Music in the Balkans

For the purposes of this article, “the Balkans” refers to the territories of present-day Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, and the successor states of Former Yugoslavia (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia). The geographical scope has been determined principally by Ottoman presence and legacy in Europe, though the European part of present-day Turkey is not included. Nor is Hungary, despite the Ottoman presence there, since its cultural history is more closely aligned to Habsburg Central Europe. Conversely, Slovenia, which was never occupied by the Ottomans, is admitted, since it was drawn into the political communities of the two Yugoslav states. These days it is usual to describe the wider region as South East Europe, implying an accommodation to the European project. In contrast to this, the term “Balkans” has acquired pejorative connotations in some circles, signifying what is taken to be the darker past of the region. The art music of the Balkans is not widely known. Of individual composers, only George Enescu and Nikos Skalkottas have achieved anything like international visibility, though Josip Slavenski and Manolis Kalomiris are highly valued in some quarters. As a result, the major studies of art music are by native scholars, and in languages that are arcane to most. Yet there is no option but to persevere, since these studies are in many cases the only source of detailed information, especially given the absence of published scores for much of the repertory. In contrast, the traditional music of the region has been much foraged by scholars from without, and notably by North American academics. Partly because premodern music-making survived longer in the Balkans than in many other parts of Europe, ritual repertories from agrarian communities have highly distinctive qualities, and have often been subject to appropriation, a prey to exoticist agendas from without or to nationalist agendas from within. It is partly to correct an ideologically motivated imbalance in coverage that a number of younger scholars have been giving greater attention to Ottoman-influenced urban traditions from the early 20th century, and to present-day popular music. A separate scholarly thread running through literature on the region concerns the Orthodox chant that is found across the Christian Balkans. There is an industry of publication in this field, much of it dealing with the distribution and provenance of specific manuscripts. It should be noted that although this is a transnational repertory, it is frequently incorporated within national narratives. Once again, it has fallen to younger scholars to mitigate the distorting effects of this national perspective, notably by examining the connections that exist between Orthodox traditions and Ottoman sanat (art) music.