Beyond Formalism: developing dramaturgy as the basis for a freer formal expression in music related to the natural world
View/ Open
Date
24/11/2021Author
Katmeridu-Staneva, Afrodita Katmeridu
Metadata
Abstract
Having as a background the unique Bulgarian folk music with its irregular rhythms, and the
system of the East European and Middle Eastern maqams, as well as the traditions of
central European music, these compositions attempt to synthesise a new and personal
musical expression. This is based on the exploration of the structural proportions of
rhythms and scales, using short musical ideas as constants, each capable of development
and transformation as described in the theoretical work of Jan Kapr (Konstanty. Prague:
Panton, 1967). These constants are transformed within various technical categories, for
example: rhythm, sound painting, harmony, melody, etc. where each transformation has a
different process, repeating and developing polyphonically, and creating diverse means of
expression in search of a narrative consistency. This musical narrative is related to the
dramaturgy of the natural world, using different instrumental forces to express the energies
and interactions of phenomena such as colours, crystalline structures, and biological and
geological evolution.
Grounded in the work of J. S. Bach, the notion of the constant was developed through the
analysis and use of techniques found in the compositions of György Ligeti, Iannis Xenakis,
Pierre Boulez, and the English composer George Benjamin. Leoš Janaček’s rhythmic
layers, and Arnold Schönberg’s rethinking of polyphony in his development of the
dodecaphonic system were also influential, as well as some aspects of music therapy, in
relation to the power of colours and natural phenomena on the human psyche.
This submission is the result of the personal, lifelong development of its author: a result of
rethinking and unfolding the main principles of the music of the previous centuries, seen
through the eyes and with the perceptions of an artist living in the 21st century. The main
goal was to produce a unique, well organised, and expressive musical language without
any obvious signifiers of a national style, in which everything has its place, and is a
response to the powers and processes of the world around us: music that has all the
preconditions to be well understood and appreciated by both performers and listeners, and
which is grounded in, yet renews, cross-cultural musical traditions.