Lithuanian music – a phenomenon of cultural interaction
It is also believed that Lithuanian folk music may have been influenced by the music of non-Christian cultures living in Lithuania, such as the Karaites, Crimean Tatars, and Jews, but the number of surviving sound recordings is limited.
“In the Karaite community, unfortunately, only two or three sound recordings have survived, mostly of religious music and ceremonial songs (e.g. wedding songs). The situation is similar with the music of the Crimean Tatars living in Lithuania,” says Germanavičius.
According to him, when it comes to Lithuanian Jewish folk music before 1940, most of the recordings were dominated by religious or klezmer music (traditional non-liturgical Western European Jewish music and its special style of performance), while there are no recordings of other genres in Lithuania.
Researchers used comparative analysis method, which revealed and identified similarities in microtonal structures when comparing Lithuanian traditional music harmonies with historical European and Asian systems of unequal temperaments.
The results clearly showed the similarity of the intervals to the natural harmony and the Arabic harmony, which has many natural intervals. Old European temperamental systems, such as Werckmeister III, may also have influenced the harmony of Lithuanian music through Christian organ music, although natural intervals can also be found in the latter tunings.
These links show that Lithuanian music is not an isolated phenomenon – it is part of a wider cultural space that connects East and West.
Attempt to sustain archaic sound
Although the early 20th century spread of the 12-sound equal temperament system in the tuning of musical instruments led to the abandonment of natural intervals and changed the quality and variety of the sound of the works, previous research by KTU musicologists has shown that equal temperament is not a common feature of Lithuanian folk music and has not altered the traditional Lithuanian tuning.
“Research on Lithuanian folk music has shown that the music of Lithuanian emigrants in the USA is different from the recordings that survived in Lithuania. At the end of the 20th century, there was a shift to a system of equal semitones in the songs recorded in both the US and Lithuania, but some collections, such as the Smithsonian Folkways, still retain the old Lithuanian intonations,” says Dr Germanavičius.
The KTU researcher also proposes new methods of microtonal music notation, the practice of which is applied in new contemporary professional music compositions.
“One of the creative goals of integrating archaic interval structures into compositional systems is to preserve or transform the original sound of the interval structures. The integration of archaic structures changes the creative process of music, and attempts to preserve and deconstruct the structures of authentic archaic harmonies,” says the researcher.
He argues that this allows for new combinations of harmony, timbre and sound, revealing the colours of archaic music in a modern musical space. The variety of archaic harmonies and micro-interval structures allows discovering new creative possibilities and expanding the limits of musical expression.
Project “Adaptation of non-uniform tuning systems to new technologies and their application in creative and performance practices”, Nr. S-PD-24-20, supported by the Lithuanian Science Council. Dr. Darius Kučinskas, Dr. Vytautas Germanavičius, Dr. Mindaugas Kavaliauskas.
