Meeting of the Study Group on 'Anthropology of Music in
Mediterranean Cultures', International Council for Traditional
Music/Fondazione Levi.
Report by Martin Stokes
The study group met on 1-3 June in order to study a thoroughly
Mediterranean topic. Last year, John Davis had reminded us that
the Mediterranean world provided anthropologists with an
excellent opportunity to integrate the methods of the social
sciences with the humanistic insights of historical study.
Nowhere else do we have quite the same opportunity to build up a
picture of human interaction in social and cultural domains over
millenia; the anthropology of music correspondingly has much to
gain from the study of the Mediterranean.
Those of us coming to the conference from outside Italy could
hardly fail to have been impressed by the significance of the
locale. In Venice, one can hardly forget the generative force in
contemporary life of conceptions of history, empire, Golden Age
and decline. One can also hardly ignore, as elsewhere in the
Mediterranean world, the shaping force of the outsider's gaze.
Conceptions of the past are always part of a complex play of
power, in which insiders, outsiders, locals, state bureaucracies,
minorities, tourists, travellers and colonists have all had a
stake. Crucial issues of identity and meaning are involved in the
contest. Whilst this is no less true on the shores of the cold
Celtic seas from which I had travelled, the congruence of topic
and place at this meeting were, for me, particularly striking.
I also had an opportunity to compare the proceedings of this meeting with those of the last. In comparison to the slightly distanciating, dark and formal room downstairs in the Levi Foundation, we were gathered around a table in the library upstairs, facing one another. The exchanges were brisker and sharper in tone. Connections could be made more easily and topics were often developed in discussion far beyond the parameters of the paper which had initiated it. This was partly due to the topic itself, and of course the skills of the panel chairs, but it was also very much a product of the space we were occupying. Sometimes discussion was limited by the - to my mind - excessive length of one or two papers, but in general my impression was one of lively and focussed discussion and debate.
Tullia Magrini opened the conference with a succinct outline
of the aims of the study group in regard to the development of
Mediterraneanist perspectives in the study of music within an
overall anthropological framework. She reminded us that however
we chose to understand the word 'anthropological', our concern
lies with human beings inhabiting and shaping social and cultural
worlds. Her paper provided a useful review of the problems in
defining the Mediterranean, and the significance of seeing
Mediterranean musics both in a historical context and in terms of
the ways in which they themselves shape notions of history. Bruno
Nettl's introduction, 'Relating the Present to the Past: On the
Study of Musical Change and Culture Change in Ethnomusicology'
provided a magisterial survey of the field, and with
characteristic ennumerated precision (the paper consisted of six
statements, with numerous subheadings), he preempted just about
every substantive theoretical point that was to emerge in
discussion over the next days.
His six statements covered the variety of relationships perceived
between past and present, the ways in which musical forms might
be considered as 'maps' of the past, the ways in which elements
of a musical system may change in different ways and at different
rates, the 'reinvention' of the past in the present, and the lack
of 'fit' between musical and other cultural changes. He concluded
with the valuable point that 'music may play a special role in
culture change'.
The tendency to reduce music to its context is a problem when
thinking historically: the peculiarities of musical expression
are easily forgotten. Amnon Shiloah followed this with a no less
magisterial presentation on 'Muslim and Jewish Musical
Traditions: The Guiding Spirit of Sources in Relating their Past
to the Present'. The disciplinary framework of orientalism,
rather than ethnomusicology prevailed: the argument centred on
the need for a nuanced understanding of texts in opposition to
Nettl's 'present' centred approach. Shiloah's parallel
examination of early Islamic and Jewish sources drew heavily on
von Grunebaum's discussions of the ways in which cultural
borrowings were evaluated and incorporated by the borrowing
communities, concluding with the point that 'Westernization' is
characterized by a reversal of the power relationship that
prevailed in the classical period of syncretistic borrowing and
incorporation.
The afternoon session began with Joaquina Labajo Valdes
discussion of tradition and change in musical behaviour, entitled
'Car Tyres for Making Sandals'. Her picture of the Mediterranean
was one of expansion and movement, and she used this image to
argue the need for forms of cultural analysis which are not bound
by notions of bounded cultural areas. In particular, drawing on a
number of Spanish popular genres, she drew attention to the
bricoleur- hybridist figures who have made use of and
appropriated remarkably diverse materials in their music-making,
producing, as it were, sandals from car tyres.
The discussion of a seaweed called 'caulerpa taxifolia' with
which she began was particularly striking as an image of
scholarly panic about the breakdown of diversity in the ecosystem
and, by extension, cultural system. This paper reminded us
forcibly that forms of analysis which insist on cultural
boundaries are peculiarly inappropriate in the description of
contemporary Mediterranean cultures.
By contrast, Philip Bohlman described the ways in which
ethnomusicologists continue to de- historicize their material,
with reference to the practice of early 20th century
ethnomusicologists. In an intriguing 'geography of encounter' he
discussed three ways in which (and through which) Mediterranean
'others' were removed from time and history, leaving us with the
somewhat worrying question as to why these models of timelessness
still prevail. This was an extremely challenging paper.
Concluding this section, Iain Fenlon brought us back to a very
tangible place and past in his discussion of 'Music, Rite and
Identity in Renaissance Venice'. He traced the emergence of
public rituals and liturgical forms in Venice which were designed
to connect sacred and temporal powers in the city. Who were these
'myths of Venice' intended to persuade and impress? Fenlon
assessed the impact of these rituals on a variegated and
stratified local population.
All of these papers invited us to think about the relationships
between power and history, and the extent to which credible myths
can be constructed and contested.
The papers given on Friday were grouped regionally. Two
Mediterraneans which are easily forgotted, namely the 'Eastern
European' Mediterranean and the 'Middle Eastern' Mediterranean
(to use rather unsatisfactory lables), were granted spaces of
their own. In both sessions, the papers focussed on common
themes, and discussion allowed yet more common themes to emerge.
This was perhaps surprising given the variety of academic
backgrounds from which the contributers came.
Erich Stockmann began by playing through and discussing some of
his astonishing recordings made in Albania in 1957, inviting us
to reflect on what has happened both to Albania and the
ethnomusicologist's task since that date. Dieter Christensen's
paper also began in 1957 with a period of fieldwork conducted
over 18 years in Gabela, Hercegovina. He constructed a musical
map in which movements into the village from the surrounding
region could be traced, and which musical traditions were
mediated by the patriclan-residence structure of the village.
Here again, we were invited to think about changes that had taken
place over 18 years of fieldwork, and the tragic events of more
recent years, events in which shared histories have been
dismantled with brutal force. Finally Jerko Bezic discussed
'Approaches to the People's Music-Life in Dalmatia (Croatia) in
the Past and Present', in which he set travellers and residents
accounts, and folkloric collection in the early 20th century in a
historical perspective.
A number of common terms and categories prevailed in the next
session as well, concerning the music of the 'Middle Eastern'
Mediterranean, notably the question of reformulating 'tradition'
in the context of modernizing nation-states. Egyptian ideologues
created forms of 'tradition' ('turath') which proved to be
extremely popular in Egypt, and, more importantly, outside Egypt,
as Salwa El-Shawan Costello-Branco demonstrated in her paper,
'The Heritage of Arab Music in Twentieth Century Egypt'.
The foundation of the Arab Music Ensemble in 1967 was set in the
context of diversifying audiences in mid 20th century Cairo,
amongst whom there was a distinct shift from Turkish/elite maghna
to genres of popular appeal (such as the ughniyyah). The stern
monophony and the large orchestras and choirs of the Arab Music
Ensemble set striking new standards which were widely imitated.
Ruth Davis's discussed and illustrated the gradual reformulation
of the maluf tradition in Tunisia, from colonial interest (on the
part of the Baron Rudolph D'Erlanger) to national cooptation by
the Rashidayya Institute.
Once notated and performed on large maluf orchestras in Tunisia,
the result was something which bore a startling similarity to
Egyptian models. Jurgen Elsner provided 'Some Remarks on the Arab
Nomadic Music tradition in the Sahara Atlas region of Algeria'.
He began by situating his own paper in the historically informed
musicological tradition of Wiora, Spitta and Knepler. His
analysis of Algerian Saharan Atlas melody types (in particular
relating to the Aiyai genre), experienced during research trips
to Algeria in 1985, was designed to show the ways in which they
relate to a more generally widespread system of melody production
(makam), stressing the connections between Middle Eastern genres
rather than separation on the basis of disjunct histories, social
and cultural status and so on.
My own paper, History, Memory and Nostalgia in Turkish Art Music,
concluded a long session by returning to themes brought up in
Salwa El Shawan Castelo-Branco and Ruth Davis' papers. The paper
discussed the relation of nostalgia to the decline of Kemalism
and the increasing lack of faith in the nationalist
cultural-political project. Nostalgia, I argued, tended to
flatten-out history, denying connection with the present.
The paper concluded with a discussion of the ways in which
proponents of Turkish art music have dealt with official
exclusion on one hand and, on the other, with current ways of
thinking about art music which idealize and thus disconnect this
music from present actualities. Yilmaz Oztuna's biography of
Huseyin Sadeddin Arel and Cem Behar's discussion of Ahmet Irsoy
provided the musicological examples.
On Saturday, Donatella Restani began with a paper on 'Music
and Myth in Ancient Greece'. We were reminded of the significance
of music in Ancient Greek throught and practice, and the
philosophical and sociological complexities that music was used
to express. Her approach to myth appeared to owe much to
Levi-Strauss and Dumezil. To my mind, this provided another,
extremely fruitful, way of thinking about an 'anthropology of
music' which brings 'present' and 'Ancient History' into close
contact.
The next two papers, appropriately, linked music and movement.
Irene Loutzaki gave a paper entitled 'The Dance Identity of A
region', the region in question being the Dodecanese.
She began with a brief discussion of dance anthropology, and
continued with a proposal for the investigation of 'local' dance
in a contemporary Greek context. A live demonstration made the
presentation particularly memorable. Placida Staro concluded with
a detailed discussion of the ways in which she was using music in
the Bolognese Appenines as a means of stirring memory and curing,
in one woman's case, the 'arlia' (a local name for what we might
call a psychological affliction), and the more pronounced
distress of a second woman. The paper provoked a lengthy
discussion in Italian on the subject of tarantism - I couldn't
help feeling that this topic merited a section on its own.
After lunch Nico Staiti presented his ongoing research amongst emigre Albanian Romany groups in Italy, focussing in particular on the structure and musical symbolism of Rom weddings.
The place of gipsy culture in a discussion of the Mediterranean seems particularly important in view of their historical role in mediating culture to settled communities throughout the area. The anthropological problem of discussing the identity of a people whose lives are given over to representing and mediating other peoples cultures is also intriguing. The final session concluded with a brief discussion of F. Alberto Gallo and Donatella Restani's proposal to set up a database on 'Traveller's Reports as Documents of Music Life'. This was clearly considered to be a valuable project by everyone: nearly everybody had some point of view or piece of advice on the subject. The dangers of re-mapping the western 'discovery' and colonisation of Mediterranean 'others' was clearly felt to be an important problem. 'Travel' is, however, clearly an important concept in building up a picture of the Mediterranean. It is a concept which equally certainly needs to incorporate the experience of Muslim travellers/itinerants in 'the West'. I could almost see Donatella Restani's shoulders sink as the project grew bigger and bigger with every passing comment.
In the final discussion, Bruno Nettl thanked Tullia Magrini
and the Levi Foundation on behalf of all those gathered. Beyond
joining in with thanks for the hard work and generous hospitality
which were involved, there are ways in which I find it difficult
to assess events of this nature. It was certainly a memorable,
pleasurable and intellectually exciting occasion.
The real work of the study group however begins, in a sense,
after everyone has gone their separate ways. Papers, discussions,
and chance comments all bear fruit in unexpected ways months and
even years after the event. I am looking forward to seeing what
happens.
Folk Commission of the Union of Russian Composers, Rouza,
12-16 May 1995
Report by Peter Crowe
The Folk Commission of the Union of Russian Composers prepared
a colloquy on ethnomusicological and ethnolingistic aspects of
Voice and Ritual at "La maison de la Creation" in the
celebrated composers' resort at Rouza, 70 kilometres to the west
of Moscow, from 12-16 May 1995. (One imagines Chostakovitch
composed some important works whilst in residence here.) The
scientific programme was organised by Dr Ekaterina Dorokhova and
the administration by Pr Tamara Pavlova, with the cooperation of
the Union of Composers, the Academy of Music and several other
institutions.
There were 28 papers scheduled, 22 by women researchers,
including five papers from invitees from outside the present
Russia and Belorus' (Lubimko Radenkovich of Belgrade, Iren
Kertesz-Wilkinson of London, Anna Czekanowska of Warsawa, Andre-
Marie Despringre of Paris, Peter Crowe of Toulouse). The local
majority of participants were from the Moscow region, one from
Minsk, one from east of the Urals, two from the Don-Cossaks,
nobody coming from St. Petersburg.
The physical arrangements were managed very well : by coach from
the Folk Commission to Rouza, accomodation in comfortable dachas
- each furnished with a medium grand piano of quality - dotted in
the splendid forest, meals of generous quantity (and a unique
cuisine), and a splendid meeting room with two magnificent grand
pianos and comfortable armchairs for everyone, with tables on
castors, whose disposition could be altered easily. Thus the
social architecture of the space was changed according to the
rhythm : of welcoming session, of paper-presentation (the
presidential style) with audience in a horseshoe arrangement, and
in an oval facing each other for the final evaluation session
(like Oxford ESEM). There was no sonorisation (the plague of
meetings in Spain) except for reproduction of musical and video
examples, which were managed by an skilled technician.
Interpretation into English was given in "live" (but
sotto voce) by Yevgeny Lot, and some interpretation from the
French by Larissa Vinarchik. The sessions (about 20 hours) were
recorded by the technician from the Folk Commission in their
entirety on cassette, and 4-1/2 hours of sample recordings with
the viva voce translations in English were also made (which are
available as copies on request from ESEM's secretariat).
The typical paper was allowed 20 minutes, with 10 minutes
discussion. Some chairmen did little to stimulate discussion (eg,
having a question ready while people were thinking things over in
silence), but Seraphima Nikitina showed outstanding flair as a
leader of discussions. On at least two evenings some recent films
were shown on video, but many people preferred to get together in
one or other dacha for socialising, or singing, and also an ESEM
meeting was held. There was a final banquet, many toasts, and an
impromptu concert (some splendid Don- Cossak unaccompanied
singing, Iren at the piano singing Gypsy and Hungarian songs).
There was also an excursion to a nearby village, an opportunity
to buy a few souvenirs (even to drink unpasteurised milk hot from
the cow) and savour a mite of Russian country life. It can be
seen that the format of the colloquy was genial and well-
planned, but what of the scientific content ?
Most of material was Slavic. It was hard to tell in advance from
the papers' titles if they would be predominantly on musicology
or on linguistics.
Some papers were recitations of factual materials found in this
or that region. A few papers tried to pursue new ideas, with more
emphasis on theory, and asking "why" instead of merely
"what" (Ekatarina Dorokhova and Margarita Engovatova
among them). At times one had the impression of hearing a tour a'
la _Golden Bough_ of Sir James Frazer. Some participants doubted
the pertinence of presenting material that was not Slavic, at
times with barely-hidden impatience. It is hard to tell if this
reaction was due to the nature of the information with the call-
for-papers, evidently particular for those dealing with Slav
cultures, but left "open" for those from the exterior.
There may have been an idea to try and enlarge the range of
reference habitually chosen, and that bringing in foreigners
might be a way to encourage that. Partial success ?
One cannot escape the impression that much research on Slav
cultures retains rather old-fashioned procedures. Ideas of what
is ritual or what is myth were often taken for granted. A
question after Iren Kertesz-Wilkinson's paper as to who found the
work of Mary Douglas (_Purity and danger_) of value, or of the
Turners on ritual, was found almost offensive. There appears to
be a set of assumptions about the construction of folklore that
is rarely tested. The model of the previous "pure"
folkloric state was not dated, it was assumed to be timeless, and
had it not had dynamic as well as static aspects ? Ethnohistory
in the modern sense seemed absent.
Perhaps part of the problem lies with the fact that much modern
research has not reached Russia. There were some brave
exceptions, such as with Anatoly Ivanov, who brought four singers
to perform in "live" (much more effective than tapes),
but his quasi-semiological approach was contested. Now, Russia
has lived through 70 years of Soviet enclosure, and before that
were Tzarist formalists often in power... and now that, thanks to
the disruptions of "market forces", everyone is
struggling to make ends meet, disorganisation is rampant, no
money is available to get updated. Organisations are not often
reliable (eg, US$5000 to support this colloquy was not
forthcoming in Moscow, after a promise, but ESEM made a modest
contribution, with funds from Bruxelles).
In the aftermath of some unwelcomed criticism of the inward-
looking nature of much of the proceedings, Dr Inna Nazina of
Minsk took the practical line of asking how to get the lacking
materials from the rest of the world into Russia. She said that
now that Belorus' no longer got books, records or scores from
Moscow, she wondered if an exchange programme of materials could
be stablished. (She said she needed Nettl's 1963 _Theory and
method in ethnomusicology_ ...) On the other hand, who in the
West knows of Serov and Asafyev, studied in first year in Russia
?) One took this to mean simply exchanging publications from one
source to another, and here the difficulty of languages raised
its head. While every schoolboy knows that more people in the
world speak Chinese, English or Spanish than they do Russian, the
underlying problem rests with who is willing to make an effort to
learn other languages. Surely this happens when the chance of
travelling is offered ! Yet, what is the use of exchanging
materials if they remain unread ?
Russian ethnomusicologists would have no difficulty listenings to
CDs or reading scores, and we in the West vice-versa, but the
matter of ideas, predominantly verbal, is perhaps to come later.
One has noted that most Russians (and others from the
"East") gain some inspiration from their occasional
travels to the West. It is reciprocal, and although we were not
numerous at Rouza, we from the West were impressed, as well as
perturbed by some aspects. One doubts that we were an arm of
western forms of cultural domination (ethnomusicology is not
coca-cola, nor does it have a merchant bank), but the suspicion
may have been there. Fear of change ?
There is considerable insularity in the conduct of our disciple
in many parts of Europe. One suspects that 19th century
folklorism still rules in many parts. It is not merely that which
has been revealed in Russia, it is evident in Spain (specialists
of their back-gardens, ignoring the exterior Hispanic world) and
in Scandinavia. Even the Americans indulge themselves with navel-
gazing. Our discipline was once said to be "comparative
musicology", and more and more we lack the comparative
spirit, which means voyaging and taking risks as being the
"outsider". Are we running out of steam in the spirit
of enquiry, at a time when world travel could not be more
facilitated ? From whence the general failure of nerve ? One
might relance the appeal that if one is to be a cultural
scientist, one must go and learn "how to be one of
them" in at least one other strange culture. Ex Moscow, the
citadines of Pesen Zemli have shown that it can even be done in
the Slav territories. In China, over the last ten years, the
"minorities" have suddenly been revalued due to the
work of some brave pioneers. There is a counter-current that many
small ethnic groups believe they can satisfy themselves by
themselves as to the nature of their traditional cultures.
It now seems appropriate to try and mount a project to supply
materials to Minsk, Moscow and St Petersburg from donors in the
West. At this point we do not even have reliable addresses, we
are not sure how to send packages that will not be stolen.
Accounting procedures in the West are so ridiculous that, when
funds are available to bring Russians to the West, they cannot be
sent to take advantage of local prices, and much money is wasted.
Bank transfers are directly robbed in Moscow. Up to now, getting
a package of books to Russia (eg, Arom's book on Russian
polyphonies) has meant finding trusty personal couriers.
The editors of _Cahiers de musiques traditionnelles_ can offer complete sets to the three centres in Russia/Belorus', if they can be safely transported. From Paris, the collection of CDs made by Musee de l'Homme (Chant du Monde) may be made available. ESEM has decided to act as coordinating centre for a project to supply those materials which have been lacking, but before the individual contributions pour in, we would like to formalise a project, perhaps with support from Bruxelles. There may be better ways to organise this than we yet are aware of, and all ideas will be welcome : write to me at 29 rue Roquelaine, 31000 Toulouse, France.