E-mail: kosykh_88@inbox.ru Tel.: +7 (925) 705-69-17
2a, Glinka str., St. Petersburg, 190000, Russian Federation
Candidate, Department of Ethnomusicology, Faculty of Musicology of the Rimsky-Korsakov St. Petersburg State Conservatory
The funeral and memorial complex of the Doukhobors of Javakheti is filled with numerous complicated and artistically valuable musical and poetic forms, among which a special place is occupied by religious chants or “psalms.” The musical features of Doukhobor “psalms” have been studied before, but the assessment of their melodies as ritual (i. e., taking into account their context) has not been undertaken. In this article, the melodies of three “psalms” — performed at funerals in various Doukhobor settlements for more than a century — are analyzed in order to determine their musical and stylistic specifics and identify the logic of their inclusion in the funeral rite. Despite the fact that the texts of the psalms are different in origin and structure, their melodies represent one stylistic layer and are based on a single organizational principle. The article analyzes the musical content of the “psalms,” transmitted in parallel with the verbal, by investigating their mode of intonation (that occupies a leading position in the hierarchy of means of expression). The fret structures and melodic constructions underlying the tunes turn out to be close to funeral lamentations recorded in various Doukhobor settlements of Transcaucasia. Like lamentations, the melodies of “funeral psalms” perform lament for the deceased, which accompanies the various stages of the funeral from the deceased in the coffin to burial.
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