The Paradox of Musical Vernaculars

Book excerpt: Musical vernaculars are a rare and challenging object of study. Their sound can include everything—from local folk and popular songs to random foreign hits and fragments of classic repertoire. It is an everchanging element—eclectic, whimsical, and resistant to regularity. Based on the author’s multicultural experience, proficiency in Russian and Jewish music history, and interest in anthropology, this book explores the essential features of vernaculars. They can have varying degrees of changeability; some are quite stable, and exist in closed rural or immigrant communities (phylo-vernacular), while others are dynamic, like those of an urbanized population (onto-vernacular). These types of vernacular can turn into one another when communities migrate—that is, agricultural people move to cities, and the townspeople settle on the land. Understanding the changes in the vernacular repertoires as something natural, this book defends the value of urbanized folk music, disputing the traditional view of art-music composers of rural folk songs as only “authentic” and suitable for expressing nationalistic sentiments. The book also examines unexpected interconnections between Russian and Jewish music, both in their vernacular manifestations and the creative work of Sergei Slonimsky and Dmitry Shostakovich.