who asked the first question? - International Research Center For ...

229the influence of the “oriental” type of the singing style with richly ornamented andrhythmically free melodies, in Eastern Europe the main source of the monophonicinfluence seems to be the Central and East Asian pentatonic monophonic style.Conclusions. According to the stratification of the heterophony and thedrone polyphony in the territory of Eastern Europe, heterophony must be a laterphenomenon, apparently the result of the loss of the more ancient tradition dronepolyphony, as a consequence of active migrations and ethnic mixtures in Eastern Europe.This conclusion about the secondary nature of heterophony is supported by the generalhistorical tendency of the loss of the tradition of polyphonic singing, discussed above.Case Study # 6Lithuanian SutartinesAs discussed in the first part of this book, Lithuanian sutartines represents aunique singing style. Most of the ethnomusicologists that have discussed the origins ofSutartines consider it a very archaic singing style. In this “Case Study” we are going tolook at this unique singing style from the historical and comparative perspectives.D. Rachiunaite-Vychiniene gives a comprehension survey of the availablepublications on Sutartines (Rachiunaite-Vychiniene, 2002:16-38). It is clear that theunique tradition of secondal sutartines has been at the very heart of Lithuanianmusicology and ethnomusicology for the most part of the development of Lithuanianethnomusicology.The first i nformation about a specific style of music (that has been identified bymusicologists as sutartines) comes from the 1578 publication of Alexander Guagnini.This publication describes the tradition of “strange and dissonant” music played on “longwooden horns” (trumpets) in 16 th century Samogitia (the southern part of Lithuania). Thepublication of the “Chronicle” of Polish Maciej Stryjkowski in 1582 contains extremelyinteresting information about Lithuanians singing with the specific syllables associatedwith the sutartines singing style, and gives fragments of the texts of two historicalsutartines. The first actual mention of the term sutartines comes much later, from theearly 19 th century. In a 1828 publication Simonas Stanevichius comments about one ofthe songs: “ This song is one of the sutartines, which has recently gone out of fashion, andhas lost its purpose among Somigitians. Remnants of the song are more commonly heardin Lithuania [upland Lithuania]” (cited from Rachiunaite, 2002:20-21). The first actualtranscription of sutartines comes from 1833. The example and the accompanying notesmention the multipart performance style (actually a canon – round), but the example doesnot represent the famous secondal sutartines with dissonant intervals and polytonalclashes between the parts.Publications of Adolfas Sabaliauskas and Aukusti Roberto Niemi in 1911 and1916 contained 150 melodies of sutartines, both vocal and instrumental. According toSabaliauskas, “hymns” (sutartines) are “never sung in unison, but always contain twomelodies, one alongside the other, coming together in counterpoint”. Interestingly,Lithuanian musicologists and intellectuals did not understand at the time the advanced