MODERN SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT ABOUT THE DEVELOPMENT OF WIND MUSIC AND PERFORMANCE

The purpose of the article is to review modern scientific works of a monographic nature, created on the basis of dissertation research, which is one of the main directions of scientific thought on the development of native wind music and performance in the history of European musical culture. The research methodology is based on the dialectical interconnection of historical, sociological and analytical methods; it allows the analysis of scientific achievements in the study of the development of wind music. The scientific novelty of the article is to identify the main scientific approaches of domestic and foreign scientists to research on historical and sociological processes that affect the development of Russian brass music against the background of European musical art. Conclusions. The current state of scientific and theoretical thought on the development of wind music and performance on wind instruments is characterized by four main areas, which cover the subject: the history of wind instruments development; improvement of game techniques and performance; vocational training of spiritual wind musicians and prospects for the development of wind music and its role in the world of music. Modern scientific works of a monographic nature, created on the basis of dissertation researches – is one of the main directions of research of the history and theory of wind music.

“Boundlessly Different”

Brass music has become increasingly popular in recent years in Europe’s German-speaking regions, especially among young people, who attend brass festivals, such as Woodstock der Blasmusik, in great numbers. This article examines this phenomenon within the context of its historical weight. Particularly in Austria, brass music is intertwined strongly with local cultural activity and heritage, alpine folklore, and national identity, with the Habsburg Monarchy and the Nazi era as well as with the rise of Volkstümliche Music and Austrian popular music. The study pinpoints the initial spark of the current popularity to the early 1990s, when young brass musicians set new tones musically and culturally. It illustrates how bands such as Mnozil Brass and Innsbrucker Böhmische, and later Viera Blech and LaBrassBanda, renegotiated established conceptions, ideas, and attitudes, and how they have, or have not, overcome habitualized ways of performing and enjoying brass music. On a broader level, the article uncovers how narratives related to regionality, Heimat, community, institutionalization, virtuosity, internationality, openness, corporality, and hedonistic pleasure all come together, at times in contradictory ways, in the media and musicians’ ethical-aesthetic discussion about contemporary brass music. Ultimately, a close music-analytical reading of selected songs shows how the music fosters and reflects these interrelations.

The Politics of Repatriating Civil War Brass Music

This chapter explores how the repatriation of Civil War brass band music participates in contemporary disputes about the deeply contested meaning and ownership of a particularly turbulent moment in American history. Specifically, it questions how the framing of Civil War brass music as a retrievable sonic agent of authenticity facilitates a simplification of the past that negates issues of power and racism that were the root of this war. Such a simplified interpretation of history, heritage, and citizenship ultimately privileges Anglo American men. If repatriation enables communities to control representations of past and present identities, then the literal and metaphorical “return” of Civil War brass music to its “rightful” white male owners becomes a discursive strategy used to both privatize and police national memory.

Nacjonalizm zwyczajnych ludzi. Etnicy­zowanie tradycji muzycznej na przykładzie festiwalu w Gučy

Normal people’s nationalism. Ethnicization of music tradition for instance some festival in GučaSince the 1980’s ethnology and social and cultural anthropology have witnessed an increasing number of studies and debates on nationalism in the light of popular culture. In the light of theory formulated by Hobsbawm, Gellner, Hayes and Comaroff nationalism is effect not big symbols and official politics, but rather popular entertainment, media and normal practices normal people in its normal life. Traditional primordial concepts of nationalism are deep regressive.In this paper, I discuss a few contradictions in the relationship between tradition, nationalism and music. An excellent example illustrating specific nature of these contradictions is Dragačevski sabor trubača (Guča Trumpet Festival) in Guča, Serbia and particular music genre – brass music. In my opinion there are three distinctive discourses/narrations about history and meaning this festival and specific kind of music: dominating Serbian discourse, ‘weak’ Gypsy discourse, and researcher’s discourse. This study is effect an ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2010 by an author and large group of students from Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań, Poland.

Der slawische Anteil am Bestand des Blasmusikarchives der Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Graz

The article examines the Slavic share of sheet music for brass instruments in the archive of the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, located in the research station in Oberschützen in the Austrain state of Burgenland. The archive material is comprised of 4805 numbered maps with works and compositions of 2072 different composers – 10,632 formaly defined works. It is intended for symphonic brass music, salon orchestra, string instruments and chambers ensembles and was collected during the 200 years of the performance practice of the institution. The focal point of the article is the south-Slavic region, although its share is relatively small compared to the Czech, Vienna or Hungarian region. Discussed are over 200 composers that were mainly working in the time between 1850 and 1940. Over 1500 compositions are in the form of manuscripts. The analysis of the temporal, spatial and formal layering of the material is followed by statistical data of the share of composers form Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Bulgaria; incorporated in the overview is also the share of eastern and western Slavic countries.