(Bulg. Republika Bulgaria).
Country in south-eastern Europe. Bulgaria is a country of 110,994 sq. km with a population of approximately 9 million people, over 60% of whom live in urban centres. The national language is Bulgarian, a south-Slavic language. Orthodox Christianity is the official religion. Minority groups include Pomaks (Slavic Bulgarian Muslims), ethnic Turks, Macedonians, Christian and Muslim Roma, Jews, Albanians, Vlachs and Armenians.
STOYAN PETROV/MAGDALENA MANOLOVA (I), DONNA A. BUCHANAN (II)
Bulgarian musical culture began to take shape when the Bulgarian state was founded in 681, and its character was initially determined by the interaction of three fundamental ethnic groups: the Slavs (who were in the majority), the Proto-Bulgarians and the remnants of the assimilated ancient Thracian population. After the introduction of Christianity in 865 the starobalgarskiyat napev (old Bulgarian church chant) came into being, at first influenced by Byzantine chant. Kliment, Naum and several other followers of SS Cyril and Methodius restored the Slav chantbooks which had been destroyed in Moravia, and created new ones. The musical traditions were handed down from generation to generation and the old Bulgarian chant was gradually formed: it took on certain distinctive characteristics, primarily because of the discrepancy between the number of syllables and the differences of stress in the Greek and Bulgarian languages, and also because of the influence of folk music. Among the few musical works to have survived are the 9th-century Keramichna plochka (‘Ceramic tile’) from Preslav, the 11th-century Kupriyanovi listove (‘Kupriyan’s sheets’), the 12th-century Bitolski triod (‘Bitolya triod’), the 13th-century Bolonski psaltir (‘Bologna psalter’) and Draganov miney (‘Draganov’s menologion’; also known as the Zografski trifologii, ‘Zograph triphologion’), and the Moldavski rakopis (‘Moldavian manuscript’), dated 1511. The Bulgarian monasteries on Mount Athos, such as Zograf and Pavel, played an important part in the cultural collaboration with Byzantium; musically gifted children from the lands north of the empire were trained in Constantinople and often stayed on in the service of the Greek churches and monasteries (a notable example is Joannes Koukouzeles).
Until the 19th century secular musical culture in Bulgaria was dominated by folk music, but after the liberation of Bulgaria in 1878 from the Turks, who had ruled the country since the late 14th century, professional music-making developed rapidly. The first Choral Society, Balgarski Pevcheski Tsarkoven Khor (Bulgarian Church Choir), which had been established in Ruse in 1870, was the expression of a protest against the Greek church-singing tradition. Musical activities were unified by Balgarskiyat Muzikalen Sayuz, the Bulgarian Musical Union (1903–41). In 1901 the first professional union of musicians was established. Balgarskiyat Pevcheski Sayuz, the Bulgarian Choral Union, formed in 1926, organized the country's amateur choir activities. It also funded the activities of the national choirs, orchestras and chamber ensembles. Cultural clubs, which had been of considerable importance up to the liberation, went on playing an important role in amateur musical activities. Concerts by Bulgarian and foreign performers were organized by private bureaux called ‘kontsertni direktsii’ (concert management boards). Between 1933 and 1944 Bulgarian composers were linked through the association Savremenna Muzika (Contemporary Music). The first music school in Sofia was opened in 1904, becoming the Darzhavna Muzikalna Akademiya (State Music Academy) in 1921; the Operna Druzhba (Opera Society), founded in 1908, became the Sofiyska Narodna Opera (Sofia National Opera) in 1921. Military bands, amateur choirs and various professional orchestras were founded, notably the Balgarska Narodna Filkharmoniya (Bulgarian National Philharmonic, 1924), the Darzhaven Simfonichen Orkestar (Academic SO, 1928; renamed the Tsarski Voenen Simfonichen Orkestar, Royal Military SO, 1936) and the Sofiya Darzhavna Filkharmoniya (Sofia State Philharmonic, 1946).
Although Bulgarian music has not been as widely disseminated abroad as the music of most other eastern European countries, it has flourished domestically since the late 19th century, when Nikolay Atanasov (1886–1969) composed the first Bulgarian symphony and such composers as Georgi Atanasov (1882–1931) and Panayot Pipkov (1871–1942) produced operas, and solo and choral songs on folk subjects. After World War I and the September Uprising (1923), a new stage in the development of Bulgarian music began. Composers professionally trained in Germany, France, Austria and Italy, who had assimilated the European tradition, returned to Bulgaria in order to found a Bulgarian musical tradition. They made it their aim to create a national Bulgarian style, drawing both on contemporary trends and the folklore traditions of the country. Composers such as Pancho Vladigerov, Lyubomir Pipkov, Marin Goleminov, Veselin Stoyanov, Dimitar Nenov, Parashkev Khadzhiev, Petko Staynov and Georgi Dimitrov created the basis of the Bulgarian musical tradition in all genres, and through their teaching were a prime influence on the generation of composers after World War II.
After the socialist revolution in 1944, the new social and cultural situation led to changes in the development of Bulgarian musical life. All cultural activities were centralized and acquired a strong ideological orientation. Socialist realism and the slogan ‘The more among the people, the closer to life!’ became the order of the day. The new state performing institutions were responsible for organizing concerts and popularizing music. Composers and musicologists, all belonging to the Union of Bulgarian Composers, consolidated the new socialist musical culture and organized festivals of Bulgarian music, as well as musical education and criticism sessions. State opera and operetta companies and symphony orchestras (foremost among them the Simfonichem Orkestar na Balgarskoto Radio i Televiziya (Bulgarian Radio and Television SO, 1949)) were subsidised by the state, and their activities were directly under state control. The Committee of Culture and the Arts presided over the work of musical educational establishments such as the Balgarska Darzhavna Konservatoriya, or BDK (Bulgarian State Conservatory), and state music schools. Amateur groups received support from trade-union funds, community centres and the Committee of Culture and the Arts. The state also controlled other activities, such as the production and distribution of records and music scores.
The development of Bulgarian music between 1944 and the beginning of the 1960s was determined by the imposition of a new model of national culture. This was the time of revolutionary change, of realism. The neo-Romantic pathos found in Bulgarian music of the 1930s and 40s was replaced by an emphasis on folklore as the expression of a democratic aesthetic, particularly in genres such as cantatas, oratorios and other choral work. Most young composers were unable to study abroad, and contact with contemporary European trends was inevitably limited. Leading representatives of new trends in Bulgarian music included Konstantin Iliev, Lazar Nikolov, Alexandar Raychev, Simeon Pironkov, Krasimir Kyurkchiyski, Vasil Kazandzhiev and Ivan Spasov.
With the relaxation of the political situation in the 1960s, composers enjoyed greater aesthetic freedom. The reinterpretation of folklore and the adoption of many of the experiments carried out in the 1960s and 70s led to a new stage in the development of Bulgarian music. The analytical, anti-Romantic aesthetic also characterized the generation which emerged at the end of the 1970s and in the 1980s, including Stefan Dragostinov, Emil Tabakov, Plamen Dzhurov, Bozhidar Spasov, Alexandar Kandov, Rumen Balïozov, Yuliya Tzenova and Neva Krasteva. Familiar with modern trends, the majority of these composers were able to create an individual style, independent from the totalitarian regime's realist aesthetic. Their work appeared in contemporary music forums around the world and won prestigious prizes.
During the 1970s and 80s several Bulgarian choirs achieved international fame, while singers such as Nikolay Gyaurov, Rayna Kabaivanska, Anna Tomova-Sintova and Gena Dimitrova were among the leading names in the international opera world. The Sofiyskata Filharmoniya (Sofia Philharmonia), Sofiyski Solisti (Sofia Soloists) and many individual soloists were enthusiastically received abroad, as were numerous folk ensembles.
After 1989 the centralization of the totalitarian regime was replaced by a democratic system. The state could no longer subsidise the many institutions and activities, and could only provide modest funds for education and a few national institutions. Nevertheless, private initiatives developed and sponsorship became the chief means of subsidy in the music profession. Foundations now supported activities which under the former regime had encountered ideological opposition.
With the lifting of travel restrictions many young artists chose to work abroad; these included Bozhidar Spasov (Germany), Alexandar Kandov (Spain), Simeon Pironkov jr (Austria) and Tsvetan Dobrev (France). Others remained in Bulgaria, notably the composers Georgi Arnaudov and Petar Petrov.
See also Burgas, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sofia, Stara Zagora and Varna.
V. Krastev: Ocherki varkhu razvitieto na balgarska muzika [Essays on the development of Bulgarian music] (Sofia, 1954, 2/1970)
S. Petrov: Orchertsi po istoriya na balgarskata musikalna kultura [Essays on the history of Bulgarian musical culture] (Sofia, 1959)
V. Krastev, ed.: Entsiklopediya na balgarskata muzikalna kultura [Encyclopedia of Bulgarian musical culture] (Sofia, 1967)
D. Khristov: Muz-teoretichesko i publitsistichesko nasledstvo [The heritage of music theory and writing] (Sofia, 1967–70)
S. Petrov and Kh.Kodov: Starobalgarski muzikalni pametnitsi [Old Bulgarian music] (Sofia, 1973)
D. Cvetko: Musikgeschichte der Südslawen (Kassel and Maribor, 1975)
Entsiklopediya Balgariya (Sofia, 1984)
The hilly and mountainous topography of Bulgaria made contact between villages difficult and at certain times of year impossible. Thus communities evolved in relative seclusion. This, coupled with the country’s long rule by, and isolation in, the Ottoman Empire, aided both the preservation and development of great cultural diversity. The country is divided into six ethnographica regions: the Shop, or Sofia district; Pirin-Makedoniya in the south west; Rodopa, comprising the Rhodope Mountainregion along the southern border; Trakiya, the central Tracian plain, Dobrudzha, in the north east; and the area known simply as ‘Northern Bulgaria’ in the north west.
1. The national renaissance and development of music ethnography.
2. Characteristics of pre-socialist musical culture, 1800–1944.
4. Institutionalized neo-traditional music after 1930.
5. Neo-traditional popular music.
Bulgaria, §II: Traditional music
Bulgarian musical ethnography originated in the Vazrazhdane, the 19th-century cultural renaissance which helped form a unified Bulgarian nationalist ideology. This period witnessed the institutionalization of education, the standardization of literary Bulgarian and the establishment of the periodical press, local library clubs and reading rooms whose activities facilitated later developments in music and theatre. Major literary figures of the time collected and used folkloric materials in their writings. Several, like the brothers Dimitar Miladinov (1810–62) and Konstantin Miladinov (1830–62), published song text compilations that were characteristic of Bulgarian scholarship up to the late 1980s: the collection, documentation and systematization of narodni pesni (‘folk songs’).
By the early 1900s scholars began publishing the melodies of narodni pesni together with their texts, which in turn promoted theoretical studies of their musical characteristics by academics such as Dobri Khristov (1875–1941). In 1926 Sofia’s ethnographic museum established a department of narodna muzika (‘folk or traditional music’) directed by Vasil Stoin (1880–1938) who, with such co-workers as Stoyan Dzhudzhev (b 1902) and Raina Katsarova (1901–84), instigated the systematic collection, documentation and analysis of narodna muzika throughout Bulgaria. Beginning in the late 1920s their findings were published in volumes called sbornitsi (sing. sbornik). Although scholars began to use recording devices in 1939, they did not employ tape recorders widely for collection purposes until 1954. In 1948 the Institute for Musicology was founded within the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences incorporating the ethnographic museum’s music department and personnel two years later.
The institute’s sbornitsi are the cornerstone of ‘musical folkloristic science’ as ethnomusicology was known until the late 1980s, and were used extensively by contemporaneous composers to form a national school of composition. The collections also generated important studies of indigenous music theory, including rhythmic patterns, diaphony and pentatonicism; specific genres such as epic recitative; organology; and the music of expatriate Bulgarian communities and Bulgarian Muslims. By the mid-1960s numerous publications addressed topics such as state-sponsored folk ensembles, their festivals, repertory and relationship to the mass media. Concomitantly, this period witnessed the foundation of Bulgarian ethnochoreology. These themes prevailed until the mid-1980s, when the scope of publications broadened to include such subjects as urban musics, popular culture and the music of minority communities.
Ethnomusicological scholarship has long been supported by two archival collections housed within the Institute for Musicology: a large library of scores, books and periodicals; and an ethnographic archive containing more than 300,000 notated or mechanically recorded songs and instrumental melodies, and 6000 videotaped examples of indigenous dances and customs accompanied by music. As a result of perestroika, the institute was renamed the Musical Sector of the Institute of Art Studies in 1990, but still retains its ethnographic archive.
Bulgaria, §II: Traditional music
Despite its diversity, certain basic characteristics typify the performance practice of 19th- and early 20th-century village music throughout Bulgaria. This music was an oral tradition performed for calendrical and life-cycle rites, during work and for entertainment. Contemporary scholars and musicians describe such music as ‘authentic’, and ‘traditional’, and although Bulgarian society experienced many changes after 1944, elements of traditional music continue to underlie contemporary music-making.
(vi) Structure, form and mode.
Bulgaria, §II, 2: Pre-socialist musical culture, 1800–1944
Songs formed the basis of village musical culture. Bulgarians believe that their instrumental traditions developed in emulation of singing. This belief was expressed metaphorically and in song texts that praised the vocal quality of instrumental performance, such as Kavalat sviri, govori (‘as the flute plays, it speaks’). Playing instruments and singing were otherwise considered separate, gender-specific activities. Instrumentalists almost never accompanied singers; while a singer sang songs (pevitsa pee pesni), a village musician played instrumental tunes (svirach sviri svirni), melodies (melodii), pieces (piesi) or dance music (khora). Women rarely played indigenous instruments, a convention still prevalent. Although it was not uncommon for men to sing, women acted as the primary bearers of the singing tradition.
The reason for this gender specificity derives from the division of labour in village life, which in turn prescribed the context and manner in which musical skills were acquired. Men were engaged predominantly with animal husbandry; women with domestic and agricultural work. As herders followed their livestock from pasture to pasture, they entertained themselves by playing music, especially on aerophones like the kaval or duduk, considered shepherds’ instruments. Their melodies blended with the tinkling of bells (zvantsi) hung around the necks of their animals. Carefully chosen by shepherds for their clear tone in a range of sizes, these bells not only identified one herd from another but formed an integral part of the pastoral soundscape. As one song text states, ‘He played on a mellifluous kaval, his silvery zvantsi accompanying him’.
Herding left men’s hands relatively free to play instruments. Boys absorbed instrumental technique through individual experimentation, initially with whistles and then with more complex instruments. They observed older, more experienced musicians, eventually learning enough to play along with them at local celebrations such as weekly dances. Women’s hands, however, were continually occupied with housework, food preparation, textile production and work in the fields. They utilized their voices to accompany their work and express their emotions. Girls mastered songs by listening to other women, especially their older female relatives, following the lyrics and embellished contours of unfamiliar songs until they, too, could perform them.
Bulgaria, §II, 2: Pre-socialist musical culture, 1800–1944
For villagers musical performance was not a profession but an integral aspect of everyone’s daily experience inseparable from the community’s social life. Music accompanied every aspect of labour. Women sang songs while cultivating produce, as they walked to and from the fields or orchards, during short breaks and at lunch. Songs performed while doing field work were usually slow, sustained, non-metrical and executed with an open throat so that the resultant intense, ringing sound would reach women working in neighbouring plots. Songs performed during periods of rest, on the other hand, were often rhythmic, lively and humorous. In both cases the songs’ lyrics were frequently related to some aspect of the work process (ex.1).
During the evening hours of autumn and winter women attended ‘bees’ (sedenki, tlaki); in the former to work on their individual handiwork, often spinning or needlework, in the latter to help their host with a particular task, such as shucking corn or stringing tobacco. While working they sang songs and ballads, some of which referred to the specific events of the sedyanka (ex.2). Later in the evening the young men of the village joined them, and the sedyanka or tlaka became an occasion for flirtation and courtship. Young men and women engaged in singing competitions (nadpyavane) in which teasing songs (pripevki) singled out potential couples. The youths also danced ring, line or chain dances (khora, sing. khoro) to the accompaniment of their own energetic khorovodni pesni (‘dance songs’), or instrumental tunes played by the young men.
Ritual songs and dances celebrating calendrical- and life-cycle events were usually performed by groups of singers. Important occasions for male singing were Badni Vecher (Christmas Eve) and Koleda, when the village men travelled from home to home in festive dress singing antiphonal carols that blessed the livestock, the household or specific members of the family. Stereotypical refrains such as ‘koledo le’ or ‘oy, koledo, moy koledo’ (‘Oh, koleda, my koleda’) distinguished koleda songs. Most were also typified by an asymmetrical metric structure, usually 5/16, 7/16 or 9/16 (ex.3).
Koleduvane (the performance of koleda traditions) was part of a larger group of mid-winter mumming customs enacted to bring good health, fertility, abundance and luck to the surrounding community. In some of these traditions (Surva, Kukerovden) men dressed in elaborate masked costumes decorated with sheep- and cow-bells, some of which were enormous. As the participants (survakari and kukeri) moved or danced, the cacophony produced by the ringing bells expelled any evil spirits in the vicinity.
Another substantial body of beneficial ritual customs surrounded Lent and Easter. On Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday teenage girls wandered throughout the village singing and dancing brisk, laudatory lazarski pesni (‘Lazar songs’). These ‘lazarki’ dressed ornately in costumes symbolizing blooming flowers, a metaphor of their own budding beauty and the healthful good wishes they spread. This custom (lazaruvane) was also part of the courtship process, for the lazarki made eligible men the target of special singing games in which participants obliquely expressed their interest.
Songs also marked the calendar year in various ways. Some commemorated important Christian holidays, such as the feast day of St George. In Strandzha the feast of St Constantine and St Helena (3 June) was celebrated with a two-day ritual called Nestinarstvo that culminated in fire-dancers (nestinarki) walking through hot coals in an ecstatic state, bearing icons of these holy figures above their heads. During Lent, when dancing was proscribed, young men pushed girls in swings while they sang songs connected with courtship, good health and a rich harvest. The higher a girl was swung, the higher the wheat would grow. Magical songs likewise brought rain during periods of drought (Peperuda) or protected the community from inclement weather in general (German). Songs connected to divinatory customs practised by young women foretold whom they would marry.
Music and dance enhanced village weddings, which occurred during winter months when the community, free of the burden of agricultural work, had more time to celebrate. The wedding process, a week-long affair, comprised more than 30 episodes. The bride was fêted by her female friends and relatives throughout the festivities with songs that described her wedding preparations, extolled her beauty, offered her advice or expressed her sorrow at leaving her natal family for a new life (see ex.4). Musical activity accompanied the creation of the wedding banner, shaving the groom, the fetching of the bride by the groom’s entourage, the procession to the church and celebratory banquets held after the wedding ceremony.
Deaths, too, were greeted musically. Women improvised laments (oplakvaniya) from the moment of death to that of interment. These commented on the life of the deceased, his or her relationship with the village community and the pain of the lamenters (oplachki). Particularly gifted lamenters were prized by the community and sometimes led the other women. Although spontaneous laments were, like the epic songs to which they are related, non-metrical and recitative-like in character, particularly fine examples were sometimes transformed into more lyrical mourning songs or instrumental melodies.
Selections from the Bulgarian epos, a genre that includes heroic epics, and historical and khayduk ballads, regaled guests at banquets held in honour of holidays, weddings, engagements, christenings and other important community events. For this reason they were also known as songs performed ‘at the table’ (na trapeza), or for enhancing conviviality (na moabet).
The heartland of epic singing was western Bulgaria. Sung by male or female solo vocalists, commonly to the accompaniment of a single instrument (often a gayda or gadulka that heterophonically imitated the voice by following slightly behind it), heroic epics recounted the legendary escapades of Momchil or of Krali Marko, who fought against the Ottomans in the 14th century. Such epics contain hundreds of lines; these were improvised to a small number of similar, non-metrical melodies falling within the range of a 5th called epicheski rechitativi (‘epic recitatives’) or trapezni melodii (‘table melodies’). Each verse was distinguished by three features: an introductory, embellished flourish on the syllable e or khey starting on the melody’s highest pitch; several lines of text performed in recitative fashion to sequential, often descending passages; and a melismatic, concluding phrase that, like the introduction, was sometimes marked by a trill-like shaking of the voice called tresene (ex.4). The instrumentalist provided an interlude between verses, improvised from the song’s melody.
Historical ballads took figures and events from Bulgaria’s more recent past, particularly the struggle for liberation from Ottoman forces. They described the fall of Tsarigrad, presented episodes from the reigns of specific tsars and related tales of forced conversion to Islam. A significant portion of historical ballads portrayed the deeds of khaydusti (sing. khayduk) or voyvodi (sing. voyvoda: ‘leader’, ‘chieftain’), rebel fighters who launched attacks against Ottoman brigades from the hidden recesses of Bulgaria’s forested mountains (ex.5). Historical ballads were performed to epic, harvest and dance-song melodies and usually exhibited a wider vocal range than heroic recitatives.
In addition to these heroic and historical songs, village lore included mythological ballads that told of dragons and their human lovers, wood and water sprites, demons and fairies, human heroes endowed with superhuman qualities and other miraculous or supernatural phenomena. Some of these were part of larger ballad families found throughout the Balkans.
Bulgaria, §II, 2: Pre-socialist musical culture, 1800–1944
Village life embraced several indigenous instruments whose distribution was regionally differentiated. Originally constructed by the musicians themselves or by master craftsmen, the size and tuning of these instruments were not standardized until the mid-20th century, when the creation of ensembles demanded precise pitch.
Four aerophones were found throughout the country with some local variation: the Kaval (semi-traverse, rim-blown wooden flute), ovcharska svirka or tsafara (shepherd’s pipe), duduk (vertical wooden flute), and gayda (see Bagpipe, §7(vi)). The kaval’s large range and its timbre, said to resemble the human voice, made it suitable for playing inside the home, at the sedyanka and in the pasture (fig.1).
While there used to be several styles of kaval playing, the Thracian style, with articulation and vibrato produced by the fingers, is prevalent today.
The svirka or tsafara, a smaller version of the kaval, was played in a similar manner. Once fashioned from the bones of eagles’ wings, the traditional instrument was made from a single piece of wood or reed. Contemporary svirki may be constructed of metal and are often considered children’s toys.
The duduk (also dyuduk) was a shepherd’s plugged whistle flute blown through an apical slit, constructed in one to three sections in a range of sizes. The large, three-piece dudutsi of central western Bulgaria had a three-octave range; the single-piece instruments encompassed two octaves. Usually made of reed or wood, dudutsi possessed six finger-holes spaced equally or arranged in two groups of three along the instrument’s face. In north-western Bulgaria the duduk was once the most popular instrument; it is now nearly obsolete.
The favourite instrument for accompanying weddings and outdoor celebrations was the gayda. This is a bagpipe with a single chanter (gaydanitsa) and drone (ruchilo). Three sizes of gaydi exist, the most widespread being the middle-range Thracian bagpipe (fig.2).
Two other wind instruments popular in pre-socialist Bulgaria were the dvoyanka, a wooden, double fipple block flute characteristic of western Bulgaria, and the zurna (also zurla), a double-reed wooden aerophone that existed most prominently within Pirin’s Muslim Rom communities and the towns of Ludogorie, Shumen, Razgrad and Kardzhali. Both instruments were played to produce diaphony. Finger-holes were drilled into only one of the dvoyanka’s two pipes, allowing the instrumentalist to play a melody while simultaneously blowing into the second pipe, which produced a drone. Likewise, musicians always played zurni in pairs, one sounding a melody, the other a drone, to the accompaniment of one or two circular, double-headed, wooden frame drums called tapani. Such ensembles only played outdoors due to their raucous sound.
The tapan is the most widespread membranophone, used throughout Bulgaria in varied performance contexts. The drum’s heads traditionally were fashioned from sheep or dog skin and secured with hemp cords. In performance the tapan is suspended from the left shoulder with string or a belt, and is played with two drumsticks: a thick, slightly curved stick (kiyak or tokmak) that accentuates strong metric pulses, and a long, thin willow or apple switch (shibalka, shibka), played with the left hand to mark weaker beats. In village life the tapan was considered important for wedding processionals, dances and celebrations.
Pirin is home to two other membranophones that are linked to Macedonian and Middle Eastern culture. The tarambuka (tarabuka, darabuka) is a goblet-shaped drum with a terracotta base and a single drum head of cat or lamb skin. The drum is held under the left arm or placed between the knees and struck with both hands. The dayre is a small wooden frame drum with a single kid-skin head that, like the tarambuka, provided rhythmic accompaniment for singing, instrumental music and dancing. The modern dayre also has pairs of round metal plates (zilove) inserted in slits in the drum’s frame.
Until the creation of folk ensembles in the 1950s the tambura, a strummed long-necked fretted lute with a rounded back, was found only in Pirin-Macedonia and among the Muslim population of Rhodope, where it functioned as both a solo and accompanying instrument. Tamburi once existed in several sizes with two, four, six, eight, or twelve metal strings. The four-string tambura was the most common beofre 1950; the eight-string (arranged in four double courses) dominates today. In pre-socialist Bulgaria three of the four strings were tuned as unison drones; the fourth, or melody string, was pitched a 4th or 5th away. The courses of the contemporary tambura, however, are tuned d–g–b–e', which enables the production of chords. The tambura and dayre are the only indigenous instruments sometimes played by women.
The Gadulka is a bowed, three-string short-necked wooden lute, with a pear-shaped rounded or, less frequently, flat body, found everywhere except Pirin and Rhodope. The instrument is played vertically, resting on the knee or on a belt (fig.3). Previously the gadulka existed in several forms, the standard instrument today being the large Thracian gadulka.
Until the early 20th century Bulgarian musicians rarely combined different indigenous instruments together in groups. There were some regional exceptions: the zurna and tapan ensembles of south-western Bulgaria; orchestras of variously sized mandolins and tamburi that appeared in Pirin-Macedonia in the mid-19th century; and the so-called Dobrudzhan trio, of the small dzhura gayda, kopanka and the (fiz)kharmonika, an instrument resembling a button accordion that probably came to the Danubian area from Russia. These groups performed melodies in unison or with a drone.
Bulgaria, §II, 2: Pre-socialist musical culture, 1800–1944
Few festive events were complete without communal dancing. In addition to sedenki or tlaki, weddings and calendrical rites, villagers performed a wide variety of khora at community dances held every Sunday afternoon (except during Lent) on the village square or green. They danced at evening parties called vecherinki, and at summer fairs termed sborove or panairi that commemorated the patron saint of the community’s church.
Khora were executed in closed or open circles, spirals, a single long line or several short, straight rows. Dancers clasped each other by the hand, belt, shoulder or around the waist to produce human chains. Dance gestures involved primarily foot and arm movements, especially steps on the heel, toes or whole of the foot; slides, hops, squats and knee bends. The torso and head remained comparatively fixed. Characteristic dance movements often emulated animal behaviours or the motions of work, such as churning butter, in a stylized fashion. These had descriptive names that could be shouted as commands during the dancing. Each khoro combined such gestures in specific figures that varied in number.
Every khoro possessed a head, middle and tail. The best dancers joined at the head to lead the khoro, while girls, boys and children learning to dance made up the tail. Those at the front were free to extemporize their movements. Likewise, good dancers sometimes attached themselves to the tail to energize the dance line or make it twist. The structure of the dance line reflected the community’s social order in that the men were usually at the head, the women in the middle and the children at the end. For a bachelor to join the khoro next to a young woman was a public expression of interest and sometimes a sign of betrothal.
Most khora were performed to khorovodni pesni (‘dance-songs’) sung by the dancers themselves, one after the other for hours on end (see ex.2). Customarily these dance-songs were sung antiphonally by two pairs of women located near the front of the line, but could include larger groups of singers. Most were in duple metre, but many also had asymmetrical rhythmic patterns. Tempos ranged from sedate to very fast.
A single instrument, often a gayda or gadulka, also commonly accompanied dancing. The musician stood near the khoro’s centre and spontaneously improvised a dance-tune from brief melodic fragments (persenkove) that he developed into longer phrases called kolena (sing. kolyano), usually within the interval of a 5th. These kolena were irregular in length due to their improvisatory character and because their substance was linked to the dancers’ actions. Sometimes an entire khoro resulted from extemporization on one persenk. Other khora comprised variations on three or four kolena, but in all cases the melodic material developed organically throughout. Repetition of a single motif, movement to a new pitch area, the instantaneous working out of fresh material and tempo increases all heightened the musical tension and inspired dancers.
Under the influence of emerging urban ensembles in the 19th and early 20th centuries, two or three svirachi began playing khora together in unison to ease the strain of lengthy solo performance. Instrumentation depended on local availability, but typical combinations included homogeneous ensembles of two or three gadulki, gaydi or kavali, and mixed ensembles of gadulka, gayda and kaval, or, gayda and tapan. Along the Danube small groups of Western and central European string instruments fulfilled the same function. Like the Dobrudzhan trio and zurna and tapan ensembles mentioned above, these groups performed melodies in unison or with drone, although intonation was not uniform.
Bulgaria, §II, 2: Pre-socialist musical culture, 1800–1944
Both instrumental music and singing were predominantly monophonic, solo traditions that emphasized the unfolding of intricately embellished melodic lines. When women or men sang together they usually sang in unison. Such songs were often performed antiphonally by two soloists or two groups of voices that repeated or alternated verses. Repeating verses gave novices a chance to learn unfamiliar texts and lengthened a song’s duration. Antiphony gave singers a chance to catch their breath while dancing or cultivating crops. It was customary for the first group to sustain its last pitch while the second group began to sing a new verse, creating a momentary diaphonic texture.
Although monophony prevailed, diaphony (dvuglas) existed throughout Bulgaria and was especially strong in the west. Every indigenous instrument produced two-voiced textures except the duduk, svirka and kaval; the dvoyanka, gayda, tambura, gadulka, chift kavali (a pair of kavali) and zurna were either designed, tuned or customarily played to yield a melody and drone simultaneously. In the north-west musicians even growled a drone while playing duduk, a technique termed ramzhene (‘grumbling’).
Moreover, songs in the Shop and Pirin regions were distinguished by unique diaphonic styles linked to similar traditions in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia and Albania. In both districts this dvuglas, sometimes also called mnogoglasie (‘many voices’, part singing), consisted of a solo upper voice and a lower, drone voice traditionally executed by one or two singers, but sometimes more. Singers characterized the two parts with terms that metaphorically described their movement, timbral quality or function: the first voice izvikva (‘cries out’), izviva (‘winds’), vodi (‘leads’), diga (‘rises’) or trese (‘shakes’), while the second voice slaga (‘lays’), vlachi (‘trails behind’), buchi (‘roars’), and occasionally trese (‘shakes’). These terms also indicated the physical stance of the singers, as the melody bearer sometimes positioned herself slightly ahead of the droners. Here the first voice was said to go napred (‘in front’), while the drone voice followed.
The types of songs performed diaphonically varied from village to village, but generally included harvest, dance, sedyanka, wedding, calendrical and all-occasion lyric songs. Textual and rhythmic precision were vitally important. Once they had learnt the lyrics and parts from older women, girls formed duos and trios to practise songs on their own. Some of these singing partnerships lasted a lifetime.
Vocal colour and blend were also significant. Women described two basic categories of timbres: voices that were chist (‘clean’) or piskliv (‘reedy’), and those that were debel (‘thick’), mazhen (‘buttery’) and maten (‘muddy’). Singers preferred not to mingle the two timbres. When singing antiphonally a ‘reedy’ group was often juxtaposed with a ‘buttery’ group. This differentiation was also associated with age, as an older woman’s voice tended to be thicker than that of a teenage girl. In both cases women projected their voices to produce an open-throated, focussed and intense sound that could be heard some distance away.
Within western Bulgaria the movement of the drone voice, degree of pitch manipulation, cadential formulae, ornamentation practices and even the number of women singing all varied from one village to the next. Diaphonic songs from the Shop district were marked by arched contours, antiphonal performance and a constricted range, usually a minor 3rd, resulting in a plethora of narrow interval simultaneities. One woman ordinarily sang the first voice, and two or three the underlying tone. Shop diaphony was particularly loud and powerful; women preferred the drone to nearly overwhelm the melody. The melody bearer thus often ended sustained tones with a glottal stop, a result of the vocal tension caused by this forceful singing.
The drone voice, while variable in this region, typically followed one of two patterns: it either sang the text on a tonic drone, dropping to the sub-tonic together with the first voice at certain moments; or it moved to the sub-tonic whenever the melody voice descended to the tonic. The latter practice created occasional parallel motion between the voices and a preponderance of 2nds. Moreover, singers often manipulated pitches so as to further close the distance between them, causing them to ‘ring like bells’, perhaps referring to the pulsation of the resultant difference tones. Singers frequently prolonged a song’s final tone, dwelling on the ringing sound. In harvest songs performed during rest periods, the first voice enhanced such moments with tresene (‘shaking’), a vocal technique comprising a trill-like succession of glottal stops. This was often followed by a cadential formula called izvikvane that entailed a ‘unison leap of a minor 7th or octave on the vowel sound “eee” followed by descending glissando and decrease in volume’ (Rice, 1977). This technique dissipated the singers’ accumulated vocal and respiratory tension and intensified the sonic collision created when two groups of singers overlapped (ex.6).
The diaphonic songs of Pirin and Velingrad were more lyrical than Shop songs. Melodies contained wider ranges, could begin on any scale degree and were sung with much lighter voices. Antiphony occurred less frequently. Tresene and izvikvane were also atypical. Songs were performed by the traditional trio of women, but also by groups with six or seven singing a drone. In Muslim communities pairs of girls sang diaphonically, as did large groups of men. In Bansko a Christian male ensemble performed a similar style of dvuglas. Such male ensembles were exceedingly rare elsewhere.
Songs frequently began in unison and then split into the characteristic drone and melody. Two types of drone movement distinguished Pirin diaphony: the second voice remained on the tonic, sometimes dropping to the sub-tonic in unison with the upper voice; or it moved in accordance with the melody to produce as many 2nds and 3rds as possible. In the latter case the drone fell on any pitch from the sub-tonic to the dominant. Voice crossings were common in both song types (ex.7).
A distinctive corpus of vocal diaphony in Bansko called na atsane was typified by a first voice that frequently swooped up to the octave, moved to the sub-tonic and then descended to the tonic in a glissando. The octave swoops were further demarcated by a sustained vocal clucking in the high register.
Styles of performance in the Pazardzhik-Ikhtiman area marked a shift from western Bulgarian diaphony to the monophonic singing of eastern Bulgaria. There were several styles of dvuglas. As elsewhere, a tonic drone sounded constantly or occasionally dipped to the sub-tonic, usually in unison with the first voice. In many villages, however, the upper voice performed an elaborately embellished melody whose basic skeleton was sung by the second voice in long, sustained tones, producing a heterophonic texture. Moreover, in towns like Ikhtiman the lower voice, rather than the lead singer, performed tresene in both heterophonic or the more usual melody-drone song types.
Performers in the villages west of the Struma river used the second voice to maintain a tonic drone on the vowel sound ‘eee’ throughout a song. When cadential izvikvane occurred the first voice sustained a minor 7th above the drone voices. Other songs cadenced on tonic and sub-tonic together. Songs in this area generally had a slightly wider range, lacked tresene, and frequently opened with an ascending 4th, setting them apart from those of the Shop district.
Outside western Bulgaria, dvuglas was practised only in the Rhodope village of Nedelino and its environs. Unique styles of narrow-interval three-voice singing existed in the Pirin town of Kostursko, near Petrich, where the voice movement resembled that of Albanian polyphony, and in villages surrounding Sofia, where the voices frequently produced three-note clusters of adjacent pitches, an intensification of the parallel 2nds found in Shop diaphony.
Bulgaria, §II, 2: Pre-socialist musical culture, 1800–1944
Bulgarian melodies usually move by step and frequently have a narrow compass, often within an octave. Two to five pitch melodies are the norm; these regularly drop one whole step below the tonic. Songs are structured in verses containing one to three lines of text. Each line usually comprises six, eight, ten or twelve syllables, divided into two syllabic groups by a caesura. Within a single song the placement of the caesura may be inconsistent. Phrase structure and rhythm generally follow the text’s syllabic structure and phrases do not always contain the same number of bars. Refrains of one to three lines are common. Vocables, expressive variations of names or common nouns and other evocative interjections frequently fill out text phrases. Such poetic devices can create full lines or an entire verse; these often function as refrains.
Five varieties of anhemitonic pentatonicism exist in Rhodope and Thrace, but songs do not always feature all five requisite tones. The intonational system of pre-socialist village music was untempered, nonstandardized and frequently employed untempered intervals, including microtones, making any discussion of modality problematic. Melodies are generally constructed within diatonic tetrachords or pentachords. However, innumerable melodies display underlying chromatic tetrachordal, pentachordal, hexachordal or heptachordal structures distinguished by the presence of augmented 2nds between any two successive scale degrees except one and two (see exx.9, 10 and 11). Some of these structures may be related to Middle Eastern modal configurations, or the old Bulgarian or Byzantine church modes.
Bulgaria, §II, 2: Pre-socialist musical culture, 1800–1944
A large repertory of unpulsed rubato, improvisatory, densely ornamented songs generically termed bavni pesni (‘slow songs’) exists throughout Bulgaria. These can include harvest and other agricultural work songs performed to extended, sustained ‘long melodies’ (dalgi glasove); lyric songs and ballads performed to more moderate tempo, parlando rubato ‘drawn-out melodies’ (vlacheni glasove; see ex.1); and songs performed to ‘broken’ or ‘chopped-up’ melodies (secheni glasove), a phrase that describes the rapidly flowing, recitative-like character of many laments and ‘table’ songs (see ex.4).
Musicians perform similar non-metrical solos called bavni melodii (‘slow melodies’) or svirni (sing. svirnya). Some are shepherds’ melodies, freely improvised from idiomatic motifs and phrases; others are instrumental renditions of slow songs (ex.8), which musicians contend thay cannot play well unless they know the associated texts.
The terms used to specify pulsed rhythmic patterns also designate particular types of khoro melodies and dance steps. The most popular and widespread duple metre dance is the pravo khoro (‘straight dance’). Although described and written by contemporary musicians as ‘in two’, this dance has the underlying compound duple character of 6/8 (ex.9). Other common duple metre dances include the buenek, a moderate tempo khoro found in Strandzha; the lively trite pati (lit., ‘three times’) of eastern Thrace, in which a sense of four semiquavers underlies every beat; and lyavata (‘to the left’), another Thracian khoro in which the dancers move anticlockwise. Melodies in triple metre are rare except in Pirin.
Bulgaria’s asymmetrical rhythms may be thought of as combinations of duple and triple metres strung together to create heterometric patterns.Ex.10 illustrates many commonly performed heterometres. Each pattern serves as the basis for one or more dance types, which may be differentiated by region and choreography. Khoro melodies may be named after their associated locales (e.g. Makedonsko khoro and Shopsko khoro), after a musician who creates or favours a particular melody or after distinguishing elements of the dance itself (e.g. the kalaydzhiysko khoro from Pirin is danced by turning the body to the right and left, causing the dancer to ‘spin like a kalaydzhiya’, or ‘dried pea’ – a name for a fidget).
The most popular heterometric dance is the rachenitsa, an energetic khoro in 7/16 (2 + 2 + 3) with various local names (ex.11). It is performed individually, by couples or in groups, indoors or outside, especially during weddings and other celebrations. In Pirin the khoro subdivided 3 + 2 + 2 is named pravo makedonsko (‘straight Macedonian’) and mazhka rachenitsa (‘men’s rachenitsa’). The kalaydzhiysko khoro mentioned above and the paydushko (ex.12) are dances in 5/16 (2 + 3).
Melodies in 9/8 (or 9/16)when divided 2 + 2 + 2 + 3 are known as daychovi khora (see ex.2). The daychovo is associated with northern Bulgaria, where it is usually a quick dance accompanied by an instrumental ensemble, often a wind band. It is also encountered in other areas, but under different names. A favourite dance of central and western Bulgaria is the kopanitsa in 11/16 (2 + 2 + 3 + 2 + 2). This is known by various local names, including gankino khoro in the Shop area and krivo (‘crooked’) khoro in Pazardzhik, western Thrace. Numerous dances in increasingly complex asymmetrical patterns, such as the petrunino khoro in 13/16 (2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 3) of the Shop region and the buchemish in 15/16 (2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 3 + 2 + 2) from western Thrace, are found throughout the country.
Although these heterometres, of which there are many more than mentioned here, were termed ‘Bulgarian’ by Béla Bartók (1938); they are linked to similar patterns found in Greece, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey and the Caucasus.
Bulgaria, §II: Traditional music
The late 19th century witnessed the emergence of a vibrant musical life in towns and cities that differed substantially from older village traditions. These new urban styles derived from the musics of neighbouring peoples. During the last years of Ottoman rule Turkish administrators, Balkan merchants, and emigrant workers maintained continuous inter-city contact, spreading new styles throughout the Balkans. Their popularization marks the beginning of both professional and amateur institutionalized musical activity.
Gradski pesni (‘urban songs’) became important even before the Liberation (1878), when residents of larger cities began to favour songs imported from Greece, Turkey, Russia and Germany, with translated or new Bulgarian texts. Other new gradski pesni appeared soon afterwards, based on local melodies but modelled on the foreign songs. Unlike village songs, gradski pesni had known authors, including famous Bulgarian, Russian or German poets; their lyrics were composed in rhymed couplets; their melodies were metred, often in 6/8, 3/4 or 4/4, displayed wide ranges, and had pitch movements that implied functional harmony; and they were published as part of the Vazrazhdane’s literacy movement.
By 1900, as villagers sought employment in cities, town and village culture intermingled. Two urban song types became widespread in both venues: lyrical love songs with poetic texts by well-known literary figures performed to Greek or Turkish melodies, romances, waltzes, tangos and German Schlager tunes; and songs with patriotic or revolutionary texts, sung to marches and other militaristic or nationalistic genres. These included songs of the Vazrazhdane and Liberation, soldiers’ songs, workers’ songs, which first appeared in Bulgaria during the 1890s and gained popularity with the rise of socialism and, as institutionalized education developed, school songs. These genres were performed by amateur civic and military choirs established in the 1890s in emulation of similar Russian groups that arose along the Danube in connection with the Liberation’s military campaigns.
During the 1930s and 40s sentimental, melancholic love songs from Macedonia, which contemporary Bulgarians call starogradski pesni (‘old urban songs’), acquired great popularity. These songs were composed in regionally specific metres to Greek- and Turkish-influenced melodies, and frequently performed as duets in parallel 3rds with orchestral accompaniments. They were disseminated through a growing recording industry and by professional (often foreign) musicians who sang at restaurants and taverns.
The Liberation era also saw radical developments in instrumental performance practice. By the late 19th century five types of non-indigenous instrumental ensembles existed in Bulgaria: symphonic chamber groups established by immigrants in the Danubian region; Ottoman Turkish Janissary orchestras; Czech wind bands; urban ensembles of minority musicians, often Christian and Muslim Roma, called svirdzhii or chalgadzhii; and small bands of foreign musicians from Serbia, Romania, Turkey and Bohemia. Together with the civic choirs mentioned above, these introduced Bulgarians to western European instruments, notation and collective musical performance. By 1911 wind bands directed by Czech Kapellmeisters existed throughout the country, performing brass band arrangements of symphonic works, operatic overtures, marches and medleys of Bulgarian folk tunes (kitki, ‘bouquets’). Such groups influenced local musical practices significantly, inspiring village musicians to form small ensembles of mixed instrumentation.
The svirdzhii and foreign bands constitute early examples of semi-professional musicianship in Bulgaria. Although often employed as labourers, they travelled from town to town according to the calendar of local festivities, providing music for engagements, weddings, fairs and even upper-class Macedonian balls to augment their incomes. The svirdzhii’s repertories and instrumentation were eclectic, often combining indigenous and Western European instruments and genres. Svirdzhii who played clarinet, bass, double-bass and drums became widespread around 1900, especially in north-western Bulgaria. A villager’s ability to hire such groups as wedding entertainment enhanced his social status. The players were highly talented musicians whose repertories included narodni pesni, gradski pesni, khora and svirni, the music of ethnic minorities and neighbouring Balkan peoples, and popular Western European dances, like waltzes and mazurkas. This reflected the increasingly international and syncretic Balkan music scene. The svirdzhii’s performance of these genres emphasized virtuosic, improvisatory, highly embellished solo or heterophonic playing, sometimes over a rudimentary bass line; an idiomatic style called chalga.
By the 1920s and 30s, therefore, major cities possessed a thriving, cosmopolitan population of musical ensembles. The small foreign orchestras performed for occasions similar to those of the svirdzhii and these groups influenced each other’s repertory. During the early 20th century such ensembles were hired in restaurants, taverns and cinemas, where they became known as salon orchestras (salonni orkestri). These orchestras performed Schlager, celebrated symphonic works, khora, kitki, narodni pesni, patriotic songs and many imported American dances then fashionable in Europe. Urban Slavic Bulgarian musicians soon formed similar ensembles to perform indigenous music; these groups were important forerunners of later, state-sponsored folk orchestras.
Bulgaria, §II: Traditional music
The Bulgarian National Radio (established 1929) promoted live performances of khora and narodni pesni with instrumental accompaniment by small ensembles of well-known musicians and singers. These groups, such as the Bistrishka Chetvorka (Bistrista Quartet, established 1936; gayda, kaval, gadulka and tambura), were basically salon orchestras of indigenous instruments. The Ugarchinska Narodna Grupa (Ugarchinska Folk Group) (established 1939; kaval, gayda, tambura, gadulka, tapan and cello gadulka) also performed under the name Tsvyatko Blagoev using Western European instruments (clarinet, trumpet, trombone, violin, accordion and tapan), illustrating the musicians’ abilities to adapt to varied performance contexts. Such ensembles were eventually designated ‘modern orchestras’ because of their non-indigenous instrumentation; bitovi narodni orkestri (‘traditional folk orchestras’) described groups like the Bistritsa Quartet.
The collective playing fostered by the Radio altered village musical practices considerably. Musicians learned to play khora more or less in unison, each performing the melody in a manner idiomatic to his instrument, with slight differences in ornamentation. They structured their khora in a new, sectional format known as the kolenna forma, in which each successive phrase derived from the last. Every phrase was repeated, and as the years passed, became equal in length, so that the khoro’s phrase structure became regularized. Instrumentalists interspersed solo improvisations on fragments of the khoro melody within the larger group structure while the other musicians vamped on the tonic pitch. When accompanying singers the musicians improvised an appropriate introduction and refrain, called a pripev or otsvir. During the sung verses one or two instruments, generally the kaval, gayda or gadulka, followed the melody heterophonically, while the others played a drone or ceased playing. Whether a song or instrumental piece, the tambura accentuated metric patterns through rhythmic strumming, followed the melody, or provided an underlying drone or rudimentary chordal accompaniment.
The political events of 1944 resulted in the total institutionalization of all musical activities within a monolithic network of state administrative organs whose representative bureaus extended into every city, town and village, and whose structure and ideals emulated those of Soviet cultural development. The Vazrazhdane’s civic choral and instrumental groups were incorporated into the larger, state-directed programme of khudozhestvena samodeynost (‘amateur artistic creativity’), which dictated the collectivization of musical performance in kolektivi (‘collectives’) and ansambli (‘ensembles’) for song and dance. By 1950, 3400 such groups existed in association with labour unions, agricultural cooperatives, factories, schools, local libraries, communist youth organizations and houses of culture. The groups’ activities were closely associated with political life; the development of khudozhestvena samodeynost fell directly under the government’s Agitation and Propaganda department until 1954, when a separate administrative bureau, the centre for khudozhestvena samodeynost, was established in Sofia.
One chief function of these kolektivi, whose numbers had swelled to 22,760 by 1987, was to popularize socialist mass songs. These included songs in praise of the September Uprising of 1923, the Bulgarian army, Bulgarian–Soviet relations and political figures such as Joseph Stalin and Georgi Dimitrov; partisan and revolutionary workers’ songs, many of which substituted new names and events into the basic structure of pre-existing heroic, khaiduk or soldiers’ song texts; and songs ‘for the new village’ (ex.13), whose melodies are in folk style but whose texts celebrate the building of socialism. New work songs commented on agricultural collectivization, the activities of work brigades and the construction of reservoirs or similar projects.
During the late 1940s amateur ensembles promoting more traditional presentations of folklore arose, among them the Ensemble for Macedonian Folk Songs and Dances Gotse Delchev (Sofia, 1945) the Ensemble for Folk Songs and Dances Yane Sandanski (Gotse Delchev, 1946) and the Plovdiv Folk Ensemble for Songs and Dances (1948). Unlike other ensembles these groups employed regionally specific orchestras of indigenous instruments. The popularity of these amateur ensembles, coupled with a visit from the USSR’s folk choir Pyatnitski in 1949, inspired the Council of Ministers and composer Filip Kutev (1903–82) to establish the first professional folk song and dance ensemble in 1950–51.
The primary objective of the National Folk Song and Dance Ensemble Filip Kutev was the preservation and performance of village music from all over Bulgaria, but in a contemporary format representative of the new socialist state. Kutev travelled widely, auditioning the best performers from every ethnographic region to build a women’s folk choir, a mixed dance troupe and a (male) folk orchestra constructed from the five most prevalent indigenous instruments (kaval, gaida, gadulka, tambura and tapan). Leading composers produced polyphonic arrangements of folksongs and khora, termed obrabotki, for these groups, while choreographers designed similarly complex presentations of dance figures. Together the three units enacted theatrical, stylized renderings of traditional lore called postanovki on concert stages at home and abroad. In 1952, shortly after the Kutev Ensemble’s first concerts, the Ensemble for Folk Songs of the Bulgarian Radio and Television was established in Sofia to popularize new obrabotki through the mass media. Several other professional narodni ansambli with regional foci soon arose in major cities. These included Ensembles Pirin (Blagoevgrad, 1954), Rodopa (Smolyan, 1960), Dobrudzha (Tolbukhin, 1970), Trakiya (Plovdiv, 1974) and the Severnyashki Ensemble (Pleven, 1970).
Initial members of early folk ensembles were villagers who possessed no formal musical training. While participants learnt how to read notation and follow a conductor, performing narodna muzika in a collective fashion posed significant obstacles whose solutions dictated drastic modifications in traditional performance practice. Vocalists, for example, learnt to sing together in multiple parts and with orchestral accompaniment. Although two or three lines characterized early choral obrabotki, over the next 40 years they became steadily more contrapuntal, complex and classical in nature, employing four to ten parts.
Contemporary folk orchestras expanded the instrumentation of earlier bitovi narodni orkestri into a larger symphonic scheme. Kutev enlisted master craftsmen to construct standardized families of neo-indigenous instruments, including new bass, cello, and viola gadulki and tamburi modelled on the Western European viola, cello, and double bass. Intonation subsequently became more precise, but the new instruments required special instruction. Ensembles therefore often employed conservatory-trained musicians to play the newly-designed strings, which supplied the bass lines and inner parts of polyphonic arrangements. The gayda was utilized without its ruchilo, so that its drone would not interfere with an obratbotka’s harmonic scheme. The large kaba gayda and Dobrudzhan trio were utilized primarily in appropriate regional ensembles, while the dvoyanka, duduk and small Shop gadulka fell into virtual oblivion. The tambura, however, became part of every folk ensemble despite its localized distribution.
Although folk orchestras initially performed melodies in a style similar to bitovi narodni orkestri, in succeeding years orchestral obrabotki featured multiple parts, large-scale forms, chromatic harmonies, countermelody, imitation and symphonic playing techniques. While the kolenna forma still provided a structural basis, contemporary obrabotki exhibited many more kolena than a traditional khoro; these were often unrelated in substance, incorporated modulations to different key areas, and displayed marked registral contrasts.
By 1988 the state supported 14 professional folk ensembles and hundreds of similar, amateur formations. These became the principal vehicle through which traditional music and customs were experienced. Secondary schools providing intensive training in narodna muzika were established at Kotel and Shiroka Laka; a third school for choreography and ‘traditional dance’ was founded in Sofia. The Vissh Muzikalno Pedigogicheski Institut (Higher Musical Pedagogical Institute), located in Plovdiv, furnished Kotel and Shiroka Laka graduates with additional instruction at the collegiate level. These institutions equipped professional ensembles with a ready supply of qualified personnel, and amateur ensembles with skilled directors. They also affected conventional modes of performance greatly, for younger people no longer acquired knowledge of narodna muzika within the course of daily life, but in a structured environment from notated materials written specifically for this purpose: obrabotki for folk choir and orchestra, scale and technical studies for each instrument and chamber works for soloists with folk orchestra accompaniment. Numerous juried competitions and festivals for both amateur and professional groups (a contemporary manifestation of pre-socialist village fairs) allowed panels of official adjudicators, usually folklorists, government officials and folk ensemble directors, to supervise the shape of folk music performance through their awards, and through lectures following the staged events.
As their repertories became further divorced from their village roots, folk ensembles grew less popular. The glasnost era, however, prompted an increased number of international tour and recording invitations for prominent groups. Foreign impresarios sponsored governmentally selected concertizing formations derived from major ensembles, especially choirs performing multipart obrabotki and more conventional instrumental groups of three to five musicians. After 1989 ensemble members established privately sponsored chamber and choral groups seeking international contracts. Intense competition arose between them, as each strove to devise a unique creative identity. Moreover, the personnel ranks of large folk ensembles were weakened as major artists resigned to perform in private organizations. These factors, together with a sharp decrease in state funding, caused many ensembles to disband in the 1990s. Some persevere with financial backing from diverse public and private sources, adapting their concert programmes to contemporary circumstances.
Bulgaria, §II: Traditional music
During the 1970s an eclectic non-state-sponsored genre termed svatbarska muzika (‘wedding music’) rose quickly to popularity. This genre, which blends narodna muzika with other Balkan styles and pop music elements, is performed by svatbarski orkestri (‘wedding orchestras’), bands of four to ten professional musicians, usually of minority heritage, which developed from the svirdzhii and salon orchestras of the early 20th century. Instrumentation varies, but often includes accordion, clarinet, electric bass guitar and drum kit. To this configuration electric guitar, synthesizer, trumpet, violin, saxophone, kaval, gayda and gadulka are added. The clarinet is generally the lead melody instrument; accordion, saxophone or violin also perform this function. Most bands include a female vocalist who characteristically employs a wide vibrato.
Wedding orchestras perform at weddings, christenings, holiday celebrations and farewell parties commemorating a young man’s departure for military service. Their repertory comprises khora and svirni, and Greek, Macedonian, Serbian, Romanian and Turkish melodies, especially the kyuchek, a Turkish Rom solo dance in 2/4 or 9/8 with undulations of the hips and arms. These are performed in the chalga style typical of Rom musicians, frequently with Turkish nuances. The influence of American jazz and rock is evident in certain chord progressions, the use of electric instruments and the emphasis on solo improvisation.
The musician credited with originating wedding music is Ivo Papazov (Ibrahim Hapasov), a clarinettist of minority extraction who founded his band, Trakiya, in Stara Zagora in 1974. During the 1980s, when hundreds of bands emulating Trakiya formed throughout Bulgaria, the government censured this genre harshly for three reasons. Firstly, it evolved and was performed outside the state-sponsored music industry. Non-professional, privately made cassette recordings of wedding bands were duplicated and passed from person to person in an informal, grassroots music economy. Secondly, many wedding musicians were from minority groups. During the 1980s they were therefore targeted by the Zhivkov administration’s campaign to eradicate all vestiges of Turkish culture from Bulgarian society. Thirdly, government authorities believed that wedding music’s amalgamated nature threatened narodna muzika’s purity. Wedding musicians were consequently taxed heavily and denied certain civil liberties.
In the late 1980s the government established control over wedding orchestras by incorporating them into the state network of adjudicated festivals and competitions. Scholars reversed their position on the value of wedding music by valorizing its links to narodna muzika. By 1990 it had become an acceptable musical style whose influence was evident even in folk ensemble obrabotki.
In the late 1980s prominent members of the Bulgarian Radio’s folk ensemble, together with composer Dimitar Penev, produced studio recordings that set traditional music to a disco beat, a genre termed disco folk. At the same time, rock bands started incorporating digitally sampled snippets of narodna muzika into pop songs or performing rock ballads with a folk flavour. Other groups produced political pop that satirized the events and results of the 1989 political transition. Western pop musicians sampled or otherwise utilized Bulgarian musicians or repertory in their creative work. These trends continue to evolve in the late 1990s, although their popularity is overshadowed by three other genres: wedding music, ‘Pirin folk’, and pan-Balkan ethnopop.
Pirin folk music, also called ‘authored Macedonian music’, is performed largely by amateur musicians who present starogradski pesni and Macedonian urban songs in updated pop or wedding music formats. This genre developed in Pirin-Macedonia during the early 1990s under the influence of ethnopop from Serbia, Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and is performed and recorded at annual festivals called Pirin fest, held in Blagoevgrad, and Pirin folk, held in Sandanski.
Since about 1993 numerous bands have promoted pan-Balkan songs that put various components of Turkish, Arab, Macedonian, Greek, Serbian, Bulgarian and Rom musics together in a pop music context. Both the bands and their repertories are linked to wedding music, Pirin folk, and the ‘newly composed folk music’ of Serbia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Many performers of this trend are Rom or Turkish. Song lyrics appear in various Balkan languages, and are often sung with the vocal inflections of Rom, Turkish and wedding music. Instrumentation is variable but may include electric bass, synthesizer, drum machine and electric guitar. Many groups also feature a clarinet or saxophone, played in the Rom style. Songs abound with Middle Eastern idioms: musicians utilize synthesizers imported from Arab countries, which facilitate the use of makamlar or the timbres of Turkish or Arab instruments; lead instruments perform taksims during instrumental breaks; and percussion patterns and bass lines incorporate common Turkish or Arab rhythms. While such ethnopop styles signify Bulgaria’s strategic position within Balkan geography, they have essentially replaced the indigenous music-making of the country’s heritage.
Bulgaria, §II, 5: Neo-traditional popular music
Bratya [Brothers] (Dimitar and Konstantin) Miladinovi: Balgarski narodni pesni [Bulgarian folksongs], ed. M. Arnaudov (Sofia, 1861/R, 3/1942)
V. Stoin, ed.: Narodni pesni ot Timok do Vita [Folksongs from the Timok river to the river Vit] (Sofia, 1928)
D. Khristov: Chansons populaires des bulgares macédoniens (Sofia, 1931)
V. Stoin, ed.: Narodni pesni ot sredna severna Balgariya [Folksongs from central northern Bulgaria] (Sofia, 1931)
V. Stoin, ed.: Narodni pesni ot iztochna i zapadna Trakiya [Bulgarian folksongs from eastern and western Thrace] (Sofia, 1939)
V. Primovski: Rodopski narodni pesni [Rhodope folksongs] (Sofia, 1940)
V. Stoin and I. Kachulev, eds.: Balgarski savremenni narodni pesni [Contemporary Bulgarian folksongs] (Sofia, 1958)
N. Kaufman, ed.: Pesni na balgarskoto rabotnichesko dvizhenie 1891–1944 [Songs of the Bulgarian workers’ movement 1891–1944] (Sofia, 1959)
V. Stoin: Narodni pesni ot zapadnite pokraynini [Folksongs from the western border regions], ed. R. Katsarova (Sofia, 1959)
N. Kaufman, ed.: Balgarski gradski pesni [Bulgarian urban songs] (Sofia, 1968)
N. Kaufman and T. Todorov, eds.: Narodni pesni ot yugozapadna Balgariya, i [Folksongs from south-western Bulgaria], Pirinski kray [The Pirin region] (Sofia, 1968)
N. Kaufman and T. Todorov, eds.: Narodni pesni ot rodopskiya kray [Folksongs from the Rhodope region] (Sofia, 1970)
E. and V. Stoin, eds.: Narodni pesni ot Samokov i Samokovsko [Folksongs from Samokov and the Samokov region] (Sofia, 1975)
A. Ilieva: Narodni tantsi ot Srednogorieto [Folkdances from the region of the Sredno Gora mountain range] (Sofia, 1978)
N. Kaufman, ed.: Narodni pesni na balgarite ot Yukraynska i Moldavska SSR [Folksongs of the Bulgarians from the Ukrainian and Moldovian Soviet Socialist Republics] (Sofia, 1982)
N. and D. Kaufman, eds.: Pogrebalni i drugi oplakvaniya v Balgariya [Funeral and other laments in Bulgaria] (Sofia, 1988) [incl. Russ. and Eng. summaries]
GEWM, viii (T. Rice)
Grove5 (R. Katsarova)
Grove6 (S. Petrov and N. Kaufman)
V. Stoin: Balgarskata narodna muzika: metrika i ritmika [Bulgarian folk music: metre and rhythm] (Sofia, 1927)
S. Dzhudzhev: Rhythme et mesure dans la musique populaire bulgare (Paris, 1931)
K. Obreshkov: Das bulgarische Volkslied (Berne, 1937)
B. Bartók: ‘Az úgynevezett bolgàr ritmus’, Eneskzó, v (1938), 537ff
A. Motsev: Ritam i takt v balgarskata narodna muzika [Rhythm and metre in Bulgarian folk music] (Sofia, 1949)
R. Katsarova: ‘Tri pokoleniya narodni pevitsi’ [Three generations of female folksingers], IIM, i (1952), 49–90
B. Kremenliev: Bulgarian–Macedonian Folk Music (Berkeley, 1952)
S. Dzhudzhev: Teoriya na balgarskata narodna muzika [Theory of Bulgarian folk music], i–iv (Sofia, 1954–61)
A. Motsev: Balgarskata narodna pesen [Bulgarian folksong] (Sofia, 1954)
R. Katsarova-Kukudova and K. Dzhenev: Bulgarian Folk Dances (Sofia, 1958)
V. Krastev: Nasoki v balgarskata masova pesen [Trends in Bulgarian mass song] (Sofia, 1958) [incl. Russ., Fr. and Eng. summaries]
R. Katsarova: ‘L’ethnomusicologie en Bulgarie de 1945 à nos jours (1959)’, AcM, xxxii (1960), 77–89
A. Motsev: Ornamenti v balgarskata narodna muzika [Ornaments in Bulgarian folk music] (Sofia, 1961)
R. Katsarova-Kukudova: ‘Phénomènes polyphoniques dans la musique populaire bulgare’, SMH, iii (1962), 161–72
N. Kaufman: ‘Pesnite na balgarite mokhamedani’ [Songs of the Bulgarian Muslims], IIM, viii (1962), 13–111 [incl. Russ. and Fr. summaries]
N. Kaufman: ‘Pesnite na maloaziyskite balgari’ [Songs of the Bulgarians from Asia Minor], IIM, ix (1963), 73–109 [incl. Russ. and Fr. summaries]
S. Petrov: ‘Pevcheskata kultura na banatskite balgari’ [The song culture of the Banat Bulgarians], IIM, xi (1965), 79–147 [incl. Russ. and Fr. summaries]
B. Kremenliev: ‘Extension and its Effect in Bulgarian Folk Song’, Selected Reports, i (1966), 1–27
V. Krastev, ed.: Dobri Khristov: muzikalno-teoretichesko i publitsistichesko nasledstvo [Dobri Khristov: musical-theoretical and journalistic legacy] (Sofia, 1967–70)
V. Krastev, ed.: Entsiklopediya na balgarskata muzikalna kultura [Encyclopedia of Bulgarian music culture] (Sofia, 1967)
N. Kaufman: Balgarskata mnogoglasna narodna pesna [Bulgarian polyphonic folksong] (Sofia, 1968)
B. Krader: ‘Bulgarian Folk Music Research’, EthM, xiii (1969), 248–66
S. Dzhudzhev: Balgarska narodna muzika: uchebnik za balgarskata darzhavna konservatoriya [Bulgarian folk music: a textbook for the Bulgarian state conservatory] (Sofia, 1970–75, 2/1980)
T. Rice: Music of a Rhodope Village in Bulgaria (thesis, U. of Washington, 1971)
M. Todorov: Balgarski narodni muzikalni instrumenti: organografiya [Bulgarian folk musical instruments: an organology] (Sofia, 1973)
S. Abrasheva: Balgarski naroden dvuglas [Bulgarian folk diaphony] (Sofia, 1974) [incl. Eng. summary]
T. Todorov: Savremenni problemi v izuchavaneto na balgarskoto muzikalno narodno tvorchestvo [Contemporary problems in the study of Bulgarian folk musical creativity] (Sofia, 1974)
T. Butler, ed.: Bulgaria Past and Present: Studies in History, Literature, Economics, Music, Sociology and Linguistics (Columbus, OH, 1976)
A.I. Ilieva: Bulgarian Dance Folklore (Pittsburgh, 1976)
R. Katsarova-Kukudova and K. Djenev: Bulgarian Folk Dances (Cambridge, MA, 1976)
N. Kaufman: Balgarskata svatbena pesen [Bulgarian wedding song] (Sofia, 1976) [incl. Eng. summary]
W.W. Kolar: The Folk Arts of Bulgaria (Pittsburgh, 1976)
M. Todorov: Balgarska narodna muzika: uchebnik za srednite muzikalni uchilishta [Bulgarian folk music: textbook for the secondary music schools] (Sofia, 5/1976)
T. Rice: Polyphony in Bulgarian Folk Music (diss., U. of Washington, 1977)
I. Kachulev: Bulgarian Folk Musical Instruments (Pittsburgh, 1978) [incl. cass.]
V. Krastev: Bulgarian Music (Sofia, 1978)
T. Todorov: Savremennost i narodna pesen [Contemporaneity and folksong] (Sofia, 1978)
B. Krader: ‘Vasil Stoin, Bulgarian Folk Song Collector’, YIFMC, xii (1980), 27–42
G.F. Messner: Die Schwebungsdiaphonie in Bistrica: Untersuchungen der mehrstimmigen Liedgormen eines mittelwestbulgarischen Dorfes (Tutzing, 1980)
T. Rice: ‘Aspects of Bulgarian Musical Thought’,YIFMC, xii (1980), 43–66
E. Stoin: Balgarski epicheski pesni [Bulgarian epic songs] (Sofia, 1980)
B. Krader: ‘Raina D. Katsarova: a Birthday Appreciation and List of Publications’, EthM, xxv (1981), 287–94
E. Stoin: Muzikalno-folklorni dialekti v Balgariya [Musical-folkloristic dialects in Bulgaria] (Sofia, 1981)
E. Valchinova: ‘Cheshkite kapelmaystori i prinosat im v razvitieto na balgarskata muzikalna kultura’ [The Czech Kapellmeisters and their contribution to the development of Bulgarian musical culture], Balgarsko muzikoznanie, v/4 (1981), 53–68
R. Katsarova: ‘Bulgarian Funeral Laments’, International Folklore Review, ii (1982), 112–30
I. Markoff: ‘Persistence of Old World Cultural Expression in the Traditional Music of Bulgarian-Canadians’, Culture and History of the Bulgarian People: their Bulgarian and American Parallels, ed. W.W. Kolar (Pittsburgh, 1982), 218–39
K. Roth and J. Roth: ‘Zum Problem des Bänkelsangs in Bulgarien’, Aspekte des europäischen Nänkelsangs und weitere Probleme der heutigen Liedforschung, ed. S. Top and E. Tielemans, i (Brussels, 1982), 60–73
E. Valchinova: ‘Za repertoara na voennite dukhovi orkestri v Balgariya (1879–1944) i myastoto na balgarskoto muzikalno tvorchestvo v nego’ [On the repertory of military wind orchestras in Bulgaria (1879–1944) and the place of Bulgarian musical creativity within it], Balgarsko muzikoznanie, vi/3 (1982), 66–71
K. and J. Roth: ‘Naj-nova pesnopojka s narodni pesni…’: Populare Liederbücher und Liederheftchen in Bulgarien’, Jb für Volksliedforschung, xxvii–xxviii (1982–3), 242–57
V. Atanasov: Die bulgarischen Volksmusikinstrumente: eine Systematik in Wort, Bild und Ton (Munich, 1983) [incl. cassette]
B. Kremenliev: ‘Mnogoglasie: a Compositional Concept in Rural Bulgaria’, Selected Reports in Ethnomusicology, iv (1983), 181–203
C. Silverman: ‘The Politics of Folklore in Bulgaria’, Anthropological Quarterly, lvi (1983), 55–61
M. Levy: The Bagpipe in the Rhodope Mountains of Bulgaria (diss., UCLA, 1985)
K. and J. Roth: ‘A Bulgarian Professional Folk Singer and his Songs’, Narrative Folk Song: New Directions: Essays in Appreciaition of W. Edson Richmond, ed. C. Edwards and K. Manley (Boulder, CO, 1985), 339–61
J. Sugarman: Singing in the Rhodope Region of Bulgaria: an Inquiry into the Determinants of Musical Practice (thesis, UCLA, 1985)
I. Manolov: Traditsionnata instrumentalna muzika ot yugozapadna Balgariya [Traditional instrumental music from south-western Bulgaria] (Sofia, 1987)
S. Zakharieva: Svirachat vav folklornata kultura [The traditional instrumentalist in folk culture] (Sofia, 1987) [incl. Russ. and Eng. summaries]
V. Atanasov: ‘Children’s Musical Instruments and Musical Playthings in Bulgaria’, World of Music, xxix/3 (1988), 68–85 [incl. Fr. and Ger. summaries]
T. Balakov: Maystori na narodnata muzika [Masters of folk music] (Sofia, 1988–92)
T. Rice: ‘Understanding Three-Part Singing in Bulgaria: the Interplay of Theory and Experience’, Selected Reports in Ethnomusicology, vii (1988), 43–57
N. Kaufman: ‘Nyakoi predshestvenitsa na savremennite orkestri na narodna muzika’ [Some precursors of contemporary orchestras for folk music], Muzikalni khorizonti, xii–xiii (1989), 220–28
C. Silverman: ‘Reconstructing Folklore: Media and Cultural Policy in Eastern Europe’, Communication, xi (1989), 141–60
E. Valchinova: ‘Gradska orkestrova kultura v Balgariya do Osvobozhdenieto’ [Urban orchestral culture in Bulgaria until the Liberation], Balgarsko muzikoznanie, xiii/4 (1989), 18–38
E. Valchinova: ‘Svirdzhii (chalgadzhii) ot sredata na 19 vek: mezhdina forma mezhdu folklornata i gradska muzikalna kultura’ [Svirdzhii (chalgadzhii) from the middle of the 19th century: a transitional form between folkloric and urban musical culture], Muzikalni khorizonti, xii–xiii (1989), 134–8
Zh. Yordanova: ‘Plashtane na folklorni izpalniteli’ [Payment of folk performers], Muzikalni khorizonti, xii–xiii (1989), 108–18
D. Kaufman: ‘Ot vazrozhdenskata chalgiya kam savremennite svatbarski orkestri’ [From the chalga of the Vazrazhdane to contemporary wedding orchestras], Balgarski folklor, xvi/3 (1990), 23–32
E. Valchinova-Chendova: ‘Gradska orkestrova kultura v Balgariya ot Osvobozhdenieto do 20-te godini na XX v.’ [Urban orchestral culture in Bulgaria from the Liberation until the 1920s], Balgarsko muzikoznanie, xiv/3 (1990), 3–24
D.A. Buchanan: The Bulgarian Folk Orchestra: Cultural Performance, Symbol and the Construction of National Identity in Socialist Bulgaria (diss., U. of Texas, Austin, 1991)
E. Valchinova-Chendova: ‘Gradska lyubitelska orkestrova kultura ot 20-te do 40-te godini na XX v.’ [Urban amateur orchestral culture from the 1920s to the 1940s], Balgarsko muzikoznanie, xv/3 (1991), 9–43
V. Kurkela: ‘Deregulation of Popular Music in the European Post-Communist Countries: Business, Identity and Cultural Collage’,World of Music, xxxv/3 (1993), 80–106
R. Statlova: Obarnatata piramida: aspekti na populyarnata muzika [The overturned pyramid: aspects of popular music] (Sofia, 1993)
T. Rice: ‘May it fill your soul’: Experiencing Bulgarian Music (Chicago, 1994) [incl. CD]
D.A. Buchanan: ‘Metaphors of Power, Metaphors of Truth: the Politics of Music Professionalism in Bulgarian Folk Orchestras’, EthM, xxxix (1995), 381–416
V. Dimov: ‘Folkbumat i popkharakteristikite mu: kam sotsiokulturniya portret na savremennata etnopopmuzika v Balgariya’ [The folk boom and its pop characteristics: towards a sociocultural portrait of contemporary ethnopop music in Bulgaria], Balgarski folklor, xxi/6 (1995), 4–19 [incl. Eng. summary]
D. Kaufman: ‘Savremennite svatbarski orkestri kato “disidentski” formatsii’ [Contemporary wedding orchestras as ‘dissident’ formations], Balgarski folklor, xxi/6 (1995), 49–57
N. Kaufman: ‘Evreite i balkanskata gradska pesen’ [The Jews and the Balkan urban song], Balgarski folklor, xxi/5 (1995), 9–41
L. Peycheva: ‘Muzikalniyat polilingvizam na tsiganite v Balgariya: nablyudeniya varkhu 84 audiokaseti’ [The musical polylinguism of the Gypsies in Bulgaria: observation of 84 cassettes], Balgarski folklor, xxi/6 (1995), 58–72 [incl. Eng. summary]
R. Statelova: Prezhivyano v Balgariya: rok, pop, folk, 1990–1994 [Surviving in Bulgaria: rock, pop, folk, 1990–1994] (Sofia, 1995)
M. Forsyth: Slushaj, shterko, i dobre zapomni…: pesnite i zhivota na Linka Gekov Gergova ot selo Bistritsa, Sofiisko/Listen, Daughter, and Remember Well…: the Songs and Life of Linka Gekova Gergova from the Village of Bistritsa, Sofia (Sofia, 1996)
D. Dyer, ed.: ‘Bulgaria Past and Present: Transitions and Turning Points’, Balkanistica, ix (1996) [Bulgaria issue]
M. Slobin, ed.: Retuning Culture: Musical Changes in Central and Eastern Europe (Durham, NC, 1996)
D.A. Buchanan: ‘Bulgaria’s Magical Mystère Tour: Postmodernism, World Music Marketing and Political Transition in Eastern Europe’, EthM, xli (1997), 131–57
Bulgaria, coll. A.L. Lloyd, rec. 1954, Col. KL 5378 (n.d.)
Bulgaria: Musical Atlas, EMI Odeon 64 1653891 (1983) [incl. notes by B. Mauguin]
Balkana: the Music of Bulgaria, Hannibal Records HNBL 1335 (1987)
Le mystère des voix Bulgares, perf. Bulgarian State Radio and Television Female Vocal Choir, Elek. 9 79165-2 (1987) [incl. notes by I. Marshall]
Le mystère des voix Bulgares, ii, perf. Bulgarian State Radio and Television Female Vocal Choir, Elek. 9 79201-2 (1988)
A Harvest, a Shepherd, a Bride: Village Music of Bulgaria: in the Shadow of the Mountain: Bulgarian Folk Music, rec. 1968, Elek. 9 79195-2 (1988) [incl. notes by M. Koenig and V. Atanasov]
Bulgarian Polyphony, i, perf. Filip Kutev Ensemble, JVC VID-25001 (1989)
Bulgarian Polyphony, ii, perf. Filip Kutev Ensemble, JVC VID-25002 (1989)
Music of Bulgaria: Ensemble of the Bulgarian Republic: Original 1955 Recording, Elek. 9 72011-1 (1989) [incl. notes by J. Hunter]
Ivo Papasov and his Bulgarian Wedding Band: Orpheus Ascending, Hannibal Records HNCD 1346 (1989) [incl. notes by J. Boyd]
Le mystère des voix Bulgares, iii, perf. Bulgarian State Radio and Television Female Vocal Choir and others, Fon. 846 626-4 (1990) [incl. notes by M. Cellier]
‘Two girls started to sing…’: Bulgarian Village Singing, Rounder Records CD 1055 (1990)
Ivo Papasov and his Orchestra: Balkanology, Hannibal Records HNCD 1363 (1991) [incl. notes by C. Silverman]
Vocal Traditions of Bulgaria: Bulgarian Village Traditional Song from the Archives of Radio Sofia, Saydisc Records CD-SDL 396 (1992)
Folk Music of Bulgaria, Topic Records TSCD905 (1994) [incl. notes by A.L. Lloyd]
Song of the Crooked Dance: Early Bulgarian Traditional Music (1927–42), Yazoo Records 7016 (1998) [incl. notes by L. Brody]