Macedonian Folk Tunes

 Cesar Bresgen wrote in 1965: The melodies of the printed songs found here have been taken over unchanged from a collection of the Macedonian Folklore Institute published at Skopje in 1953 and containing 208 popular tunes. In the songs presented here we have tried to take the proper character of these tunes to a certain extent into account. The original folk music of Macedonia uses wooden flutes without beaks (which resemble the 'Kaval' flutes of Bulgaria), so that it seems quite natural to transpose this music to the tonality of our recorders. Of course, the kind of executing this music requires deviates considerably from the score; ornaments and subjectively changing expression, simply the freely improvised modifications are giving these melodies the typical colour and form. Characteristic for the sound of Macedonian folk music are above all the low folk-oboe (Urla) and Tapan (large drum) as well as the Tarabuka, the proper solo instrument of the tambourine type among the drums, which is spread in the whole Arabian area up to Lower Egypt. 

The rhythm is sometimes extremely various, although our examples consist of simpler forms. One often finds the 7/16 or 7/8 measurement, in which case the grouping 2+2+3 as well as 3+2+2 appears. Also the division of a 8/8 measurement into 3+2+3 or of the 9/8 measurement into 2+2+2+3 quavers is frequent: the origin of this rhythm is explained on the one hand in connection with the Greek tradition (5/8, 7/8) but also through influences of Turco-Arabian (p. ex. the asymmetric division of the 8/8 and 9/8 measurement and above all Bulgarian kind (measurement, kind of execution etc.) Several examples point at the Slav old culture which, since the 5th century, has been conserved above all in the area around Skopje, thus surviving the Byzantino-Roman culture.       

Cesar Bresgen (16 October 1913 – 7 April 1988) was an Austrian composer. From 1930 to 1936 he studied piano, organ, conducting, and composition. He became professor of composition at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. He died in Salzburg.

Score: 5 pages only