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abstracts
Loukia Karakosta: “The poet speaks” through violin’s soundpost. Robert Schumann’s Violin Concerto: a posthumous work
Dedicated to the violinist Joseph Joachim, the Violin Concerto is the last completed work of Robert Schumann. Composed within 13 days in September 1853, the work is almost unknown even nowadays and
violinists still remain unwilling to perform it. Its strange wondering through history becomes legendary and its critical reviews are not enough to set its reputation
right. Nevertheless, the Concerto, expressing the romantic soul of its composer, is full of inspiration and thematic organisation, arriving at a higher level of musical comprehension and aesthetics. Its secret beauty is kept safe “in a quiet sound drawn for him who secretly listens”.
Daniel Koglin: Improvisation
in Greek folk music. The interplay of music and dance in Thrace
The field researcher who seeks to understand the use of improvisation in the music of a foreign culture, often has to confine himself to the observation of
specific situations and to make hypotheses about whether observed behaviour is actually innovative or not. In order to arrive at a decision, one can first try to find out which actions recur
periodically and due to which factors (cultural, physical, psychological etc.) they do so. Afterwards, the improvised elements of behaviour may emerge as those who seemingly appear “by chance”. Musical behaviour should then be viewed as part of a collective interplay in the course of which it becomes closely entwined with song, dance and eventually other verbal and non-verbal
forms of expression.
This theoretical approach is demonstrated for a Thracian round dance, daïakotó. The melody part, played on a
traditional flute, is examined in isolation, with regard to the question how improvised or irregular behaviour can be distinguished from regular behaviour. The results are construed in terms of the interaction between musician and dancers: a central aim thereof is the creation of peaks within the “stream of action”,
which in turn reinforce improvised behaviour on both sides. Building and sustaining such peaks calls for repetition as much as for moments of surprise, thus improvisation is only one among several techniques
a musician might apply. However, he is obliged to balance innovative and redundant elements within his playing in order to keep the dance going. This characteristic feature of
the observed interplay is finally recognized as a vital element of social co-operation in general: agriculture and ancient warfare, taken as examples, not only depend
upon improvisational practices, but also on the equilibrium between systematic group action and individual, spontaneous decisions.
Êaterina Levidou: The Rite of Spring
and Russian tradition: The quest for “Russianness”
The Rite of Spring has caused a great deal of contention in musicological scholarship, with the issue of tradition at the
core. Richard Taruskin’s extensive investigation of the ballet’s folkloristic context, specifically, has been a catalyst in reconsiderations of the work’s place in
music history. Taruskin argues over the piece’s “Russianness” and underlines the “authenticity”, that is, the ethnographical accuracy, of Stravinsky’s choices,
linking The Rite to nineteenth-century Russian musical nationalism. The present article questions the assumed bond with kuchkist compositional
practices and the claims about nationalist content in Stravinsky’s employment of folk material. With reference to Chernyshevsky’s aesthetic theory, The
Rite of Spring by contrast appears consciously dissociated from its Russian predecessors, most notably through its idiosyncratic manipulation of folk music. Its
authenticity therefore lies not in Stravinsky’s sensitivity towards folk tradition, but in his refutation of its inherent meanings.
Giorgos Sakallieros: Nature, methodology
and typology of music analysis. Analytical thought in the second half of the 20th century
For over four centuries, music analysis has been the answer to a number of questions that concerned structure, form, function, perception and many other aspects of
a musical work. Questions like these can probably be summarized to an initial one: “How does it work?”. Much has been said and written since J. Burmeister offered a
first definition of the term “analysis” (Musica Poetica, 1606). In this article music analysis is examined in method and
role within the musical work; a diagram of typology followed by a commentary tries to establish the relation between music analysis and aspects of music such as its
nature, function and substance, means of operating on it and means to present analytical findings. Then, a concise review of analytical thought and method in the second
half of the 20th century is presented along with the establishment of analysis as an academic discipline; analysis is examined especially under the influence that has
received from other fields of science, such as linguistics, phonology, semiotics, information theory, mathematics, and computer science, as an extensive bibliography
leads the reader to the source material. Finally comes a collective presentation of the articles that are concerned totally or partly with analysis in Greek musicology
periodicals.
Ioannis Fulias: A brief speculation about the principles that rule the chordal progressions
This paper constitutes a small-size examination of the basic principles that rule the chordal progressions in the frame of the tonal system. In fact, it is an
epitome of the subject of Harmony, and at the same time an indirect suggestion for the renewal of the superannuated subject-matter and practice that is still followed in
the tuition of the homonymous class in the Greek conservatories. Several matters are under investigation, including the connection of the main scale-degrees, the
formation of a complete cadential progression, the various types of cadences, the functions of the secondary scale-degrees, the circles of chordal progressions, the
phenomenon of the embedded sequence, as well as the distinction between tonicization and modulation.
Elissavet
Perakaki: The Cross-Curriculum Program of Studies for Music Education
In October 2001, the Program of Studies for Primary and Secondary Education was extended to include cross-curriculum education. The Program
of Studies for Music Education has not been fully developed yet. The Institute of Education has given guidelines for its implementation during the school year 2001-2002,
published in the Government Newsletter 1373 / 18-10-2001. Later on it will be introduced: briefly the Program of Studies for Music Education, difficulties and problems in
its implementation within the everyday classroom experience and two examples of lesson plans for a State school according to the new Program of Studies.
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