The purpose of this
paper is to discuss traditional and modern styles for playing kokles (the
Latvian variation of Baltic psaltery or board zither). To answer questions
about the nature of kokles styles today and about their relation to earlier
rural traditions, musical events are viewed in their personal, social, and
cultural contexts. A scheme for the correlation of different styles is offered,
according to which symbolic, artistic, folkloric, and post-folkloric groupings
may be distinguished.
This study focuses
on different styles of playing the Latvian kokles and possible relations among
styles. I pose this question: What is the nature of kokles playing styles today
and how are different styles related to earlier rural playing traditions? Thus,
I will touch upon certain continuities from traditional styles as well as treat
the creation of new styles. This study encompasses the full variety of live
kokles performances as well as relies upon a full range of reference materials,
including sound recordings, published and unpublished descriptions, notations
and personal observations.
According to
musicologist Mantle Hood (296), "a true comprehension of musical style is
dependent upon an understanding of its cultural context." Hood suggests
that the norms of musical style should be considered in relation to the
tradition, style periods, genres, and to musical consensus, which is in
constant interaction with the cultural consensus and the social consensus
(300). One can say that to a great extent musical style is determined by the
social and cultural contexts, which pertain to the performance situation.
On the most basic
level all kokles performance situations viewed in respect to the cultural
context can be divided into two groups: traditional and modern. This division
reflects the cultural dichotomy of traditional and modern culture, a topic I
shall not discuss here. Instead, I shall concentrate on the characteristics of
the respective styles and try to point out some relations between them.
The kokles is a
board zither that belongs to a group of related musical instruments: Finnish-Karelian
kantele/kandeleh, Estonian kannel, Livonian kāndla, Latvian-Latgalian
kokles/kūkles, Lithuanian kanklės/kankliai/kunkliai, Russian (Pskov
and Novgorod only!) gusli. Some authorities believe these names derive from
proto-Baltic *kantlēs1 (Toivonen 156), or *kantlīs (Nieminen 35-37,
41-43), with a supposed original meaning of "the singing tree".
According to others, the Baltic names are derived from *gan(dh)- or *gandtli
(Apanavičius 39), names that stem from the IE root with the meaning
"vessel, handle, hilt"; this ethimology supposes the use of the
instrument in pre-historic funeral rites of the period when people were burried
in a "vessel" - boat or sleigh - and the instrument served as a
ritual substitute of this "vessel".
The kantlēs
type is distributed in central and eastern Finland, Karelia, Ingermanland, the
Novgorod and Pskov regions of Russia, most parts of Estonia, Latvia, and
Lithuania - a territory that coincides approximately with the archaeological
(4th millenium B. C.) Narva culture region (Apanavičius 12). The
instruments of this region display considerable uniformity in construction,
technology, ornamentation, as well as in use, symbolism, and some
musical-stylistic features. The kantlēs type can be divided into subtypes:
Igor Tõnurist distinguishes two groups - the small and the big, or
"winged" instruments (177), while Romualdas Apanavičius
identifies three groups, which differ in several morphological parameters
(13-19).
There are two main
regions in Latvia, where kokles traditions survived into the first half of the
twentieth century: the western and southwestern part of Kurzeme and the central
and northern part of Latgale. Two of the subtypes Igor Tõnurist
identifies dominate in those regions: the small instruments in the west and the
big ones in the east (Sproģis 89-91, 94-110, 116-130). Therefore the small
ones are named "Kurzemes kokles" (kokles of Kurzeme) and the big
ones, "Latgales kokles" (kokles of Latgale). On the average, Kurzemes
kokles are smaller than the Latgalian ones. They have 5-10 strings. In Latgale,
kokles are made with as many as twelve strings. There is no bridge connecting
strings directly to the resonator board. At one end, they are fastened to
wooden (or sometimes metal) tuning pegs, and at the other, narrower end to a
string-holder. Thus, they are arranged slightly radially. The kokles playing
style of western Kurzeme is the best known. It belongs to a small Catholic
enclave, the so-called suiti region. The earliest musical notations from there
are from the fieldwork of Andrejs Jurjāns (63), who collected there in
1881. Emilis Melngailis scored a stylistically similar repertoire fifty years
later (137-147), as did Jūlijs Sproģis in the 1930s (111-115) and
Andrejs Krūmiņš in 1948 (Muktupāvels 1987:120). Musical recordings
from the suiti region are rare: Nikolajs Heņķis was recorded in the
1930s with some four musical pieces and his apprentice Jānis Poriķis
in the 1980s. They play with a damping technique, in which the instrument is
placed on the player's knees and the strings are damped with the left-hand
fingers and strummed toward the player with the right hand. The slight-beat
notes are picked in with the left-hand fingers. No plectrum or other strumming
device is used. The pitch is rather high and the basic tone varies from D to G
of the first octave. The tuning is diatonic and the essential tuning element is
a drone string, one-fourth below the basic tone.
The repertoire
consists mostly of sixteen-bar, two-part pieces, which can serve as an
accompaniment to some dances and therefore bears the name of the respective
dance. When played, those tunes are repeated with some variations. Kokles
playing can serve as an accompaniment to singing as well and adding some
slight-beat tones varies the respective melody.
Another traditional
style is that of central and eastern Latgale, the Catholic part of Latvia.
Several musical notations from the 1930s (Sproģis 92-94) and recordings of
Antons Lozda from 1950s (Muktupāvels 1987:121-122) serve as the basis for
describing the style. The instrument is placed on the player's knees with the
short strings up, resting the upper part of kokles against the stomach of the
player (Cimermanis). The same damping technique is used, but the strumming is
different. Antons Lozda seems to use the strumming with his right-hand fingers
in both directions, towards and away from him. His kokles has ten strings and
the tuning is diatonic; it cannot be stated definitely whether there is a drone
string one-fourth below tonic. Otherwise his style does not differ much from
the western Kurzeme style.
An eastern Latvian
style similar to that of the Pskov and Novgorod region players has been
reported. In it, the fingers of the left hand are inserted between the strings,
with a slight move up or down to damp the respective group of strings
(Muktupāvels 1993:110). The right-hand strums in both directions, but with
a specific "by-strumming": on heavy beat away from the player and
quickly and slightly back, similar to detache techniques on the violin.
The kokles was
mostly a solo instrument, though in some folklore texts two, five, nine, and
thrice-nine players are mentioned (Klotiņš, Muktupāvels 205).
Kokles players were men, most likely professionals (Barons XXIII, Jaremko
40-6), though some hold a different opinion, namely that kokles was played
everywhere and by almost everyone in rural areas (Vītoliņš 64,
Jaremko 51-6). Some sources describe the kokles as an instrument for oneself
(Slavinskas 280-1).
As singing in
"harmonic style" in the Latvian countryside gradually pushed out
traditional vocal styles in the second half of the nineteenth century, so
instrumental music also underwent basic changes. Kokles style was strongly
influenced by the increasing number of different kinds of zithers, initially,
those imported mostly from Germany, but quite soon those made locally
(Priedīte 8-9). The construction and playing of kokles gradually assumed
several of the features of certain German zithers. The number of strings of
zither-like kokles is significantly larger than that of the small kokles: the
instruments usually have twenty to twenty-five double strings, but in some
cases the number of double or even triple strings can exceed thirty. The drone
string is lost, but two, three or more bass strings are added. Metal pegs are
used instead of wooden ones; a bridge is introduced to connect strings with a
resonator. The body is glued together from smaller parts, and special ribs are
introduced to withstand the increased tension of strings (Muktupāvels
1987:54-5).
A certain variety
of zither-like kokles playing styles exits, particularly in rural area and some
smaller towns of northeastern Vidzeme and northern and central Latgale, but
there is insufficient documentation and recordings for stating important
details of the style. The diatonic scales are definitely dominant. The
left-hand damping technique is used, but the strings are usually strummed with
a wooden or thick leather plectrum. A melody can be heard as a combination of the
highest pitches (resulting from strumming with the plectrum) and of the
slight-beat tones (resulting from the left hand picking-in). Latgalian
zither-like kokles player Pīters Zlīdņa and virtuoso Aloizijs
Jūsmiņš (1915-1979) are recorded playing in this style
(Priedīte 20).
Pīters
Zlīdņa's instrument has more than twenty double strings. He holds it
on his knees with the short strings up, just like Antons Lozda. His repertoire
includes dance tunes ("Klibais", "Vengerka", "Veclaiku
polka") and instrumental versions of lyrical songs ("Kam maņ
beja nadzeivōt"). Aloizijs Jūsmiņš's instruments have
more strings. For example, an instrument he made in 1948 has three bass, twenty
double, and three triple strings, while one made in 1952 has seventy-nine metal
pegs, of which ten are used with single strings; twenty, with double strings.
The function of the rest of pegs is not clear.
A different style
of zither-like kokles also is known. In it, a melody is played with the right
hand thumb, on which a metal ring with a sharp barb is worn. The rest of the
left-hand fingers are used for damping, while the right hand strums to produce
a chordal accompaniment to the melody and bass.
Though solo playing
of zither-like kokles was dominant, kokles duos or ensembles with other
instruments, such like violins, trumpets or accordions, sometimes accompanied
dance music (Priedīte 11).
Very little is
known about the style of playing kokles in church. Jūlijs Sproģis
(89) mentions an old man who used to play kokles as an accompaniment to
"sacred" (psalm) singing. In my view, the respective style or styles
could be viewed as traditional, since they derive mostly from a rural
population and were learned in a characteristically traditional way - without the use of written or published sources.
A similar phenomenon is known to have existed in Lithuania (Motuzas 21-25) and
Estonia. The popular term "Dieva kokles" (kokles of God) suggests the
same for Latvia, besides, the instrument is mentioned several times in the
first and the following translations of the Bible into Latvian
(Muktupāvels 1999, 13).
Broad recognition
of Latvians as a people came only after eigthteenth-century humanist Garlieb
Helwig Merkel published Die Letten (The Latvians) in Leipzig in 1797. His
powerful, imposing, and romantic description of Latvian history, culture, and
religion strongly influenced those who defined the Latvian nation a century
later.
Somewhat earlier,
in 1778-1779, Johann Gottfried Herder, the central figure both in articulating
and crystallizing romantic-nationalistic consciousness in eighteenth-century
Europe, pointed to the existence of Latvian music in his Volkslieder. Herder
was deeply inspired by his contact with living Latvian tradition during his
five-year stay in Riga. This contact influenced his general attitude towards
folklore. For Herder, folklore was of central importance in the
romantic-nationalistic program.
Herder collected a
few dozen Latvian folksongs, but substantive collection work started a hundred
years later. It produced several folklore collections, among which were two of
outstanding importance: Krišjānis Barons' 6-volume collection of
Latvian folksong texts Latvju dainas (Latvian dainas) and Andrejs Jurjāns'
6-volume collection of traditional music Latvju tautas mūzikas
materiāli (Musical materials of Latvian folk). Both collections had an
immense impact on the emerging Latvian nation. As Vaira
Vīķe-Freibergs states, "Through their collections of songs,
[Finns and Latvians] recovered their lost past, restored their dignity, and
strengthened their sense of collective identity" (4). Latvju dainas became
a cornerstone in the symbolic construction of Latvian national identity and
culture; similarly. Dainas were key for the symbolic construction of the
meaning of Latvian national musical culture.
Actual musical life
through more than a century of development provides evidence of this symbolic
construction. Though the musical heritage was praised as valuable and as
fundamental, it had to go through more or less significant transformations - be
decontextualized and recontextualized - in order to adapt its traits to musical
life.
This is also true
with respect to traditional instrumental music and, particularly, to kokles
traditions. On the one hand, kokles had gained the highest appreciation and
status among all traditional instruments, but, on the other hand, it is hard to
find even a hint that anyone would have made the attempts to revitalize the
tradition or to disseminate its playing techniques among cultural elites.
Kokles was merely a symbol of a national soul, or of a singing spirit.
Therefore, we may use the term "zero style" to describe the real
musical styles of the respective period.
In an urban
environment, members of dievturība, a romantic-nationalist project,
provided the primary organized effort to revive kokles playing traditions.
Dievturība2 was founded as an effort to establish a national religion.
Several nineteenth- and twentieth-century authors expressed ideas concerning
ancient Latvian religion, among them Alunāns, Auseklis, Pumpurs, Kronvalds
and Lecs. But, in point of fact, Ernests Brastiņš (1892-1942)
established dievturība as a religious system. He created its programmatic
documents and catechism, and in philosophical, political, and other essays, he
published selections of folklore materials drawn from the results of his
research in art, ethnography and history.
Ernests
Brastiņš's ideas served as a basis for the formation of a dievturi
musical life. Therefore I cite a fragment from his 1937 article on the content
and agenda of dievturi services: "Behind the table there is the priest,
next to him a choir and kokles players. [...] To the accompaniment of stick
rattles (trideksnis) and kokles, the choir is singing nine thematically
appropriate folk songs. The performance should prepare the audience for the
sermon and meditation and should create solemn and harmonious feelings"
(141).
The responsibility
for musical matters in the dievturi congregation belongs to a special person,
the organist and composer Valdemārs Ozoliņš (1896-1973), who
became the first conductor of the dievturi choir. He helped to organize some
theatrical performances, for which he created choral arrangements of Latvian
folk songs. Little else is known about his activities in the field of
instrumental music, except for his intention to organize an ensemble to perform
the ancient music at an artistically high level.
Two of the most
prominent figures in the dievturi musical life were Jānis Norvilis
(1906-1994) and Arturs Salaks (1891-1984). Organist and composer Jānis
Norvilis raised the activity and the musical standards of dievturi musical life
considerably. He created four-part choral arrangements of Latvian folk songs,
compiled folksong cycles for calendar celebrations, and introduced the use of
trideksnis and kokles (Arvīds Brastiņš 399). Jānis Norvilis
used functional harmony to arrange folksongs. Diatonic scale and frequent use
of drones in all parts characterized his style. His instrumental arrangements,
without going into detail, may be regarded as a kind of art music.
Composer, teacher,
and folklorist Arturs Salaks became the musical leader of dievturi in 1936. In
his opinion, the sources for Latvian music, including patterns for new music,
were to be found in folk music, especially in its most archaic strata. Thus he
developed his own arrangement style, which he named "the Latvian
style." In addition, he had his own style for original compositions,
characterized by four-part choral arrangements, with or without soloists, and
frequent use of drones and antiphonal singing. The sentimentality and sweetness
of singing in thirds and sixths and the quite primitive use of three basic
harmonic functions dominate his compositions.
Arturs Salaks
himself practiced kokles playing. From my personal communication with him, I
can conclude that he was influenced by Jānis Norvilis and by some
unidentified players of zither-like kokles in northern Latvia. From those
players, he remembered the technique of using the metal ring on his left thumb,
and in 1980 he could still demonstrate this technique, though rather poorly,
perhaps because of his age.
Salaks tried to
"improve" zither-like kokles to make it possible to switch from one
tonality to another. He devised a special metal cylinder with handles and
tuning pins that was placed on the right side under the strings. By turning the
handle, the pins touched the appropriate strings, thus tuning them half a tone
higher. Since several strings could be tuned simultaneously, it was possible to
switch from one tonality to another with a single move of the handle. Thus
Arturs Salaks changed diatonic kokles into a polytonic instrument. He did not
make the instruments himself, but sketched out his intentions and instructed
the maker. As a rule, the basic parameters of his kokles - that is, the shape,
construction, number of strings (17-70), presence of bass strings - were quite
similar to those of the zither-like kokles.
Arturs Salaks also
attempted to create an ensemble or even an orchestra of folk music instruments.
Along with the kokles, he introduced two-string fiddles and shepherd clarinets.
His work was interrupted by the Soviet occupation in 1940 and the onset of
World War II. He resumed his work on new models of kokles several decades after
the war.
The idea of a
kokles ensemble reappeared again and again in contexts. Composers, especially
Emilis Melngailis (1874-1954), promoted the idea. In keeping with his
interpretation of selected folklore texts, he envisioned that a kokles ensemble
should consist of thrice nine (or twenty-seven) instruments of different sizes
and musical functions. His idea did not find many followers in the 1930s, and
the kokles continued to be played mostly as a solo instrument in the urban
vicinity.
The development of
kokles styles after the World War II must be discussed in the context of Soviet
rule. On the one hand, the Soviet era encompassed the ideology of socialism and
the supposed disappearance (practically, the near extermination) of national
particularities (essence) while, on the other hand, it brought about the formal
development of so-called national cultures. With regard to music, the
development of such "national cultures" was to be sought within a
genetic-hierarchic scheme: folk music - amateur music - professional music. In
this schema, the term "folk music" denoted musical folklore uprooted
from its natural surroundings and viewed through the prism of art music,
together with certain kinds of popular music. "Amateur music"
referred to the artistic activity of the masses, whereas "professional
music" required professional education. Thus the development of a national
musical culture was interpreted as a process to "improve" folk music
to the amateur or professional level.
Playing folk music
instruments fit well into the aforementioned scheme as amateur art. It could
involve many people, and its "folkishness" could be ensured in a
repertoire that included arrangements of traditional music. Thus, playing folk
music instruments, especially kokles, which represented the most important
symbols of national culture, was reinterpreted in Soviet ideological terms and
successfully integrated into Soviet musical life. Kokles ensembles consisting
of many members were encouraged and collective music making earned a permanent
place.
A family of
instruments and voices to accompany the kokles - piccolo, soprano, alto, tenor,
bass and double-bass - was developed to meet the ensemble playing needs
(Vertkov 96). The kokles of Sergejs Krasnopjorovs had 14-23 diatonically tuned
strings (Vertkov 96 and pictures nr. 300-3), but instruments with 23-26 strings
were established later, in the 1960s (Āboliņa 5-6). In addtion, half
tone switches were adjusted to each string, making it possible to tune it
instantly a half a tone higher. Later, the so-called double switches were
invented, allowing pitches to be raised or lowered by a half tone and
transforming the kokles from a diatonic to a chromatic instrument. Instruction
on the new instrument - the so-called "concert kokles" or
"modernized kokles" - became a part of children's curricula in music
schools, music colleges, and the folk music department of the conservatory.
Simultaneously, the kokles' traditional status as a man's instrument underwent
basic changes. By the 1960s, it established as an instrument played mostly by
women. Only the bass or the double-bass kokles continued to be played by men,
maybe because of its larger size and the extra power needed to pluck the
thicker strings.
To describe the
repertoire, it is useful to examine a manual called Kokles spēle. Teorija
un repertuārs. Its contents include about one third arrangements of
Latvian folk songs and dances; one third, original kokles compositions by
Latvian and Lithuanian composers; and the rest, arrangements of folksongs and
dances of different, mostly Soviet, peoples, as well as classical, romantic,
ballet and popular music, arranged for kokles.
Kokles ensembles
became an integral part of festive public and official occasions, including
official Soviet celebrations of "the Great October Socialist
Revolution", Soviet Army day, and others. Such celebrations typically
included the appearance of kokles-players, dressed in stylized and uniform folk
costume together with other elements that emphasized "folkishness" -
long artificial braids, massive crowns, etc. A stiff and ceremonial atmosphere
dominated these events. Nevertheless, the former symbolic meaning of
traditional kokles persisted, and through such events, popular views about
modernized kokles as a truly national or folk instrument were maintained.
In addition to the
kokles ensemble, another significant component of Soviet Latvian musical
culture was the so-called folk instrument orchestra, which refers to a
symphonic-orchestra-like grouping of modified folk music instruments. This
phenomenon has not yet been fully studied, but we can assert that its rise and
existence in some eastern European and Asian countries was decided by their
remoteness from centers of European high culture, by feelings of the cultural
inferiority, and by the neglect of the importance of individuality. Folk
orchestras and ensembles, characteristic of the imperial Russian (Maksimov
7-8), and later Soviet musical culture, were founded in the Baltics soon after
the Soviet occupation at the end of WWII. From 1947 until 1961, such an
orchestra was a member of the State Philharmonic Society in Latvia, while
smaller ensembles of modernized folk instruments continued to exist well into
the 1980s and even early 1990s, until state financing was suspended.
The first
performances with traditional or "ethnographic" singing took place
during the Latvian ethnographic exhibition in 1896. The singers and musicians
from Alsunga and from other parts of Kurzeme came to perform in Riga in the
1920s and '30s. Some traditional music groups - the so-called
"ethnographic ensembles" - were organized in Latvia in the 1950s.
Their primary purpose was to represent Latvian folk culture in festivals, both
locally and throughout the Soviet Union. Usually, the organizers of such
ensembles were folklorists who had studied the traditional music of a
particular region, come to know its singers and musicians, and therefore were
well positioned to invite them to come together to perform (Bērziņa
126). Members of such ensembles knew how to perform the local tradition, but
producers often changed their singing and playing styles to suit stage
performance needs. Too often, the producers had little knowledge of traditional
music and imposed academic singing styles, limited and eliminated variation,
directed the choice of texts, and turned the performers into actors. A member
of the Nīca ethnographic ensemble, Margrieta Otaņķe remembered
the staging of her wedding: "And then they sent a producer, and he tried
to refine everything so thoroughly that nothing was left of our wedding
(Bērziņa 128). Typically, the staging was sentimental, giving the
performance an old-fashioned taste and making it a funny, even slightly
foolish, event. On the contrary, the instrumental playing within those
ethnographic stagings did not differ much from that how it used to be in the
country, as the instruments were used mostly solo - for dance or song
accompaniment (Cimermanis). Of course, those were basically dance music
instruments - violin, zither, concertina, accordion - and only seldom kokles.
Generally, they preserved traditional musical features much better than
singing.
The profound global
cultural processes of the 1960s and '70s had their impact on Latvian musical
culture as well. Although a substantial counter-culture was impossible because
of the ideological strictures, nevertheless an informal pop, rock and folk
movement developed at the grassroots. Students, teachers, and many others
recognized the significance of collecting, studying, and seeking to popularize
authentic folklore. Folklorists paid the greatest attention to the most archaic
forms of traditional music, contrasting them to the latest strata of folklore,
which as being degraded by the folk music instrument orchestras, kokles
ensembles, and especially by the staged dance groups. Cultivating these
resurrected traditions approximated a national resistance movement to Soviet
totalitarianism and Russification. The most striking expression of this
movement was the folklore festival Baltica '88, during which the chief symbol
of independent, pre-war Latvia - the national flag - was publicly displayed.
Though still under control of Soviet authorities, this "folklore
movement" nevertheless became a strong locus for resistance
(Muktupāvels 2000, 506).
Folklore movement
enthusiasts formed ensembles and clubs; in 1980 about ten ensembles and two
clubs emerged; in the next five years this number reached and exceeded one
hundred. Members of ensembles turned away from concert performances to
concentrate on popularizing different kinds and local styles of vocal,
instrumental and choreographic traditions. The most acceptable practices,
especially at the beginning of the folklore movement, included teaching songs,
singing with the audience, commenting on calendar festivities and celebrations,
and dance parties. Even if the event started as a concert, it assumed more and
more features of a singing and dancing workshop and ended with a dance party.
This form gradually changed, and by the end of the 1980s it was quite common
for a folklore ensemble to perform a concert.
This withdrawal
from "folkloric purity" promoted the formation of a new, rather
radical position among folklore purists (revivalists, anachronists,
neo-pagans), who accepted traditional lifestyles and practiced folklore in
calendar and life-cycle festivities, at home, or in circles of friends.
In connection with
this folklorism of the 1980s, there emerged a strong interest in reviving
traditional kokles consisting of 7-12 strings. Some enthusiasts studied
traditional playing styles and made instruments. In the late 1980s there was
about a hundred of individual kokles players who made their own instruments.
Those who wished to play the kokles, usually started by studying the notated or
recorded traditional kokles melodies. Having acquired the initial steps of
kokles playing, the majority of musicians were content, and only a few learned
other techniques and developed their own style.
Initially, the repertoire
for kokles was limited, with only about twenty recorded and perhaps forty
published tunes. Thus, already from the early 1980s sustaining the musical life
of this instrument required methods of approach that broadened its repertoire.
A lot of dance melodies, originally played on other instruments (violin or
concertina, for example) were adapted for the kokles. Accompanying a variety of
traditional songs gradually became the basic and the most frequent way of using
the revived instrument.
The contradiction
between the primarily major-key character of the traditional kokles music and
the overwhelmingly minor-key character of the most archaic vocal forms caused
certain changes and innovations in the kokles style. Kokles were adapted to
play in the minor key by raising the pitch of the drone string a whole tone.
Later, two drone strings - a fourth and a minor third below the basic tone -
were added. This made it possible to switch between major and minor tunings
with a simple damping of the extra drone with the small finger of the left
hand. Different kokles functioned in different, clearly marked, spheres.
Modernized kokles were still taught at special music schools and at the Academy
of Music. The 7-12 stringed instrument typical of Kurzeme or Latgale was used
in most folklore groups. From the late 1980s and the early 1990s, this type was
increasingly introduced into schools.
Revivalists,
neo-pagans, and modern followers of dievturība used instruments with fewer
strings (no more than 12) that were ornamented with runic signs and traditional
symbols to accompany spiritual singing or in personal contemplation and
meditation. Members of these circles also embraced the idea that kokles strings
effect a mystical connection between the individual and a cosmic soul.
Significantly, musical skill was less important than other aspects, say -
serenity or spirituality.
Within the past
decade, modern folklorism in Latvia has created a phenomenon known as
"post-folklore". Ilga Reizniece, the leader of the group
Iļģi, coined this term in 1993, when Iļģi released their
cassette Rāmi, rāmi and the term "post-folklore" was used
to describe the essence of their musical approach. In most regards, it
approximates "the new wave" folklorism of Finland. While mainstream
folklorism in the 1980s strongly accented demonstrating and teaching
traditional music "as it used to be" and folklorists were anxious about
"correctly reproducing the materials of traditional music," a
different attitude emerged among the small, talented, and creative groups and
their musically trained and expert individuals, leaving some room for
individual expression and rather freely intuitive and artistic interpretation
of traditional music. So, it is the comparison of the folklorism of 1980s with
that of the late 1980s and early 1990s that prompts the addition of
"post". In that sense "post-folklore" means "post-eighties
folklorism." It is important to mention that in "post-folklore,"
the ritual function of traditional music is recognized and kept in mind by the
musicians and the audience, although specific rituals, customs, and mythologies
are not necessarily expressed in any visible form. This crucial point
differentiates post-folklore from the song and dance ensembles of "stage
folklore." The musicians usually have good knowledge and command of
traditional Latvian music, but in the music they create, they are also open to
other styles - jazz, minimalist, Celtic, Oriental. Compositions are not written
down, but created improvised.
During the song and
dance festival in the summer of 1993 there was a post-folklore concert with
eight participating groups. Afterwards, informal opinion concluded that the
9-12 stringed kokles had been the dominant instrument at that event and had
finally demonstrated its potential and capacity for "absolute
instrumentalism".
[Table 1.
Comparison of the kokles playing situations]
Every kokles
performance event has a distinctive background or, we might say, it is
constituted by the effect of several different factors, among them the
performers musical education, skill, social status, type of instrument,
motivation for playing, as well as the social and cultural contexts of the
specific performance situation. Perhaps the two most important factors are the
skills and motivation of the performer. Low or high skill levels determine the
situation within which a musician can play comfortably, say, at home, during
celebrations and festivities or in concert halls. The choice of the instrument
is partly dependent on skill level. Low skill levels leave more space for
non-musical factors to become significant in particular playing situations,
whereas high skill levels permit a focus on musical results. Motivations can be
more personal or more social.
The nature of the
music-making event affects the style. Similar situations can result in similar
styles, and within the continuum of kokles music several stylistic groups can
be distinguished.
In order to
establishing a correlation between different kokles styles or style periods, I
propose the following scheme as one possible orientation in the quest for
relations among kokles styles.
[Fig. 1.
Correlation of different kokles styles]
With respect to the
cultural dichotomy of traditional and modern, a circle and a diamond-shaped
line are used to mark respective style regions. In the modern-style region,
four stylistic groups - symbolic, artistic, folkloric and post-folkloric - are
distinguishable. In addition, I identify four extremal situations of
kokles-playing, represented by breaking points [is it correct? Maybe -
vertices] in the diamond-shaped graph. In terms of the playing skill level,
there are two extremal situations: kokles hanging on the wall (1), which I call
"zero style," and virtuoso playing (3). With regard to the dominant
motivation for playing, two other extremal situations can be recognized: kokles
for personal contemplation or meditation (2) and kokles ensembles performing
for official occasions (4). These extremal situations serve as distinguishing
points among the zones of neighboring stylistic groups.
Symbolic styles
display low or medium skill levels and a dominating social motivation for
performance, for example, in patriotic youth organizations (Mazpulki) or in
dievturi services. During the "singing revolution" of the late
eighties, I witnessed an old man holding his kokles high above his head, just
like those who were holding national flags and posters. Occasionally, he
touched the strings to make a sequence of two or three intervals
An increase in
skill level gradually transforms the symbolic styles into the artistic styles.
Performance situations include kokles ensembles on the stage of a culture club
or music school, a kokles orchestra at song and dance festivals. As a rule,
only concert kokles are used here.
Folkloric styles
typify the use of kokles within the folklore movement. Performance is motivated
not so much for social as for personal reasons. It is more spontaneous than
pre-planned in character. The distance between the player and the audience
either does not exist or is significantly reduced. In comparison to a concert
situation, the audience itself is comprised of other folklorists, friends, and
relatives rather than of spectators. Low or medium-low skill levels dominate,
for it is generally accepted that almost anyone can play the kokles, even
publicly.
More skillful
post-folkloric kokles players are more motivated to perform for a broad
audience, which increases their social motivation for playing, especially in
comparison with the folkloric situations. The interaction of the post-folkloric
kokles performers differs from that within the modernized kokles ensemble. The
former is more likely to play alone or in a heterogeneous ensemble and to
display folkloric knowledge, especially in variations and "on spot"
improvising than in a homogeneous ensemble reproducing learned [I would like to
use "learned" or "pre-learned", or "academic", or
something like that, rather than "standard", because it does not
carry the necessary meaning] styles and repertoire.
But, in the end, at
a certain virtuoso skill level, when musical content of the performance
dominates, it is no longer so important whether the background of the player is
"folkloric," "traditional" or "academic." The
Finnish ethnomusicologist Dr. Hannu Saha aptly describes this situation:
"Fortunately, the days are gone in which we were concerned about the very
survival of traditional music, or about its 'authenticity.' The modern
ethnomusicologist3 shares knowledge, and the receivers of that knowledge4 are
free to accept it or to break the rules to their heart's content" (Saha
402).
1 I would suggest
to using this word as a general term for the whole Baltic board zither family.
2 Dievturība -
a religious system; dievturi - adepts of dievturība.
3 From the position
of "bi-musicality" he reflects upon a certain tradition and also
becomes himself an active part of that tradition, therefore he is also a
musician.
4 "The
receivers of that knowledge" and, of course, the ethnomusicologist himself
in his musical activities.
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