MUSIC

The historical development of music should be followed through the continuity of its other spiritual segments of its living, from prehistoric time till today. If we must learn about the comparative musicology of the ancient periods, by way of indirect reconstruction, we would learn about various musical phenomena that were intertwined with the magical rituals, but that in later periods could be done thanks to more authentic sources. The dig-ups have preserved stone plastics, various objects, pictures, surfaces, walls from which we can conclude that there has been musical artistry in these terrain too. Through the artistic expression, the position in which the musical instruments are held, the hands, body, and the expressions on the faces, we can imagine the richness of tones, melodies and rhythms, tended to be like over the centuries.

      Some historians even think that the mythological singer, Orpheus, is of Thracian-Macedonian heritage. There are even different versions of legends of his life. Namely, Orpheus was the son of Calliope, daughter of the Macedonian Pier – ancestor of the tribe “Pieri” – who in ancient southern Macedonia established the state of Pieria. It is for this state that the Roman historian, Pomponius Mela, had said that it had been the center of many musical schools.

      It is also known of the ancient Macedonian cult towards the god Dyonis. Traces of this can be found in the bronze statue Menada in Tetovo of VI-th B.C., where the choreographic pose is characteristic. Also, we can see the musical cult of these people through various findings such as: the muse with a lira in Stobi (1st century B.C.); from the same period, a terracotta figurine ‘Lira player’; Kaval player in Lichnidos Ohrid, made from bone (Roman empire period); Pan with a flute-sirinx – bronze statue in Bitola (3rd century).

      It is known that the founder of Heraklea Linkestis – Phillip II and his famous son Alexander the Great were great lovers of music. Because of the fact that Macedonia is a crossroads of many civilizations, pieces of the art of all of them have left traces in the music, which later had been modified for the needs of the spiritual life of the region. The Oriental, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and of course he ancient Slavic cultures where the most characteristic attributes to the music. Without intent of go deeper into the historic reasons for this course of things, the art of music continuously developed throughout the times, with its inevitable rises and falls, depending on the political determinations that were present on the Balkans, at the given period. Thus, with the arrival of the Slavs in the Balkans, musically they expressed feelings, ideas, moods and excitement, mainly orally. This was mainly done through the ritual songs, dances, games, and pagan beliefs that had to do with the everyday needs of life.

      With the mixing of people and the acceptance of Christianity, the music gains yet another dimension of life – the religious need to approach music. Even though a lot of the spiritual needs were hastily customized to the ecclesiastical needs, a lot of time was needed to Christianize much of the spiritual side left on from the paganism. Music enjoyed a dominant position in the folk customs of the Slavs, including the other peoples that inhabited the Balkans. But, nothing could destroy the folk traditions, even in the difficult times when the Macedonian Slavs found themselves under the ruling of Byzantine. An affirmation of this kind of persistence would be the Bitola Triode (12th  century), also the frescos of Slepchanski Monastery, where individual and groups of instrument players were painted.

      It is believed that music, much earlier than other arts (architecture, painting, literature), found its place in the new times. Thus, in music archaisms, which can be heard in the church music and performance, the influence of many cultures is obvious, those who accepted the contemporary tendencies of that period. The old Christians nurtured ritual music that had traces of eastern and ancient Hebrew traditions. They simply discarded of the familiar sensual elements, chromatic movements and the instrumental accompaniment, generating the kind of compositions needed for liturgy. The Christian music of Western Europe was of its own, with national attributes. Later on, pope Gregory I The Great, tried to keep the unity in this ecclesiastical art form in the countries that were under his rule. For this purpose, his complied a collection of church songs – ‘Antiphonarius’. With this, the Catholic Church retains its own liturgy music known as ‘Gregorian singing’, or as ‘Gregorian choral’. So that the Franco-Roman emperor, Carl The Great (? - 814) could unite his great empire, he also used music in the same way. These few examples demonstrate the power of music to influence the lives of whole nations, whenever politics required of it, in the medieval ages.

      We already mentioned what had happened with this cultural turning point in the second half of the last millennium. Then, besides the Romans, came the Norman, the Crusaders and other nations, whose armies fought harsh battles all for power and rule. All of them left behind traces of their cultures, including the music, both vocal and instrumental, reforming it into diverse variations, adapted to the actual requirements: political, religious, artistic and etc. We get the impression that, according to the economic and military power that they had in their hands, the musical art form was expressed, interpreted, enlightened, valued. It is obvious that human being cannot accept any kinds of unnatural and forceful changes even in music. This refers especially to the anonymous folk genius. As we already know, the memory of folk can go back to even the most distant myths and historic events. The true foundations of the musical art form is with no doubt the creation of folklore, the folk song, toward which people showed great respect and worship, as if it was the most holy reliquary that could never be replaced.

The original music folklore creations were not a rare thing, either. The search for their own, the Macedonian Slavs, musical identity started around the ending of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century, if not and even earlier. At this time, the most talented pupil of the two holy brothers, St. Cyril and Methodius – St. Kliment of Ohrid, besides the numerous translations and original ecclesiastical songs and certainly a number of divine works, he also left his mark to the Slav music, by making the collection of songs that are to be sung at Easter and the Holy day of the dead – ‘Penticostar’. It is not strange that the university of this eloquent erudite, touched even to these parts. Surely without such a work, the churchyard bells would not have tolled, in all the seventy churches and monasteries, in the following years after St. Clement, calling to the Orthodox Christian Slavs believers to listen to harmonious music, in a language that they understood. It is likely that the archbishop of Ohrid, established in the time of the powerful empire of Samuel, would not have had so many enemies if it hadn’t expanded the culture and the Christian faith Macedonian Slavs.

A lot of the mighty music of the medieval ages was in danger of seizing, of getting drifted away in the storms of our history. Anyhow, the longest and the most ‘silent’ period for the development of the Macedonian music, is that of the five century long Ottoman bondage of the Macedonian people. The Turkish authorities then had had no interest in the spiritual progress of the Christian population, in Bitola also. Some of the neighboring propagandists, including their ecclesiastical interests also, used the music in the same way. The only place where there could be any musical creation, composing, was in the sacral buildings (churches and monasteries), in the vicinities of the folklore composition. The Timaro-Spahian system was generally busy with fortifying their government authority and the empire, not having any interest for music and other art forms. Behind the thick monastery walls, taking place was the making of, in many ways, original music, almost silent for the outside world. This was music that was not born, but merely freed from the people’s soul.

While this sort of music was still preoccupied with old – church attributes, and the reforms done by the talented musician of these parts – John Kukuzel, the European music art form was preoccupied with the renaissance (14th -16th century). Instead of biblical and ascetic topics, holy and divine subjects took over the music. Life on earth is celebrated, nature and love. New, original forms are created within the music, with strong, divine influences. Interest in folk music grew intensely, striving to relief themselves of the old church dogmas. Instrumental music becomes ever so popular. The spirit of Dante Alighieri’s, Francesco Petrarca’s and the others’ great renaissance poets, poetry takes over all the art forms, including music. From the ending of the 16th till the middle of 18th century, musical baroque takes a leading role in music, which results in the appearance of many new instruments and the enhancement of instrumental music. J.S.Bach and G.F.Hendle are the world leaders in this sort of music. Opera attains more and more admirers, and soon after comes the clear and gracious sound of the rococo – style, but also along with that and musical classicism (second half of the 18th and the first few decades of the 19th century) in which they compose, play and perform world-renowned musicians, they being: Heidn, Mozart, Beethoven and others. Around the same time, in the first half of the 19th  century appears the musical Romanticism also, and little later many other new musical genres, whose artists are those such as Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Berliose and others.  This short summary of music history is given so that we can reflect on the world of music in Bitola in the above-mentioned period, without which we cannot objectively observe the true state of music, and without knowing some particular historic truths, which we elaborated on about above. According to this we should know that this art form compared to the rest: architecture, painting, literature and others, had shown it self as a very easy thing to manipulate with, adopt, customise, eliminate and negate. In conditions of bondage, under which the Macedonian people were for many centuries, without state, a verified literal language and very low rate of literacy, permanent negating of their culture and its grown, it was very easy to reach for and concur even this national, cultural legacy. However, even among these historic strains, almost impossible conditions to create and present it, the Macedonian music had remained our everlasting legacy, representative trademark and a distinguishable spiritual frontier to our national identity. Bitola’s music and the music dedicated to Bitola is a piercing example of the extreme power of this art form. Whether it is folk music or mere light music for pleasure, ecclesiastical or spiritual music, vocal or instrumental – it’s all the same. This city’s leading role in nurturing beautiful music and the making of if, in general, nobody, and nothing and could never be taken away from it. And so this relationship that the people of Bitola had with music last even today, as an expression of love that these people have toward this art form.

From a historic point of view, a ray of hope should have shined through, according to the political conditions that the city lived in, from under the ashes of time, with all its purity and beauty, slowly but surely, the music should have made way to the European levels of achievement. With all the scepticism and resistance, this process begins somewhere in the first few decades of the 19th  century, and even more intensively in the so-called ‘Consul years” in Bitola (from the middle of the 19th  century till the beginning of the ‘Balkan Wars’). The new European movements in the music world reach to our parts as well. The city’s economic prosperity allowed some families, with the example of the larger cities of Europe, starting with Vienna, Geneva, Rome and other, to obtain very expensive musical instruments, as an expression of their authority and might in the city. On Shirok Sokak, and surrounding environment, you could hear the sounds of guitars, mandolins, clarinets, and piano. And with them the music of the great: Bach and Hendl, Mozart and Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Tchaikovski and others. Among the famous music saloons of Bitola, at the balls that took place, in the wee evening hours, you could hear the classical music and you could dance to the music on: waltz, minuets, chardash, bolero, polka, mazurka, and etc. The opera belcanto-melodies were sang, almost at all the ceremonial occasions. The Parisian noble fashion took over the youth also.

At the amazement of the laymen of the current state of Bitola, at the heart of the conservative oriental Balkan, Bitola had been just a little island ‘Mini Europe’. The diplomatic court, the consulate families, the wealthy domestic and foreign trade clientele of the Bitola Charshija, the officers of the Turkish army (including young men, who had been educated at European schools), representatives of the European aviation, civil and military diplomacy, reporters of the most read Balkan, European and world wide press, also the ‘newcomers’ of the ‘white world’, together with the local ‘crème de la crème’ and the young Bitola people who attained their education at prestigious schools of the west, were the main link line between the rest of Bitola and the music of the western developed world. The wider Bitola public, which always nurtured its folk music, began to accept the other forms of vocal and instrumental music – mandolin and wind orchestras, musical groups and choirs. Some of them performed saloon music, as well as very popular old city songs; the city was famous by these. With all the progress that classical music was making, the other musical forms were not pushed away at all. On the contrary, they tend to have complemented them selves. For example, the appearance of the Bitola chalgi, with their characteristic instruments: ut, dajre, kjemane, grneta, which are popular in the eastern parts. That kind of mixing of musical styles, forms, makes the old city music even the more beautiful, which gains a characteristic and simple melody, filled with decorative attributes, melodic bridges, making a autochthone music of Bitola, pure and high artistic value. 

Some of those songs beard certain oriental characteristics (increased second and a certain melodic ornaments). Those, had melorhythmical structures, which was a practice of that time groups, who played and sang a certain kind of serenade songs. There were also such songs that were close to domestic music tradition, with west romanticism additions, quite close to Mediterranean chanson. All this constitutes a real treasure, which beatifies Bitola song tradition. It is probably where the secret of its popularity is hidden, popularity which lasts until present time and will surely continue in future.

Approaching the 20th century, and especially in its first half, as opposed to the developed world, music life in our city went through a lot of oscillations. Objectively speaking, that was inevitable: it was the Balkan Wars. World War I, the unsolved national issue in Macedonia, the influence of foreign political propaganda, great world economic crisis, pre war condition which spread over Europe etc. If we take into consideration all that this city had suffered during the wars from those two first decades of the 20th century, it can be said that it was a tormented period for this art as well. Nobody was particularly interested in music when the bullet and bread had a higher price than human life. This does not mean that people did not sing or play. But who sang, how and why he did that is yet another matter. Bitola everyday life required music even in such conditions, particularly “our favorite”, which brings comfort, which slides along the blade of the soul, which sheds tears along the cheek of time – between two wars.

Since then, another cultural occurrence caught the interest of the city – the increasing interest of the young for choir music, which was especially instigated by the church of that time. In the period between the 20s and 30s a few known choirs were active: “Mokranjac”, “Kajmakcalan”, “Makabi” (founded by Jews from Bitola), “Kosta Abrasevic” etc. Instrumental music was not greatly present, except incidental performances of certain chamber ensembles, the military orchestra of the city, tours of foreign ensembles.

The real music life started by the end of 1944. Immediately after the liberation of the city, the city choir was established and was later renamed into Cultural-Artistic Society “Stiv Naumov”. Two years later, in February 1947, the Primary music school was opened. In 1962 it transformed into a Secondary music school. A great number of renown Macedonian music pedagogues, who, aside educational cadre, taught and created outstanding artists, composers, conductors etc. As a result of such a solid cadre basis, many important music associations are active in the city: Association of music workers, Symphonic Orchestra, Wind Orchestra, Bitola Chamber Orchestra and other music groups. This resulted with a long list of names that left, and many of them are still doing that successfully, permanent marks in the rich music life in our city: Velko Petrovski-Paskali, Misko Majkovski, Taki Hrisik, Milan Spiridonov, Elpida Hristidi, Zhika Osmani, Kiril Makedonski, Mihajlo Nikolovski, Petar Sidovski, Blagoj Angelovski etc. A whole generation of music creators are continuing the successful spreading of  music art, not only in the city but wider: Gorgi Zdravev, Ljubo Trifunovski, Kiril Petkov etc. Famous composers created or are still creating here: Kiril Makedonski, Mihajlo Nikolovski, Kiril Todorovski, Dimche Nikolesli etc. The popularity of popular and children music in the last decades was due to the noticable contribution of Slave Dimitrov (: Whose are you”) , Kire Kostov, Petar Georgiev- Kalica(: If I go to Bitola”), Petar Sidorovski, Mitko Lozanovski, Miodrag and Marjan Necak and others. Certain vocal-instrumental groups and ensembles gave or are still giving their contribution to popular music: Bitola Orchestra of Popular Music, “Bitola Consuls”, “Bohemians”, “Pelagonia Pearls”, …as well as singers: Nikola Avtovski-Bobi, Saska Petkovska, Biljana Damjanovska, Olgica Hristova, Karolina Goceva, Sefedin Bajramov, Margarita Hristova etc. Similarly significant for the popularization of classical music among Bitola audience are the reproductive artists: Milica Shperovic, Jasminka Chakar, Meri Kavkalevska, Todor Svetiev etc. Whereas in the case of music manifestations special place should be given to: International festival of classical music “Interfest”, Children music festival “SI-DO”, as well as a few more cultural-artistic and music gatherings.