The Fifth International Symposium on Traditional Polyphony ...

Significant Aspects of Carinthian Multi-Part Singing. Part of the Diverse
Polyphonic Vocal Tradition in the South Eastern Alpine Adriatic Region
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generally be recognised, such as the customary songs, Tanzboden (a kind of dance hall) songs and recreational
songs. <strong>The</strong> two, three and sometimes four part customary songs are performed on specific occasions during
the religious seasonal cycle of the year, the Tanzboden songs such as G’stanzeln (Germanised Italian word
from stanza=verse, strophe) are sung at weddings, carnival festivities, New Year’s celebrations and other
gatherings. <strong>The</strong> texts of these responsorially performed songs are spontaneously created and consist of a
couplet of approx.10-13 syllabic lines. <strong>The</strong>se humorous or mocking verses are sung to a well known, simple
melody by the creator of the verses, and are then followed by the multipart singing of the community, who
responds with a couplet of 10 nonsense syllables.
What distinguishes the customary and Tanzboden songs from the recreational ones are the measures
(often two or four but, occasionally, three) that are more vivid and, of course, the text. In contrast, the
recreational songs are slow and, predominantly follow a measure of three, but in an unbound free flowing
manner with a lot of rubato. Sometimes the underlying meter, indicated by the text, becomes blurred and
almost unrecognisable and some of the ethnomusicologists have been tempted to over-interpret this fact when
transcribing these songs. <strong>The</strong>y do sometimes provide complicated bar measures, which are, in fact, misleading.
<strong>The</strong>se songs are predominantly love and courtship songs of all kinds, playing with variations of the love theme
or poetical reflections of life’s pleasures and hardships. During the last hundred years or so, more emphasis
has been placed on recreational songs.
<strong>The</strong>ir most elaborate and interesting feature is the originally improvisational four and five part song.
Five part singing was originally a male domain but this has changed and a female-male mixture is now very
common because the high falsetto or counter tenor practice is beginning to be lost and females are replacing it
(Stajnar, 2000: 92). This particular four and especially the five part style that seems to have vanished in some
of the neighbouring regions is here still very much alive, as well as in South Tyrol now part of Italy (Deutsch,
2000: 27-38). <strong>The</strong> four and five part improvisations reflect a polyphonic performance-style that moulds itself
around a leading melody sung by a lead singer, preferably a baritone. Females tend to perform two and three
part songs. Originally the four and five part style in its untampered form which no longer really exists but has
been documented in older recordings and written reports, indicates a strong affinity, to what in early art music
has been termed falsobordone or even fauxbourdon. <strong>The</strong> latter, again, belonged to a slightly different tradition.
Unfortunately we have only very few historical records concerning Carinthia’s folk-music practice from the
more distant past but some notations and descriptions based on the observation of 19 th century researchers
as well as older recordings help us to infer how the old folk music may have been structured. Notations of
early folk polyphony produced prior to the early 20 th century ought to be dealt with cautiously (compare with
Lešnik), as they probably reflect the tradition of the learned notator whose chief motivation was to provide
a written version of his own idea of how he thought the music should be structured rather than to echo the
structure of the original folk tradition of that time. Some 15 th century notations of Lombardian polyphony
certainly seem to demonstrate this (Messner, 2008).
<strong>The</strong> Austrian musicologist Franz Eibner quotes Thomas Koschat, a prominent 19 th century Carinthian
composer, choir master, collector and creator of Carinthian songs who also wrote about the typical Carinthian
five part song-style: “A very distinctive feature of the typical Carinthian song [Slovenian and German] is that
the main melody is not performed by the upper voice but by the lead singer for whom a Baritone range seems
to be most suitable. <strong>The</strong> second most important part is the Überschlagsstimme (German, meaning falsetto or
countertenor voice). This part performes a third or sixth above the melody and therefore has to make use of the
so called falsetto range” (Eibner, 1972: 39-84). Mentioning the use of the falsetto or counter tenor range, he