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Themusic of Bulgaria refers to all forms of music associated with the country ofBulgaria, including classical, folk, popular music, and other forms.
Classical music, opera, and ballet are represented by composersEmanuil Manolov,Pancho Vladigerov andGeorgi Atanasov and singersGhena Dimitrova,Anna Tomowa-Sintow,Boris Hristov,Raina Kabaivanska andNicolai Ghiaurov.[1][2][3][4] Notable names from the contemporary pop scene areLili Ivanova,Emil Dimitrov andVasil Naydenov. Prominent Bulgarian artists living abroad includeSylvie Vartan,Kristian Kostov,Philipp Kirkorov,Lucy Diakovska,Mira Aroyo,Mikhael Paskalev,Nora Nova,Vasko Vassilev andIvo Papazov.
TheBulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir has received aGrammy Award in 1990.[5] The Philip Kutev Ensemble, the first of the Bulgarian state-sponsored folk ensembles and founded in 1951, also is featured on the 1990 Grammy-winning album and has had many well-known Bulgarian folk singers, including, at present, Neli Andreeva and Sorina Bogomilova.Rhodope folk singerValya Balkanska has recorded the folk song "Izlel ye Delyo Haydutin", which was included on theGolden Disk sent into space with the Voyager spacecraft in 1977.
Bulgarian music uses a wide range of instruments. Some folk instruments are variants of traditional Asian instruments such as the "Saz" (Bulgariantambura), or thekemençe (Bulgariangadulka). More modern style instruments are often used in the modern dance music that is an offshoot of traditional village music.
Bulgarian folk bands, called bitovi, use instruments that commonly include
Modern professional musicians soon reached new heights of innovation in using traditional Bulgarian instruments, by expanding the capacities of the gaida (Kostadin Varimezov andNikola AtanasovPlamen Deyanski), gadulka (Mihail Marinov,Atanas VulchevGanka,Zhechko tenev) and kaval (Stoyan Chobanov,Nikola Ganchev,Stoyan Velichkov, Nedyalko Nedyalkov,Theodosii Spassov. Other instruments arrived in Bulgaria in the 19th century, including theaccordion and the clarinet. Bulgarian accordion music was defined byBoris Karlov and later Roma musicians includingKosta Kolev andIbro Lolov ,Boshko.
In 1965, the Ministry of Culture founded theKoprivshtitsa National Music Festival, which has become an important event in showcasing Bulgarian music, singing and dance. It is held once every five years, and the last festival was 7–9 August 2015.
Instruments used in wedding music include violin,accordion,gaida,kaval,tapan,Tambura,guitar andPiano.
Regional styles abound in Bulgaria.Northern Bulgaria,Dobruja,Shopluk,Thrace,Strandzha,Macedonia andRhodopes - all have distinctive sounds.
Some folk music revolves around holidays like Christmas, New Year's Day, midsummer, and the Feast ofSt. Lazarus, as well as the Strandzha region's unusualNestinarstvo rites, in which villagers fall into a trance and dance on hot coals as part of the joint feast of StsKonstantin andElena on 21 May. Music is also a part of more personal celebrations such as weddings.
Singing has always been a tradition for both men and women. Songs were often sung by women at work parties such as the sedenka (often attended by young men and women in search of partners to court), betrothal ceremonies, and just for fun. Women also had an extensive repertoire of songs that they sang while working in the fields.
Young women eligible for marriage played a particularly important role at thedancing in the village square (which not too long ago was the major form of "entertainment" in the village and was a very important social scene). The dancing — every Sunday and for three days on major holidays like Easter — began not with instrumental music, but with two groups of young women singing, one leading each end of the dance line. Later on, instrumentalists might arrive and the singers would no longer lead the dance. A special form of song, the lament, was sung not only at funerals but also when young men departed for military service.
Bulgarian folk music is known for itsasymmetrical rhythms (defined by the famous Hungarian composer and ethnomusicologistBéla Bartók as "Bulgarian rhythms"), where meter is split into uneven combinations of short (two metric units) and long (three metric units) beats, corresponding to the dancers' short and long steps. In European folk music, such asymmetrical rhythms are commonly used in Bulgaria, Greece, elsewhere in the Balkans, and less commonly in Norway and Sweden.
The most important state-supported folk ensemble of the socialist era was the Sofia-basedState Ensemble for Folk Songs and Dances, founded in 1951 and led byPhilip Koutev. Koutev became perhaps the most influential musician of 20th century Bulgaria, and arranged rural music withharmonies more "accessible" to audiences in other countries, to great domestic acclaim. The ensemble has now been renamed the Philip Kutev Ensemble in his honor. In 1952, Georgi Boyadzhiev founded the group known today as theBulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir, which became famous worldwide after the release of a series of recordings entitledLe Mystère des Voix Bulgares.
The distinctive sounds of women's choirs in Bulgarian folk music come from their unique rhythms, harmony and vocal production. Characteristicpolyphony, such as the use of close intervals like themajor second and the singing of a drone accompaniment underneath the melody, are especially common in songs from the Shope region around the Bulgarian capital Sofia and the Pirin region (Bulgarian Macedonia). In addition to the ensemble led by Koutev, who adapted and arranged many of the harmonies, and composed several songs (as did his wife, Maria Kouteva) that were also performed by other groups, other women's vocal groups gained popularity, includingTrio Bulgarka, consisting ofYanka Rupkina,Eva Georgieva, andStoyanka Boneva. Some of these groups were included in the "Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices" tours.
Trio Bulgarka were featured onThe Sensual World album byKate Bush on the songs "Deeper Understanding", "Never Be Mine", and "Rocket's Tail".[6] In 1993 they appeared on another Kate Bush album,The Red Shoes, in the songs "You're the One", "The Song of Solomon", and "Why Should I Love You?", which also featuredPrince.
One of the most distinctive features of Bulgarian folk music is the complexity of its rhythms in comparison to Western music. Although it uses Western meters such as2
4,3
4, and4
4, Bulgarian music also includes meters with odd numbers of beats per measure, sometimes called asymmetric meters. These can be understood as combinations of groups of "quick" and "slow" beats. For example, the dancelesnoto ("the light/easy one") has a meter of seven beats with emphasis on the first, fourth, and sixth. This can be divided into three groups, a "slow" unit of three beats and two "quick" units of two beats, often written3+2+2.
Each basic folk dance type uses a distinct combination of these rhythmic "units".Some examples of Bulgarian folk dances arerachenitsa (seven beats divided:2+2+3),paydushko horo (five beats:2+3),eleno mome (seven beats:2+2+1+2),kopanitsa (eleven beats:2+2+3+2+2),Bucimis (15 beats:2+2+2+2+3+2+2), andpravo horo, which can either be standard4
4 or6
8.
Some rhythms with the same number of beats can be divided in different ways. Eight-beat rhythms can be divided2+3+3,3+2+3,3+3+2,2+2+2+2,2+2+4,2+4+2,4+2+2, or4+4.
The tradition of church singing in Bulgaria is more than a thousand years old, and can be traced back to the early Middle Ages. One of the earliest known musical figures (composer, singer and musical reformer) ofMedieval EuropeJohn Kukuzel (1280–1360), known as The Angel-voiced for his singing abilities, has Bulgarian origins.
In theBulgarian Orthodox Church, there are two traditions of church singing:
The following list shows contemporary Bulgarian choirs and singers that have a repertoire rooted in orthodox music:
Some of the most popular artists include:
Chalga (pop-folk) is a contemporary music style that combines often provocative Bulgarian lyrics with popularEastern European (rarely Russian and Ukrainian) andTurkish music. It is the Bulgarian version of the corresponding variations in neighbouring countries such as Greece (Laïkó), Serbia (Turbofolk) or Romania (manele).
This subgenre is rather a mixture ofsynthpop andgypsy music with Bulgarian wedding motives.Yuri Yunakov, a BulgarianRomani saxophonist, is one of its creators with clarinetistIvo Papazov. The albumNew Colors in Bulgarian Wedding Music highlights his amalgamation of traditional Bulgarian music with more modern elements.
During the Communist era, some folk musicians lived outside the state-supported music scene. Without official support, wedding bands were also without official limitations on their music, leading to fusions with foreign styles and instruments.Thrace was an important center of this music, which was entirely underground until 1986, when a festival of this music, which became a biennial event, was inaugurated in the town of Stambolovo, and artists likeSever,Trakiîski Solisti,Shoumen andJuzhni Vetar became popular, especiallyclarinetistIvo Papasov.
