An Historical Typology of Irish Song: Transmission, Performance and Cultural Memory

该项目将根据传播、表演和文化记忆的证据建立爱尔兰歌曲的类型学。审问这份档案的主要问题是缺乏书面音乐文献，这些文献可能会弥合18世纪以前的资料和18-20世纪口头传统歌曲田野收藏家的活动之间的差距。还需要考虑的是，几代编辑人员的叠加所带来的智力和方法上的挑战。我们承认，我们不一定能追踪一首歌曲、文本或旋律的更长期的历史轨迹，而早期的证据是不存在的。因此，我们建议发展一种类型学方法，解开关于传统连续性的信息，并揭示发展文化实践理论的可能性。一个例子是葬礼挽歌，它在爱尔兰和苏格兰一直保持到20世纪中期，并成为整个中世纪欧洲很好地证明的歌唱和社会仪式模式的关键(今天在中欧和东欧的部分地区仍在继续)。一首挽歌本身可能并不是特别古老，但它的“类型”，即旋律元素和文本拓扑是不变的，因此可以识别为属于一种更古老的演唱风格(和社会表达)。这种旋律在结构上是公式化的或细胞的，与口头传统表演有关，最早的欧洲文字证据保存在9世纪的法国和德国来源(现存最古老的手稿包含带有气动音乐符号的拉丁歌曲文本的日期)。17-20世纪爱尔兰、苏格兰和马恩岛的手稿和印刷品中幸存着作曲家和编曲的作品，这在一定程度上弥补了历史证据的断裂。它暗示着与更早的时代和生活实践的联系，从而为检验类型学(尽管是在一次删除)和缩小历史差距提供了重要的材料。此外，对原始资料的普查和由此产生的类型学将提供一个机会，以一种全新的方式审问这些材料。通过建立在收集、编辑和编排口头传统歌曲时识别历史层次的标准，这些过程本身将受到审查--例如对外部观察者可能陌生的旋律细微差别的标准化、回忆中的错误，或者实际上是重新编排材料以适应其他环境，例如城市沙龙和音乐厅的钢琴伴奏的和声设置。21世纪情感的参与挑战着我们重新评估旧的世界观。这种方法涉及一位历史音乐学家/民族音乐学家，一位研究1750至1832年音乐文学思想的诗歌评论家和学者，以及一位盖尔语歌曲文本的博士后专家，他也将成为口头传统的表演者。它将绩效作为研究企业的一部分，从而在评估(历史)证据时产生新的询问方法。它跨越了时间和地理的界限；它引入了新的案例研究和通常单独审查的材料类别-通常只作为文学文本，与其音乐和社会背景隔绝。它还首次提供了在欧洲背景下对爱尔兰歌曲进行系统研究的可能性，从而通过专业出版物在国际上促进了对爱尔兰歌曲的比较研究。专业表演者、创意艺术家和感兴趣的公众也可以通过最新的在线电子手段、讲座、现场表演、新的CD录制以及广播和电视纪录片获得所产生的材料。

The project will establish a typology of Irish song based on evidence of transmission, performance and cultural memory. The main problem in interrogating this archive is the dearth of written musical documents which might bridge the gap between pre-18th-century sources and the activities of field collectors of oral-tradition song during the 18th-20th centuries. Also to be taken into consideration are the intellectual and methodological challenges posed by the overlay of several generations of editorial hands.We accept that we cannot necessarily trace the longer-term historical trajectory of a given song text or melody for which earlier evidence is absent. Therefore we propose to develop a typological method which unlocks information on continuities of tradition, and discloses possibilities for developing a theory of cultural practice. An example is the funeral elegy which was kept up in both Ireland and Scotland until the mid-20th century and keys into a pattern of singing and social ritual well attested throughout medieval Europe (and still continuing in parts of Central and Eastern Europe today). A given elegy may in itself not be particularly old, but its 'type', i.e., melodic elements and textual topoi, are unchanging and thus recognisable as belonging to an older style of singing (and social expression). Such melodies are characterised typologically as formulaic or cellular in structure and relate to oral-tradition performance for which the earliest European textual evidence survives in ninth-century French and German sources (the date of the oldest surviving manuscripts containing Latin song texts with neumatic music notation). The work of composers and arrangers which survives in manuscripts and printed sources of the 17th-20th centuries in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man compensates in part for the rupture in historical evidence. It suggests links to an earlier era and to living practice, thus providing important material for testing the typology (albeit at one remove) and for closing historical gaps. Furthermore, the census of primary sources and the resulting typology will present an opportunity to interrogate these materials in a completely new way. By establishing criteria for identifying historical layers in the collecting, editing and arranging of oral-tradition song, these processes themselves will come under scrutiny - processes such as the standardisation of melodic nuances which might have been alien to outside observers, errors in recall, or indeed re-arrangement of materials to suit other environments, such as harmonic settings for piano accompaniment in urban salons and concert halls. The engagement of 21st-century sensibilities challenges us to re-evaluate older world-views.The approach involves collaboration between an historical musicologist / ethnomusicologist, a critic and scholar of poetry who studies literary ideas about music in the period 1750 to 1832, and a postdoctoral specialist in Gaelic song texts who will also be a performer in the oral traditon. It engages performance as part of the research enterprise, thus generating new methods of enquiry in the evaluation of (historical) evidence. It crosses temporal and geographical boundaries; it introduces new case studies and categories of material usually examined separately - often as literary texts only, isolated from their musical and social contexts. It also offers for the first time a possibility for the systematic study of Irish song in its European context, thus promoting its comparative study at an international level through specialist publications. The resulting materials will be accessible also to professional performers, creative artists, and the interested public through the latest online electronic means, lectures, live performances, new CD-recordings, and radio and television documentaries.