover forgotten details and gaps in traditional historical approaches. Reading the main source, the daily Pest-Ofner Localblatt und Landbote it is especially important to emphasize the significance of shorter news, reports, and advertisements in newspapers as valuable sources of information for reconstructing everyday musical life in Pest-Buda. The Pest-Ofner Localblatt und Landbote mentions several guest performers on the stages of Pest-Buda, including the visits of traveling national or folk companies, the performances of the successful Spanish folk dance company at the National Theater in Pest, the tour of the popular Tyrolean folk music company for several months, the supposedly Viennese singing company, marked by the names of Mutzbauer, Honetz, and Lasky, which clearly represented the Wienerlied repertoire on the stage of popular cafés, the guest performances of singer Babette (Betty) Gundy, or Sigismund Thalberg’s student, the pianist Rosa Kastner. The present paper also discusses the sources that can be used to list the guest performers, such as the surviving archive material of the National Theater in Pest, the theatre pocket books of German theaters, and the period’s press, especially the Pesth-Ofner Localblatt und Landbote. By studying the lives of everyday individuals and the events of everyday life, researchers can uncover information that may have been overlooked or ignored by traditional historical approaches. In the context of music history, micro-historiography can help to shed light on the functioning of an entire city or region, as well as the structure of musical life from a variety of perspectives. It can also help to reveal the realities of everyday musical life, including the network of contacts through which musicians could reach their audience, and how this was reflected in the period’s sources.
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The Olomouc opera stage (as was, after all, true for all of those in Austria) was part of a network of provincial theatres, characterised by constant changes in membership. It was typical that, following the end of a season, theatre director would go to Vienna and other larger cultural centres to seek new talented singers. Another decisive factor in getting a contract was the successfulness of the artists' guest performances throughout the season. For small theatres, it was advantageous to establish contracts mainly with talented newcomers who had lower demands in terms of their salaries. Operating a successful theatre business was largely connected with the ability of directors to recognise the latent abilities of inexperienced singers. During certain periods, the German municipal theatre in Olomouc was a seedbed of future stars, helping kick off their glamorous careers. However, national disputes, the hostility of city council members, fires, and epidemics as well as the fickle tastes of the audience could thwart the efforts of even the most experienced theatre entrepreneur and make them decide to try their chances elsewhere. The aim of this paper is to document, through several examples of singers or directors, the usual direction of artistic mobility in Central Europe in the 19th and early 20th century.
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The musical past of today’s Slovakia, or the territory of historical Hungary, in the time period from the 15th century towards the first half of the 17th century, is gradually becoming better known thanks to the collaboration of several generations of musicologists. The preserved polyphonic monuments from the church environment have attracted the attention of specialists from several national cultures living in Central Europe as well as music historians from the USA. The present paper intends to highlight certain successful collaborations in the discovery, rescue and identification of music-historical monuments from the Renaissance and early Baroque periods by music historians in cooperation with specialists from other social science disciplines – theology, library science and linguistics. Such cooperation is essential and is a guarantee of successful results.
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The article follows Emilián Trolda’s question about the creative motivation of composing members of the Jesuit order. It follows an edition published in the Fontes musicae in the Polonia series as part of a project on Jesuit musical culture in Poland and Lithuania. It illustrates Trolda’s conclusions with two compositions by the Jesuit Karel Rabovius (1619–1686), who met with great acclaim for his compositional skills and was considered the founder of the musical flowering of the St. Wenceslas Seminary in Prague. In line with the conclusions of Jiří Sehnal and other scholars, the study does not attempt to define any stylistic features inherent in Jesuit music but sees the manifestations of the Jesuit approach to composing in a creative artistry driven by a desire for the maximum functionality of the piece (O, Domine Jesu) or in the pragmatic and purposefulness adaptation of Giacomo Carissimi’s model (Surgamus, eamus, properemus).
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In the 1870s Eliška Krásnohorská wrote the libretto for the opera Blaník for Zdeněk Fibich. The author based her work on the legends about Mount Blaník, where an army is hiding but will come to the aid of the Czech nation when it is at its worst. These legends were updated in 19th-century Czech culture to meet contemporary national demands – Czech patriots transform themselves into the role of “Blaník knights”, the saviours of the nation. Krásnohorská situated the opera’s plot in 1623, when the Catholic party won. In her libretto, she made a strong appeal for national unity and a common love for the homeland. The critics of the time mostly praised her libretto, but there were also opinions that reproached her for shortcomings in the dramatic construction (e.g. from Otakar Hostinský). František Duchek’s libretto entitled Ctibor Blanický was also written at the same time. This forgotten and unrealised curiosity shows what possibilities the theme of Blaník provided for contemporary opera.
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The aim of this paper is to determine the relationship of Czech audiences to the music of Johannes Brahms. All the concerts containing Brahms’ pieces were identified as a result of research into issues of the music magazine Dalibor. Subsequent reviews clarified the reception of Brahms’ work in the Czech lands, and consequently Brahms’ work was positively received by Czech audiences. The research revealed two aspects in particular that influenced the acceptance of the composer’s work. First of all, the choice of the composition mattered, as the music of Brahms counted among the most challenging to perform and therefore difficult to listen to. The second condition was the correct interpretation of the work. Brahms composed technically difficult compositions, so a poor performance would ruin the whole impression made by the music. Therefore, only the best interpreters were chosen. During the period it was possible to observe how Czech audiences gradually developed a deep admiration for the work of Brahms.
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This paper introduces readers to the political and social situation in the Czech lands of the 1890s. While Moravia solved the Czech-German problem in 1905 with the Moravian pact (Moravský pakt), Bohemia was unable to resolve the conflict between Czechs and Germans until the First World War. Richard Wagner’s music started to appear in the Czech lands in the middle of the 19th century. The first example originated in 1843, when František Škroup obtained the score of the opera Bludný Holanďan (The Flying Dutchman). From 1853 Wagner’s music was regularly played in the Czech lands. The premieres of operas in the Czech lands emerged in two waves. The first came in the 1850s, and the second during the 1880s thanks to Angelo Neumann, director of the Estates Theatre. Czechs were interested in these operas even though they were performed in German and in German theatres. From research work into the Czech newspapers Dalibor and Národní listy (National Papers), it was found that the premieres of Tannhäuser and Mistři pěvci norimberští (The Mastersingers of Nuremberg) in the National Theatre enjoyed a degree of success. The performance of the technicians and artists was precise. Both newspapers agreed that the main causes of the success were the conductor of both operas Adolf Čech and the director František Hynek.
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The text first of all gives a broader comparison of the development of two traditions that significantly influenced Czech society in the 19th century. Political, national and religious influences, together with the development of historical research, were reflected in artistic creation, including music. Both traditions were connected by many features: a place in Czech history, a religious basis, the element of Czech-German coexistence, partly also their incorporation into the interpretation of the Blaník legend, etc. The selection of compositions serves not only to understand the parallel coexistence of both traditions, but it is also beneficial in terms of finding compositions whose authors attempted to merge the two ideological currents. In addition to the compositions themselves, other valuable information on this confrontation is provided by contemporary materials (reviews, memoirs). The text reveals much about the composers’ motivations, the risks of choosing the themes, the reception by audiences, opportunities for performances, competitors’ opinions, etc. One of the main conclusions is the statement that Hus-Hussite compositions quantitatively predominated in the second half of the 19th century and that they were a symbol of the progressive current of Czech political representation. Compositions of a synthesising nature were united by an appeal to reconcile the confessionally, linguistically and politically divided nation, and, in this sense, they are closer to Saint Wenceslas compositions. As a whole, all compositions can then also be understood as a suitable addition to the reconstruction of the subject represented by the question “Wenceslas or Hus/Žižka”.
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The media expand the biographical research of leading composers with at least a social context. They tell about a society, a mentality of the time, which it not only reflected, but also shaped. The study deals with such verbal and pictorial contributions in Czech illustrated magazines of the first half of the 1880s which concerned Bedřich Smetana and Zdeněk Fibich, and thus had the potential to co-create their media image. Published texts from music critics, semi-professional or lay writers were used. With a trawl of humorous magazines, the research could be extended to include cartoons which commented on cultural events. Due to the verification of the findings, I also use unillustrated periodicals in this study (especially the music magazine Dalibor and at that time the most widespread daily newspaper Národní listy), memoir literature and other sources.
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Through his activities, Bedřich Smetana fundamentally influenced the formation of modern Czech musical life. The exceptional nature of his position lies in the breadth and versatility of his activities. As a composer, he founded modern Czech music and he asserted himself as a pianist, conductor, choirmaster, music teacher, and music critic. For eight years he was at the helm of the Czech opera of the Provisional Theatre and participated significantly in the establishment and activities of some of Prague’s cultural institutions. Smetana’s public endeavours and artistic efforts were closely related to societal events, especially from the 1860s onwards, and this linkage between artistic intentions and societal demand is reflected in his production in terms of the range and choice of themes and genres. To some extent, Smetana subordinated his personal life to his public activities and artistic vocation, and his financial situation also reflected this decision.
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This paper is focused on the income and expenses of Betty Fibich (maiden name Hanuš) and Zdeněk Fibich in the years 1874–1885. Betty Fibich’s income consisted of salaries from the Provisional Theatre, church services, concerts and benefits. Zdeněk Fibich’s income consisted of salaries from the Provisional Theatre where he worked as choirmaster and bandmaster, his salary from the Russian orthodox cathedral, payment for compositions and income from teaching. Expenses consisted of their servants’ salaries, costumes for operas, the settlement of debts, money for food, rent and energy. The uncovered data reveals that the Fibichs had a very good lifestyle considering the then situation. Their joint income was more or less four times higher than the average monthly income in the 19th century. The Fibichs belonged to the higher social category, they could afford servants and travel abroad. They did not abandon their standard of living even in the poorer years when they had to borrow money to pay their expenses.
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