Underground

Das Volkslied gilt uns zu allernächst als musikalischer Weltspiegel,als ursprüngliche Melodie, die sich jetzt eine parallele Traumerscheinung sucht, und diese in der Dichtung ausspricht. 

Die Melodie ist also das Erste und Allgemeine, das deshalb auch mehrere Objektivationen,in mehreren Texten,an sich erleiden kann.Sie ist auch das bei weitem Wichtigere und Notwendigere in der naiven Schätzung des Volkes. 

 

Friedrich Nietzsche, aus "Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik" 

 

We must regard folk song as a musical mirror of the cosmos, as a primordial melody which is searching for an aetherial parallel, and finding that parallel eventually in poetry.The melody is primary and universal, and therefore it may have to undergo any number of objectifications in a variety of texts.In the naive estimation of the populace, the melody is always far superior in importance and necessity. 

 

Friedrich Nietzsche, Birth of Tragedy 

This is the second CD of my work with "Underground" and its inspiration and interpretation of Balkan Folk music. 

 

Wheras the first CD - Underground - deals more with interpreting folk songs and melodies, now this new piece of work is focused on original material. 

 

Apart from "Somborska", which has the original titel "U tem Somboru" and is an old folk song that I have rearranged, I have written all the music on this CD. 

 

By doing so, I was trying to capture the mood, the atmosphere and the "melos" of old folk songs, since this is the realm I am mostly occupied with. ("melos" in the sense of return to Romanticism, and "occupation" in the sense of Passion). 

 

But what exactly is "melos" in the context of folk songs ? 

Most of the traditional folk songs are written in a minor key - people from the south region mostly prefer sad songs in minor keys,even if its out of pure joy and happiness. 

Neither in folk dances nor in in wedding songs, the minor key - with its intonation of gravity and severity -seems to be inevitable. Even without grief there is always grief,even without wailing the mood is always elegic. Its emotional impact - chastity, joy, cry, laugh, desperation, hate, love - it all seems to be combined in those songs . 

 

By using original material I was trying to present my own musical point of view. 

Continuum expresses my ongoing obsession and belonging to these musical roots, without its inspiration and impact, no creative activity would ever arise. 

Sombor was chosen out of pure love to the song - melody, rhythm, structure, lyrics - and without any national or geographical preference whatsoever. 

 

Dejan Terzic