Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Institute of Art Studies

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Editorial Board: Agapia Balareva (Deputy Editor-in-Chief), Christian Hannick (Germany), Dimiter Hristoff (Editor-in-Chief), Elena Toncheva, Elisaveta Valchinova-Chendova, Guentcho Gaytandjiev, Helga de la Mot-Haber (Germany), Iskra Racheva, Lubomir Kavaldjiev, Rosalia Bix, Rosemary Statelova, Svetlana Zaharieva, Timothy Rice (USA),  Tsenka Yordanova

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E-mail: [email protected]
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1.  Table of Contents

ACADEMISM AS A NORM
Rosemary Statelova

Since its appearance about 2400 years ago, the concept ACADEMY (originally Pluto’s academia) has undergone most various realizations in practice so far. Unlike certain widely spread views, which instrumentalize academy mainly as the place for (higher) teaching of knowledge, the author considers that in the academic “temple of science”, knowledge should be created and grown, before being taught to the subjects of tuition. The academic tutors teach not only their students, but themselves as well.
Academism can be treated as a guard of ACADEMY in the form of an operative system of criteria on the level of knowledge as well as of the manner of its teaching. Expressed normatively in a system of external indices, evaluating which is academic and which is not, academism – unlike academy – not rarely has a tendency towards cooling and conservatism, getting into contradiction with “the eternally green tree of practice” (Goethe). Then it becomes “bad” academism. Unlike “good” academism, which gradually – and not without curious incidents – managed in Bulgaria to academize even such music practices, which – like traditional music and rock music – are by origin diametrically different from the “educated arts”.

TEACHING KNOWLEDGE OF TRADITIONAL MUSIC IN
BULGARIAN HIGHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS
Lozanka Pejcheva

Teaching knowledge of traditional music in Bulgarian higher educational institutions has its decades-long history. In this paper processes and tendencies are followed, facts are analyzed and objective laws are outlined for three main periods of academic teaching of traditional music.
During the first period (1921-1944), traditional music was introduced as academic subject. Stoian Djudjev is the first and the only one who developed a lecture course with theoretical orientation. The second period (1994-1990) marked the affirmation of the subject and the expansion of its area. It was taught in several higher educational institutions and in the sphere of traditional music performance, the model developed by AMDA – Plovdiv was adopted. The last period (the 1990s), the teaching of traditional music was under the sign of new fields and new approaches: liberalization, new academic standards and practices, breaking away from the narrow subject and ethnocentric boundaries.
The interpretation of academic teaching of traditional music in the text has been made in the light of personal experience. On the basis of over 10 year teaching practice in several higher educational institutions, problems are analyzed and prospects for the academic development of the subject are presented.

ON THE PROBLEM OF THE ACADEMIC EDUCATION
OF THE TRADITIONAL SINGER
Anka Kushleva

In the last few decades of the 20 century, a tendency to gradual disappearance of the traditional song manifested itself. With the opening of the Secondary School for Traditional Music and the introduction of the branch “Traditional Music” in the Academy for Music & Dance Art, this phenomenon was stopped to a great extent.
As a singer and teacher from the very beginning of this education I am sharing my experience so that the mysterious and unique singing of Bulgarian traditional songs should be placed on academic level and it should be preserved for the future generations.

ACADEMISM AND MUSIC PRACTICES WITH THE
PARTICIPATION OF TRADITIONAL INSTRUMENTS
Manuela Boncheva

The theme of the proposed text looks at the problems of teaching traditional instruments at Academy for Music & Dance Art (AMDA) and the professional realization of its graduates.
The attention is focused on some peculiarities of the system of teaching instruments like bagpipes, kaval, rebeck (gadulka), and tamboura, also mentioning the problem of the lack of the specialty membraphone instruments at AMDA.
Attention is paid to the teaching of kettledrum in the school of Prof. Dobri Paliev in connection with the activities of Studio “Tupan”.
The problems of musicians after graduating from AMDA are also studied especially as regards finding a job in the specialty as well as the possibilities for realization, which are offered in the field of World Music in contemporary musical space.
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ORALE KULTUR UND AKADEMISMUS
ODER ЬBER DAS MЬNDLICHE BILDEN DER BEGABUNG
UND DEN WISSENSGARTEN
Ljuben Botuscharov

Es wird das noch vor fьnfzehn Jahren aufgestellte Problem der Bildung von Volksmusikanten an den Fachschulen fьr Volksmusik und -gesang und an der Akademie fьr Musik- und Tanzkunst, Plovdiv in Bulgarien behandelt. Ausgangaspunkt ist das Verstehen der bulgarischen Volksmusik als typologisch der groЯen Monodie des Ostens zugehцrig. Man betrachtet die Opposition „mьndlich-schriftlich“, die heute als grundlegend beim Unterscheiden der Kulturphдnomene angenommen wird. Es handelt sich um zwei wesentlich verschiedene Denkarten (sprachliche, musikalische, tдnzerische...), und daraus – um das Erzeugen von verschiedenen Texttypen. Es wird angenommen, daЯ es in Bulgarien eine professionelle der klassischen Musik des Ostens typologisch entsprechende orale Tradition gegeben hдtte. Bei der eventualen Verwirklichung eines Bildungsprojekts fьr bulgarische klassische orale Musikkultur, zu der der Ьbergang von der Folklore wegen der historischen Umwдlzungen in Bulgarien nicht stattgefunden hat, kцnnte man die Erfahrung der Lдnder verwenden, die noch heute solche Bildungssysteme pflegen. Dabei wьrde es sich eher um eine Akademie wie ursprьnglich im Hain von Akademos handeln – um eine Akademie des Gesprдches, der mьndlichen Ьberlieferung.

TO CHICAGO AND BACK … AFTER 103 YEARS
Ljuben Dossev

The author tells about his trip to the USA in 1966, where he found several kavals and shepherd’s pipes, preserved in the museums Smithsonian Institution (Washington) and Metropolitan Museum (New York). An interesting fact about these instruments is that they were exhibits in the Bulgarian Pavilion at the opening of the First Chicago Exposition in 1893, about which the eminent Bulgarian writer Aleco Konstantinov mentioned in his travel notes “To Chicago and Back” the following: “… Inside the shed (the Bulgarian “pavilion” at the time of the Exposition – author’s note) is decorated with carpets on which bagpipes, kavals, tambouras, buklitsi (wooden wine vessels), horns, casters, prisoners’ pouches are hanging…” (see page 54 of the quoted book). So, besides in Aleco’s book, the presence of Bulgaria can be found and materialized in the museums of America.
The author shares his impressions not only about the size, material and pitch of the kavals, but also about the way these instruments are preserved in the strong rooms of the museums. At the same time he draws the attention of the participants in the conference to the aesthetic and value merits of the songs performed by the so-called pop-folk stars in the last ten years.
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BULGARIAN  ‘ACADEMIC MUSICIANS’ IN THE FIELD
OF WORLD MUSIC
Ventcislav  Dimov

World Music is a musical collage, consisting of symbols of the ethnic. Its assembling is a post-modernistic game. Masters in it are contemporary musical alchemists, synthesizing the new musical quintessence. Generally their “techne” is academism, understood like schooling in a special institution (higher music school), where music tuition combines European approaches and instruments with local musical idioms.
Bulgarian “academic musicians” in the field of World Music are famous performers and composers, who (preserving local musical idioms) thanks to their academic music education have succeeded in transforming them into music of global distribution and significance. The text looks at projects of such “academicians” – leading Bulgarian names in World Music: Teodosii Spasov and “Balkanski kone”, Yulduz Ibrahimova, Georgi Petkov and the choir “Angelite”.

EASTERN ORTHODOX LITURGICAL MUSIC PRACTICES
AND ACADEMISM
Elena Toncheva

The specifics of the development of Eastern Orthodox monody on the Balkans is followed as well as its reflection (during XIV-XV, XVII-XVIII and XIX centuries) as “a living tradition”, remaining true to the archetype, which preserved up to the XX c. the Eastern Orthodox theological idea of “development”, different from the modern musical and historic awareness. The changes in the historical reflection of Orthodox music in Bulgaria are analyzed in relation to the national idea, connected with the process of its cultural transformation in the direction of Western Europe. The consequences of the specific entering of the Bulgarian Church and its liturgical music into the Modern Time are deduced, specifics that affect the introduction of teaching knowledge about church music and its history into theological and secular education. The necessity of cultural and historical as well as spiritual reflection of the historical development of music in the Eastern Orthodox European region, in which the transecendence of faith and the personal aspiration for “self-achievement in God” are preserved, is emphasized – specifics that influence the contemporary educational “academizing” – in degree and type, of the knowledge of the music in the Orthodox liturgy.
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ORTHODOX MUSIC IN ACADEMIC PRACTICES
Dimitar  Grigorov

There is no denying the fact that the tuition in Orthodox Church Music in Bulgarian higher educational institutions is not sufficient. That creates favourable soil for lack of knowledge. Firstly, it results in closing the way of a great part of the works of the world music treasure to performers’ practice as most of these works have been created on the basis of general Christian ideas and images. Secondly, the lack of professional knowledge in respect to ecclesiastical and particularly Eastern Orthodox Church Music causes problems from the point of view of proper artistic interpretation of this music. The insufficient appreciation of the beauty and importance of Orthodox Church Music for world culture is traditional. The neglectful attitude is transferred to the large musical stages and research centers. The author knows from personal experience how many efforts are necessary to convince the European musical specialists that, for instance, the creative work of Nikolai Diletski is not less significant than that of his contemporary Ian Svelink. If we visit a statistically average music shop anywhere in Europe, we could find without any difficulty at least ten recordings of “Requiem” by Mozart or Verdi. But among the thousands of compact disks we can hardly find as Orthodox Church Music anything else but a recording of the “Svetoslav Obretenov” Bulgarian Cappella Choir or another tasteless compilation performed by a not reputable choir. The introduction into the higher educational institutions regular tuition in Orthodox Church Music and church service practice will broaden the possibilities of the students for professional realization as its interpreters and researchers.

ACADEMISM AND PIANO PRACTICE
Tsanka Andreeva, Snezhana Simeonova

The report treats the problems of teaching piano in higher schools from the point of view of “academism – piano practice”. The questions about the relation between theory and practice in the piano-performance activities and piano pedagogy as well as the academic and mass practice in these spheres are discussed. The requirements for balance between the theoretical and practical thinking in students are affirmed and research direction of tuition is recommended. The durability of the influence of academic education is related to the degree of influencing the personal experience of the graduate and to establishing academic type of relations between tutor and student. Special emphasis is laid upon the necessity of openness of the academic circles to the broad social space of art and education.
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ACADEMIZATION AND THE ACADEMIC INSTITUTION
‘HISTORY OF BULGARIAN MUSIC’
Maria Boiadjieva – Luizova

The adoption of the subject “History of Bulgarian music” (both into higher and secondary school) as academic institution was not a deliberate act. Through the curriculum, the lists of representative authors and works, the textbooks and particularly through the figure of the teacher, the subjects acquires great importance for the professional building-up of the musician. It forms the idea of Bulgarian music, validates the genre hierarchy, creates the conceptual apparatus, determines the beginning as well as the classical achievements.
The delayed introduction of the subject occurred under the conditions of institutional prospects, the ideological and political reasons of socialist musical art, which needs specific past to make it the heir to everything progressive, national and democratic. The lists of composers and works are both exhaustive and selective whereas the stories are descriptive. The approach is “classical” (respectful) and everything is important.
The cultural situation in the 1970s, which some prefer to consider post-modernist, as well as the social, political and cultural change in the 1990s need rationalization. The state of the Bulgarian musical culture at present can be recognized as a crisis, even as a crisis of the idea of a stable fund of Bulgarian music. In this situation the approach to the fund of musical works is not “classical” any more, but “genealogical”. With such an approach, the treasure-fund of Bulgarian music can be seen not as a naturally arising corpus of valuable works, but as discontinuous and fortuitous.

SHOCK FROM THE PRESENT
Svetlana Zaharieva

The wording of the title is analogous with the well-known work of the American sociologist Alvin Toffler ‘Shock from the Future”. Shock is not only a medical syndrome, but also a psychological experience with a deep cultural foundation. The shock from the future (according to Toffler) is loss of orientation in the rapidly changing contemporary world and the increasingly accelerating historical period of time,  it is impossibility to envisage future actions and results. The shock from the present, on the other hand, arises from the concrete clash with various manifestations of the changing world, which are incomprehensible for the individual because they are not in conformity with the accepted norms, values and stereotypes.
The most abrupt and profound changes occur during the change of the types of societies – the traditional agrarian society was replaced by the industrial, which in its turn, in the middle of XX c., gave way to the information society. The end of XIX c. was the boundary between the traditional and hierarchically aristocratic social system and the new industrial society. This end was endured very painfully, with uncertainty and fear for the future, which found expression in the concept “fin du siиcle”.
The transition from the traditional to the industrial society was connected with the appearance of the modern national state and national ideology. In the attitude to the folklore heritage from the past and the occurring transformations in the musical life, the features of the shock from the present, its rationalization and adaptation to the new con--di--tions of life and the elaboration of adaptation strategies for its preservation, its ratio---na-lization as a musical sign of national identity and as a field for new musical theo-re--tical discoveries, particularly in the area of uneven dimensions, are quite evident.
In his study “Significance and task of our ethnography” (1889) our distinguished scholar and public figure Ivan Shishmanov, shocked by the invasion of foreign music of mediocre quality, replacing the folk song of the past, developed broad adaptation strategy for preserving folklore by collecting, documenting, studying and popularizing it. The musicians collecting folklore faced the problem of writing down in notes the folk song which is foreign to the West European theoretical system in sound pitch and metro-rhythmic tune. Two problems arose from here, connected with the shock from reality and the search for a way out of the situation by means of adapting to the new realities. The first problem arose in a conflict with foreign recorders (mostly Serbs), who unwillingly or deliberately deform the genuine sounding through inexact notation aiming at its cultural annexing. For over two decades there was controversy between our folklorists (Karel Mahan, Dobri Hristov, Vassil Stoin) and Serbian folklorists concerning the Bulgarian national belonging of our folk music. The second problem proceeded from the first one – the necessity for exact metro-rhythmic recording of the characteristic Bulgarian uneven dimensions led to the elaboration by Dobri Hristov, Vassil Stoin and later Stoian Djudjev of a consistent theory about the uneven dimensions in Bulgarian folk music.
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2002    Book 2

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