Original scientific paper
Dalmatinske pjesme iz Boke kotorske Češkog etnomuzikologa Ludvika Kube
Miho Demović
Abstract
In the Croatian national folklore a Czech ethno-musician Ludvik Kuba ( 1863-
1956) has a very special place. From 1888. to 1912. he noted down several
times Croatian national songs in the continental and coastal regions. It is
considered that 1300 songs were noted just in the coastal region of Croatia
and only about 100 of them were published. It is not known what happened
with Kuba's notes that he didn't succeed to publish during his life. Two
smaller collections were discovered in the middle of our century in Split, one
of them is a collection of 249 songs called "Songs from Dalmatia" and by
the year 1958 it belonged to Grgur Lukas from Kastel Stari near Split, and
the second collection of 161 songs called "Dalmatian songs from Boka",
which by the year 1958 was in the property of Mira Bersa, the widow of the
famous Croatian lawyer, ethnographer, composer and wood-carver V. Berse
(1864-1927). Both of the collections were bought off back from the exowners
by HAZU in Zagreb.
The author revised the collection ("Dalmatian songs from Boka") by
transposing songs in the style of the Finnish ethno-musician I. Krohla by
which every ending (nota finalis) of every song must be a tone g 1. So
revised collection was published for the first time with the accompanying
study.
An analysis shows that the collection in its present condition has 155 songs
written in the period from 20th Sept. to 10111 October 1907, in places such as
Risan, Perast, Kotor Muu and Tivt.
It contains 89 homophonous songs and 66 two-part harmony songs that in
many tunes develop into three or four-part harmony. Homophonous tunes are
mostly composed in major and minor keys and a smaller part in Old church
Doric and Frigian keys that belong to the levels of the old and new ways of
singing. Two of them "Oj, oj, cheerful" and "Eoj, let's sing" belong to the
prolonged singing in which melism is performed on one syllable in a thriller
way by a deep guttural voice. Major part belongs to the old, short way of
singing where only one melodic interval is performed on each syllable.
Considerable part belongs to the newer ways of singing, especially Italian
bellcante.
One of the songs belongs to the old, short way of singing; 15 songs to the
socalled "bass singing" and 50 songs to the so-called "clapa· singing".
Important feature of the old, short singing in two-part harmony is that the
leading voice performs syllabic tune accompanied by the second voice while
in "bass singing" the second voice follows the tune in parallel thirds
descending in final tone onto its fifth below nota finalis. Singing in thirds of
Demovic Dalmatinske pjesme iz Boke kotorske
a major key is specific for Dalmatian towns but it is also known as an oldtown
or clapa singing. A characteristic of this way of singing is that the
second voice follows the melody in parallel thirds and the other two voices
(bass and bariton) move mostly through the main degrees of the scale (tonic,
dominant and subdominant) ending every tune with a triad which has the
third at the top.
The collection of "Dalmatian songs from Boka" by L. Kuba is very important
because it's a document about the development of national singing of old
Boka's people who were the main people until the forming of Yugoslavia,
and after that little by little they were moved out, so if Kuba hadn't noted
their singing in 1907, nobody would have known that it ever existed. Kuba's
collection as a whole contains an excellent musical structure that's by its
beauty, sweetness and charm, specially in the part with national songs that
belongs to the thirds of major key, represents the most beautiful Dalmatian
national songs at all.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
279655
URI
Publication date:
30.12.1998.
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