IGNAZIO MACCHIARELLA (ED) MULTIPART MUSIC A SPECIFIC MODE OF MUSICAL THINKING, EXPRESSIVE BEHAVIOUR AND SOUND International Council for Traditional Music With the support of the Dipartimento di Storia, Beni Culturali e Territorio Università degli Studi di Cagliari NOTA – Valter Colle / Udine nota cd book 555 - 2011 ISBN 9788861630925 nota music p.o.box 187 33100 Udine tel. 0432 582001 - fax 0432 1790652 [email protected] www.nota.it Graphic publishing- Simone Riggio - www.simoneriggio.com e-book authoring & editing Giuliano Michelini - luckyassociates.com English review by Sally Davies (University of Cagliari) The audio excerpts are available at http://www.multipartmusic.org/multipartmusic/node/4 The password is: L1gLcWTC8UAb For any problems please contact [email protected] IGNAZIO MACCHIARELLA (ED) MULTIPART MUSIC a specific mode of musical thinking, expressive behaviour and sound Papers from the First Meeting of the ICTM Study Group on Multipart Music (September 15 - 20, 2010; Cagliari – Sardinia) Contents Ignazio Macchiarella, Theorizing on multipart music making 7 Enrique Camara de Landa, Multipart music making between Spain and 23 Latin America: some considerations related to the theoretical proposals of Ignazio Macchiarella Historical Perspectives Gerda Lechleitner & Nona Lomidze, Early sound documents of multipart 37 music. Concepts and historical context, analysis and interpretation Susanne Ziegler, Multipart music practices in historical perspective. Recording 51 versus notation Rossana Dalmonte, “As once and even more today: music has to be involved in 67 people and God”. Liszt’s sacred music for extra-liturgical occasions Vasco Zara, Ad infinitum. Polyphonic practices and theological discussions in 77 Ars Nova’s time Massimo Privitera, The polyphony as an emblem of concorde in early modern 95 Europe Theory and Concepts Hugo Ferran, The concepts of “part” and “multipart music” for the Maale of 105 southern Ethiopia Žanna Pärtlas, Musical thinking and sonic realization in vocal heterophony. 129 The case of the wedding songs of the Russian-Belarusian borderland tradition Jacques Bouët, Heterophony leads necessarily to a polyphony much less 143 rudimentary than the hocket. Listening to recordings of Macedo-Roumanian (Gramoshtenes of Roumanian Dobrogea) and Xhosa (South Africa) plurivocal songs Joseph Jordania, Social factor in traditional polyphony. Definition, creation, 149 and performance Making Multipart Musics: Case Studies Mauro Balma, Styles of chant and styles of life. Synchronous changes in Cogne, 163 a village in the Western Alps (Italy) Joško Ćaleta, Ojkanje, the (multipart) musical system of the Dalmatian 175 Hinterland. The social and emotional dimensions of the performance practices Fulvia Caruso, Multipart singing in Latera: musical behaviour and sense of 187 belonging 4 MULTIPART MUSIC: A SPECIFIC MODE OF MUSICAL THINKING, EXPRESSIVE BEHAVIOUR AND SOUND Daiva Račiūnaitė-Vyčinienė, Specific features of performing Lithuanian 215 polyphonic songs. Sutartinės: singing as birdsong Eno Koço, Styles of the iso-based multipart unaccompanied singing (IMUS) of 237 south Albania and north Epirus and among the Arbëresh of Italy Giuseppe Massimo Rizzo, Sopila circular interactions 279 Girolamo Garofalo, Traces of ison and biphonies in the Byzantine chant of 301 Sicilian Arbëreshe Joao de Carvalho, Triads, trials and triangles. Harmony singing, mobility 323 and social structure in Mozambique Gerald Florian Messner, The reciprocity of multipart vocal traditions and 333 socio-cultural structures Pyrenees an emerging field Philippe Cauguilhem, The polyphonic performance of plainchant between 341 history and ethnomusicology Jean Jacques Casteret, Western Pyrenean multipart. A trans-historical 347 approach 367 Jaume Ayats, The lyrical rhythm that orders the world. How the rhythmic built the ritual space models in the religious chants of the Pyrenees 381 Jean-Christophe Maillard, Religious traditional multipart singing in the central Pyrenees 393 Iris Gayete, Time logic of the “vespers” of the Pyrenees Multipart Singing in Sardinia 403 Sebastiano Pilosu, Canto a tenore and “visibility” . Comparing two communities, Orgosolo and Bortigali 415 Marco Lutzu, Rediscovering a multipart tradition. The case of Nughedu San Nicolò 427 Roberto Milleddu, “Cal’est su giustu” (what’s the right thing?). Notes on multipart singing in Bosa (Sardinia) 439 Paolo Bravi, The practice of ornamentation in the multipart vocal music of southern Sardinia. A ‘bifocal’ perspective in ethnomusicological analysis 463 References 5 MULTIPART MUSIC: A SPECIFIC MODE OF MUSICAL THINKING, EXPRESSIVE BEHAVIOUR AND SOUND 6 MULTIPART MUSIC: A SPECIFIC MODE OF MUSICAL THINKING, EXPRESSIVE BEHAVIOUR AND SOUND Theorizing on multipart music making Ignazio Macchiarella Introduction 7 MULTIPART MUSIC: A SPECIFIC MODE OF MUSICAL THINKING, EXPRESSIVE BEHAVIOUR AND SOUND 8 MULTIPART MUSIC: A SPECIFIC MODE OF MUSICAL THINKING, EXPRESSIVE BEHAVIOUR AND SOUND Multipart music really is a fascinating and complex phenomenon.1 Actually, it is a spe- cific “mode of musical thinking, expressive behaviour and sound”. It means that multi- part musics have a distinctive typicalness within the general music making sphere: to qualify this typicalness is the main aim of our Study Group. Of course it is a huge field of research, since a very large part of the musics of the world are the result of combinations of different sound emissions produced by different peo- ples: suffice to consider that most of the unceasing music flow broadcast by the mass media might be enrolled in the phenomenon. Far from any attempt at an inventory, the ethnomusicological approach deals with the typicality of collective music mak- ing, i.e. the basic behavioural mechanisms that are carried out when people sing/play together. Beyond differences between musical outcomes and cultural peculiarity, it is a question of a qualification of distinctive elements within the boundless multipart music phenomena, in order to outline basic traits of a specific music making concept. Often, multipart music is considered mainly (or totally) as ‘musical outcomes’ or mere ‘musical textures’, i.e. as a compilation of ‘musical objects’ (actually, a controversial concept – cf. Turino 2008: p. 24) or as overlapping between depersonalized melodic lines or musical materials. Based on a largely reductionist approach to music, many analyses try to explain multipart music in terms of structural elements alone: intervals, melodic behaviours, interlocks among sounds, harmonies, and so forth. Since we are ethnomusicologists, we believe that music has to be personalized; in fact to humanize music makings is the main feature of our approach to music study. In such a direction, I would concisely propose some general items for our Study Group’s discussions, pivoted on a basic point: to study multipart music means to focus on what individuals do when they sing/play together in organized ways. Towards field focalization At first, multipart musics could be defined as coordinated behaviours proposing to reach predicted, identified and recognized musical outcomes that are previously imag- ined and idealized, and then evaluated and debated by performers and listeners within the same community. Indeed, all music might be considered ‘multipart’, since all music (or almost all music) is a social act (“a social experience” in Blacking’s terms), i.e. it comes from inter-actions between at least two parts: performer and listener, and we know how relevant the influence of the listeners’ presence is on music outcomes. The concept of multipart 1 In this volume (and in our Study Group’s works – see www.multipartmusic.org) we use the term ‘multipart music’ but not polyphony (or polyvocality or others). The terms are not syno- nymous, since multipart music intends to neutrally suggest the co-presence of parts (consi- dered in a wider sense as roles in a music-making perspective, i.e. considering the human participation), avoiding the historical-cultural connotations of polyphony which immediately refer to the ‘disembodied sound’ combinations of the Western art-music perspective. In such a frame, the term polyphony has its historical motivations, so within this volume it will be used by authors dealing with topics concerning ancient written sources. 9 MULTIPART MUSIC: A SPECIFIC MODE OF MUSICAL THINKING, EXPRESSIVE BEHAVIOUR AND SOUND music literally concerns the performance side and the actions carried out by the sound producers: so we concentrate on this. However, contributions by listeners must not be conceptually disregarded in any case. Ad escludendum At first, multipart music might roughly be defined as what is not monophonic music or monody produced by only one performer. It also means excluding the cases when two or more persons sing/play the same sound sequences (singing/playing in unison) because it implies their claim to being a sort of ‘unique collective entity’. In these cas- es the individual chooses to avoid his/her singularity, to melt into the joint unison, strengthening an image of an undifferentiated multitude. Then, the minimum condition of multipart music is the co-presence of at leasttwo persons producing deliberately differentiated but coordinated sound sequences on the basis of shared rules. Nevertheless, during the performative processes, the unison is often not really perfect: small lags, fortuitous overlapping among different sounds, uncertainty in tuning and rhythmic stressing etc. are quite common. These should not be considered