Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.56954/bg.17.1.5
Two traditional carol chants from the Solin area performed by the vocal ensemble Pučki pivači Gospe od Otoka: continuity and changes in the musical-cultural and socio-religious (con)text
Mirko Jankov
Abstract
The traditional vocal expression of religious and secular purposes is a phenomenon that still exists in the area of today’s city of Solin and in a large part of its surroundings. Although such singing – spontaneous, but certainly well »coordinated« – during the last century (and by all accounts even earlier), when Solin was still a suburban town/village, figured as a significantly more distinct folk musical performance and a phenomenon more closely related to the identity of the domicile population, its recent state still offers enough relevant ethnomusicological content that can be studied in the light of the musical-cultural and socio-religious (con)text. Its main representatives and holders confirmed by centuries of practice, Pučki pivači Gospe od Otoka, still perform old Solin folk songs, both church (of Glagolitic origin) and secular, as unison, two-part or three-part singing, which they spontaneously inherited from their predecessors.
The paper deals with two traditional carol chants from Solin: the current three-part male chant Lipa grana od orija and the unison, strikingly simpler Tri su kralja idrila, which has been out of use for decades, and which was probably sung by 1970s by groups of children at Christmas greetings, especially the acolytes as they went to bless the houses accompanied by the priest. In these two examples (which used to be, or still are, an essential part of Solin’s »Christmas celebration«), the local traditional vocal expressiveness »in miniature« can be outlined in a very lively way, but also the peculiar overlapping of the musical spheres of the sacred and the secular through the prism of their popular (re)interpretations. The six arrangements of a larger (and far more famous) carol illustrate the connection of the respective type of traditional expression with the designed and composed, which is why even the tune Lipa grana od orija was eligible to be included into the concert repertoires of certain (professional) vocal ensembles in Solin and its surroundings, and thus get greater dissemination and better public prominence.
Keywords
carols; traditional (Christmas) customs; folk church singing; folk secular singing; vocal ensemble (klapa); Solin; Dalmatia, Festival dalmatinskih klapa u Omišu; Vladoje Bersa; Niko Kalogjera; Antonin Zaninović; Antun Dobronić; Jerko Martinić; Ljubo Stipišić Delmata; Krešimir Magdić; Duško Tambača; Šime Marović
Hrčak ID:
286814
URI
Publication date:
8.12.2022.
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