Cimbalom Bands in Slovácko on the Verge of Traditional and Popular Music

Authors

ČEVELA Jiří

Year of publication 2023
Type Appeared in Conference without Proceedings
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Arts

Citation
Description Slovácko is a cultural region in the southeaster part of Moravia, the Czech Republic on the border with Slovakia and Austria. The region is divided into several sub-regions, within which over fifty cimbalom bands are active. Although the musicians follow the traditional musical practices of folk instrument ensembles without concert cimbalom (mainly from pre-World War I period), the development of cimbalom bands is mainly related to the so-called folklore movement, which became infamous for its propagandistic and politicised nature in the 1950s. Further and especially since the 1990s, there has been a partial reshaping of the aesthetic and functional tendencies of the cimbalom bands’ activities, both through the influence of music education and the relations of folk music and media (and the associated spread of recorded music). Therefore, it is possible to notice to some extent that there are some musical differences on stage, on recordings and in spontaneous music-making (repertoire, arrangements, authorship). The socio-cultural context (including the position of studio production of these ensembles within the music industry, the perception of tradition and identity or the personal motivations of the actors) cannot be overlooked. The paper proposes some theses based on the author’s previous research efforts and the current field research for his dissertation (Cimbalom Bands in Slovácko as a Subject of Music-Interpretive and Socio-Cultural Research).
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