SAA 10: Arts Encounters: Exploring Arts Literacy in the Twenty-First Century
Svatba
from Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares (Nonesuch Explorer Series 79165-2
These remarkable female ensembles were first heard in Bulgarian villages where the performances could take place outdoors as well as indoors. A concert tradition developed in the twentieth century, which is how these works were recorded. They fascinate Westerners because of their exotic scales and the use of highly dissonant harmonies that somehow sound inevitable. Has this tradition lost any of its "authenticity" for having migrated to the concert hall? Is this music now "high art"?