Review article
ON THE TOPIC OF SO-CALLED "ISTRIAN SCALE"
Ruža Bonifačić
; Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Reseach, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The paper analyses ethnomusicological approaches to one of the Croatian specific musical
expressions: the traditional music of Istria, the Kvarner Islands and the Croatian Littoral.
An interesting and rich discussion on this music, especially on its tone relations, took
place mainly in the first half of the twentieth century. The author offers a review of the
more important thoughts, attitudes and work of the researchers and theoreticians and
reveals two streams in the interpretation of this music: the first one starting from the
accomplishments of the West European musical theory of the early twentieth century, and
the other one approaching the anthropological features, still not clearly formulated at the
time, but nevertheless anticipated. Since those researches have been conducted in Istria at
the time of the struggle for the annexation of Istria to Croatia, a dubious adjective "Istrian"
has been created and survived up until the present day. Since the interpretation from the
aspect of the West European scales and modes has prevailed, the questionable term "scale"
has also survived until today. The author advocates the introduction of the terms narrow
intervals style of the Istrian-Littoral region and kanat (for singing) / sop (for playing) of
the Istrian-Littoral region.
Keywords
so-called "Istrian scale"; tone relationships; music terminology; Istria; Kvarner islands; Croatian Littoral
Hrčak ID:
33253
URI
Publication date:
3.12.2001.
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