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Reviews Article received on 10th March 2009 Due to the diversity of the studies received, Article accepted on 21st May 2009 the collection Musical Folklore as a Vehicle? (the UDC 78.072:781.7 question-mark at the end of the title refers to a certain dilemma concerning the veracity of the Ira Prodanov Krajišnik18 statement), is divided into two parts. The part University of Novi Sad named Identities consists of the texts focused Academy of Arts – Department of Music on folklore research in the context of construct- ing the global and afterwards, the individual national or personal creative identities, or the MUSICAL FOLKLORE AS A VEHICLE? identities of a specifi c musical genre. Serbian Musicological Society The problem range of the study Folk Music International Musicological Society as a Vehicle for Accomplishing a Global Cultural Department of Musicology and Department Identity by Mirjana Veselinović-Hofman, offers of Ethnomusicology an adequate frame for recognizing the funda- Faculty of Music, Belgrade, 2008 mental guidelines of the whole publications. ISBN 978-86-6051-005-3 Perceived as ‘the relationship between the regional and the international’, as a ‘medium for communicating’, the musical folklore, claims Cooperation with international institutions the author, is an area where the authenticity of has always been a sign that scholarship (be- a specifi c regional musical experience and the sides culture) in Serbia is a sphere recognized global cultural context meet. This encounter as high quality, regardless of the political sta- does not mean (as is often assumed) the loss tus of our country in the world. Thus the vol- of the specifi c qualities of the individual ex- ume Musical Folklore as a Vehicle?, printed as a periences concerned, but always represents a part of the cooperative project of the Serbian certain coexistence of the materials with differ- Musicological Society and International Musi- ent characteristics. An analysis of the function cological Society, confi rms the important place of musical folklore in the development of cul- of our musicological and ethnomusicological tural identity, in the past and today, indicates research in an international context, while signifi cant differences. While in Romanticism the involvement of the foreign partner in or- this function was aimed at national cultural ganizing the meeting with the same title and emancipation, in the 20th century it becomes his fi nancial backing in the realization of this polysemic: the area of its impact, besides po- publication, are proofs of the responsible ap- litical (when folklore serves the propaganda of proach of both sides concerning the fi rst proj- a dominant ideology), can show characteristics ect made on this level in our country. of a purely aesthetical, artistic behaviour. This Papers printed in the volume Musical Folk- second case is very typical of the post-modern- lore as a Vehicle?, demonstrate the great diver- ist times, when the ‘aesthetic of fragmentation’, sity of approach (especially for us) towards makes the presence of musical folklore possible the ‘domestic research terrain’, confi rming in many various forms. Therefore, it brings for- the statement from the editorial by professor ward the intertextuality of such materials, but Mirjana Veselinović-Hofman, PhD, that folk- also the fact that the phenomenon of the na- lore ‘has always been a stimulating, inspira- tional, in the context of the presence of musical tional and challenging source of theoretical folklore, is today replaced by the phenomenon 29 thoughts on music.’ of the transnational. Two studies within this collection deal with the question of the development of Yu- 81 Author contact information: [email protected]. goslavian identity in the fi eld of music. In her 29 Mirjana Veselinović-Hofman, ‘Introduction’, in: study Inventing Yugoslav Identity in Art Music, Musical folklore as a vehicle?, Belgrade, 2008, 8. based on culturological research of the Yugo- 115 New Sound 33, I/2009 slavian sphere, by historian Andrew Wachtel, folklore is an ‘everlasting circle’, which re- Melita Milin explains how the composers in volves forever. the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1918–1945) cre- The research titled Cultural Paradigms with- ated a ‘multinational’, or (as she points out) in the Music of Aurel Stroe (1932) by Ruxandra ‘supranational’ style. She begins her report by Arzoiu, deals with the works of the contempo- analysing the problem of creating the anthem rary Romanian composer, ‘a builder of bridg- of the newly-founded state. An awkward es between different civilizations’, whose merging of the three stanzas taken from three supranational musical language, as shown different anthems of the peoples represent- through key opuses, is dedicated to ‘enlarg- ing the most numerous part of the Kingdom’s ing communication on all levels between dif- population, clearly indicates an attempt to ferent realities – historical, geographical, cul- unite superfi cially the materials with quite tural, affective.’ different (musical) characteristics. In the en- In a very inspiring exposition A Much too suing period, this problem was transferred to Weighty Inheritance, Katy Romanou deals with the level of socio-political circumstances and the complicated relation towards cultivating their consequences in the sphere of creating traditional Greek music throughout the 20th artistic music. As illustrations of this subject, century, which is, on one hand, highly ap- the author quotes works by S. S. Mokranjac, preciated, but on the other, strictly separated M. Polič, M. Logar, P. Konjović, J. Slavenski, from music which is taught and cultivated and others, concluding that the Yugoslavian according to Western standards. The study ‘ideal’ in music was present mostly between begins with comments on the importance of the two World Wars, and slowly disappear- the discovery of the fi rst written musical doc- ing afterwards. The work of Ana Hofman, The ument of ancient Greece, Seikilos Epitaph in Music of ’Working People’: Musical Folklore and 1883, and continues with research concerning the Creation of Yugoslav Identity, deals with the this subject by Bourgault-Ducoudray, posing period after the Second World War, when, by key questions concerning the approach to this cultivating folklore through the concept of art, with reference to the relation of modal amateurism as well as through the scholarly structures of Greek folk melodies and old meetings, the state attempted to proclaim this Byzantine modes, as well as the integral unity musical sphere as the most adequate cultural of ancient Greece, Byzantine and folk music. statement of the ‘working people’, and the Diffi culties in acknowledging the value of this ‘new folk culture’ – which was, essentially, inheritance, among other things, arise from ‘antiindividualistic’, and treated the folklore the fact that its notation is different than from of different peoples as a ‘multitude of one’ the Western, but because of the alleged dis- – as a symbolic confi rmation of the socialistic crimination of folk music by religious music, development of the society. folk music is often transcribed into contem- In the work titled Folklore, New Music and porary notation, which makes it ‘accessible’ National Identity, author Marija Kostakeva at- to the Western tradition. As the study points tempts to answer citing practical examples, out, the ways in which traditional music is the questions already answered in theory in cultivated and distributed in Greece today the study by M. Veselinović-Hofman. For this testify that this seems to be lastingly, a very purpose, the author quotes certain works by delicate question of Greece musical culture. Berio and Ligeti in the context of using folk Several works in the collection deal with elements, and afterwards analysing similar musical pop culture. Two of them refer to methods in contemporary Bulgarian music the creation of songs for the Eurovision song through the works of K. Iliev, V. Kazandžiev, contest. The fi rst one, Folklore as a Vehicle for G. Minčev, and others. The author concludes (Re)Construction of ’unifi ed space’ or How to Turn that, although ‘national identities are going a Fawn into a Wolf and Then Into a Dove and Not to disperse in our global age’, the interest in To End Up With Some Kind of Mythological Crea- 116 Reviews ture? by Vesna Mikić, by its humorous title, of Sindidun and Tir na n’Og, who cultivate art already indicates a discussion of recent strate- inspired by Irish music and culture, despite gies for creating songs for the famous Europe- never, or almost never being directly connect- an pop song contest, as well as why and how ed to them, the phenomenon of ‘Ireland in the folklore turned out to be a ‘formula’ for Serbia’ was examined by Gordana Blagojević, the successful rating of the participants. A re- in a paper titled Folklore Music in a Global Vil- search about a similar theme, Musical Folklore lage: ’Irish Serbs’ in Belgrade Today. in Popular Music as the ’Guarantor’ of its Identi- Besides providing adequate research space ty, was presented by Dimitrije O. Golemović. in analysing the problem of folklore as a trans- Analysing the song Oro by Željko Joksimović mitter of information referring to one and/or from the Eurovision song contest in 2008, this several cultures, the fi rst part of the collection ethnomusicologist has, by implementing the shows an openness towards researching the analytical apparatus of his trade, skilfully ’ex- phenomena in the sphere of contemporary pop posed’ the difference

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