About the Theory of National Music: Towards a Methodology of Comparative Study of Musical and Poetic Folklore Systems
Abstract
The study of folk music in each culture, according to Kliment Kvitka, passes through several
stages: from the initial stage of collecting folk songs to the emergence of a “theory of national
music” and an overcoming of the stereotypes of an “all-triumphant contemporary musical theory
and practice.” In this type of theory Boris Asafiev highlighted the following aims: 1. A scholarly
substantiation of the bases of folk songs; 2. Indications of its dissimilarities with the songs
of other peoples; 3. The study of “the process of its evolution.” The process of formation of
theories of national music took place during the entire 20th century in Russian music theory,
including the Near-Volga region, where the most large-numbered of all of Russia’s non-Slavic
peoples are concentrated. For the sake of discussing the issues of methodology of disclosing the
dissimilarities of the music of this culture from the music of other people’s we have chosen as
an example the structural-typological features of the musical-poetical systems of two Finnishlanguage
peoples of the Near-Volga region – the Mari and the Mordvins. A comparison of their
musical-poetic systems shows that from the perspective of their song cultures they represent two
distinctly different musical worlds, differing, so to speak, on a civilizational level. The features
of the examined musical-poetic systems are stipulated by their historically formed intercultural
dialogue.
Keywords: stages of studying folk music, theory of national music, structural and typological
traits of national music, musical-poetic systems, Finnish language peoples of the Near-Volga
Region.
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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.33779/2587-6341.2020.4.008-019
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