GANGA – HAIKU FROM THE STONE

BACHELORARBEIT

zur Erlangung des Titels Bachelor of Arts (BA)

in der Studienrichtung Gitarre

im Studiengang Saiteninstrumente

der Fakultät Musik

der Musik und Kunst Privatuniversität der Stadt Wien

eingereicht von

Lucija Rako

Fachbetreuung durch: Stefan Schmidl, Univ.-Prof. Dr.

Wien, 22. Juni 2019.

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Content
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Introduction

I've never quite understood Imotski, my father's hometown, nor the people there. During my summer
visits, I always found everything very funny there. Funny, meaning both humorous and weird or
unusual. The way the people spoke was different than in my hometown. They had a very distinct hard
dialect. The way the people communicated with others; neighbours, friends, family and the way they
showed different emotions was unusual to me. The people were direct, witty and they sure liked to
mock to each other and make jokes on others’ expense.
I’ve been learning about ganga and Zagora1 for a few years now. The main culprit for it is Ante
Čagalj, my ex-guitar teacher from Zagreb. Well, he isn’t from Zagreb. He was born in Zagvozd, a
small village on the slopes of Biokovo. Because of poverty, his family moved to Split when he was a
young boy. He started playing the guitar as a 17-year old and after a few years of music school, at the
age of 19, he moved to Zagreb to study at the Zagreb Academy of Music. Since then he has been
living in Zagreb and working at the Elly Bašić Music school. We met in 2009 when I was a 11-year
old kid who came to his summer guitar school at the island of Hvar. The moment he learned my last
name he said that we are both Vlajs.2 I’ve had no idea what that meant. During my high school days,
there were always jokes that we are from the same place. I’ve had no response to any of them.
Because I grew up in a completely different part of the country I didn’t know what it means to be from
there. I’ve only visited the place a few weeks a year. I didn’t understand that by having family in
another part of the country I didn’t only get another city to visit in the summer, but I also got to learn
its culture.
Čagalj started composing intensively a few years ago and his leitmotiv is ganga. He cannot escape it.
Whatever he tries, this song follows him. His roots are always with him and I have to say, I feel the
same way. Although I wasn’t born there and don’t have many nostalgic memories from Zagora and its
way of life, I am drawn to it. I feel the nostalgia and I am beginning to understand and value the
complexity and uniqueness of this culture.
Čagalj wrote many works using the ganga theme: His autobiographical work – The four dances, Put
Prema Selu- a piece inspired by his village (dedicated to me), some children’s pieces (Mali iz
Zagvozda, Komin), a few etudes – Mateo Carcassi in Zagvozd, ČakoOna and Tryptiche Montanense –
a picturesque three part piece describing three pictures of Zagvozd.

During a summer evening last year, I asked my grandmother about ganga. Her face lit up. I’ve rarely
seen her talk about anything else in such a fond way. The memories of her childhood came flooding
back. She told me how she went to the woods with her siblings to pick up wood for fire when they

1
Dalmatian hinterland
2
A name for people from Dalmatian hinterland
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were young, how they sang and had fun. She says she still gets goosebumps just thinking about ganga
and listening to it. I’ve got this unexpected reaction from an almost 80-year old woman who then
continued to smoke and saying how she will start renting the house for tourists and get rich. Because
that’s what her neighbour did. And then she continued to say that she will be popular because of a
video of her singing ganga that my uncle sent me a while ago. She went from a sincere nostalgic
conversation to a material one in half a second. But the short and emotional reaction I got was from
simply asking about certain folk songs - ganga. They are folk songs, but I’ve heard people describe it
as: noise, screaming, wolf-like howling and many more adjectives that wouldn’t really describe
pleasant music or something that a group of people find beautiful and sacred in a way. I have also
laughed when I’ve heard ganga for the first time. And many more times after. I’ve laughed when I’ve
read the many ganga lyrics and when I tried to describe it to other people. But now I ask myself, how
interesting can a culture be, if people find this sharp, dissonant howling beautiful? I want to capture
this culture in its every side and I want to show that ganga is not dissonant howling and that it is not a
joke. (although many gangas are humorous!) I want to show that this unusual folklore really is
beautiful and that one must only understand its perspective and context to learn to its beauty.
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1. ZAGORA – THE PLACE

1.1. Geography
Zagora or the Dalmatian hinterland is situated in the southern continental Croatia. In other words, the
continental part of Dalmatia is considered Zagora. It is a belt separated from the coast by the
mountains Kozjak (780 m), Mosor (1339 m), Omiška Dinara (864 m), Biokovo (1762 m) and Rilić
(1160 m). It spreads territorially around Knin, Drniš, Sinj, Vrlika, Imotski and Vrgorac. It is a karst
terrain without any consistent water flows and consists of small elevations and depressions with
valleys between them that spread in east-west direction. The hills are bare or covered in thicket. There
is some arable land in the valleys and the villages are mostly situated next to them.

1.2. Culture

Dalmatian hinterland has a unique culture. People didn’t have much and barely survived on what they
had. They didn’t have time for beauty. They couldn’t afford it. That’s why their ideal of beauty is
much different from their coastal neighbours’. Although the terrain does not benefit the natives of
Zagora, they are very connected to the nature, which influenced the people greatly. When you come to
a village like Zagvozd, what is there to see exactly? On a nice sunny day, you’ll see the deep blue sky
and you will probably feel very small beneath it. Because when you lower your gaze you’ll see that
you are completely surrounded by big mountains, which give you the effect that the sky is even further
than it is. There is one mountain peak, enveloped in clouds, that will probably catch your eye; The St.
Jure’s peak. The highest point of Biokovo, where people would lead their cattle to the pasture. If you
look around you, you’ll mostly see stone; the mountains, stone houses, churches, low stone walls, and
rocks in every size and almost any colour. It’s the main motive and the staple of the whole area. Čagalj
always told me about the effect that a naked stone in the sun has. It is sharp and warm to the touch.
And its colour, its whiteness almost radiates a sound when hit by a burning sun ray. In between the
stones, there is some land and grass, but mostly low, dry bushes and woods like macchia. We could
say that the terrain is poor, unforgiving, raw and sharp, and so are the people. They had no time and
chance to be soft and to rest. If they wanted to survive they had to work day hard and even with all the
hard work they still stayed hungry often. But, because they are also people, they do find beauty and
love and beneath the hard exterior they love their native place. To them, every mountain and every
stone beautiful and sacred. Although, they will rarely show it.

1.3. Customs
Gonjanje, šijavica, Sv. Ivan svitnjak
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Gonjanje is a very interesting custom. If you can call it a custom. It is more of a ritual, a rite of
passage in Zagora. Love, sex and romance were a bit of a taboo in many places, but native of Zagora
had a different approach to it. You could say that gonjanje is a way of courting. The name comes from
the verb gonjati, which means “to chase”.
Young men’s collective goings to the pasture with the shepherdess’s because of gonjanje, valjuška,
how this archaic ritual act is called here, which possesses initiational characteristics because the
participants are only the members of the younger generation who should marry this or following
winter (according to societal criteria). The ritual chasing on the pasture, like the collective simulating
of the game of love, wasn’t offensive for the girl because she had a right to choose being chased by the
young man she was planning to marry. However, that the young men didn’t chase only the girls that
they planned to marry, I’ve heard from many. On the contrary, they chased all girls, and especially
reached for the arrogant ones, which in that way wanted to show their physical superiority. Namely,
gonjanje could also be very rough, so the girls were afraid of it, because often they got out of these
“love” clashes scratched and with ripped shirts.3

)Zajednički odlasci momaka s čobanicama na pašu zbog gonjanja, valjuške, kako ovdje nazivaju taj
arhaični obredni čin koji ima karakteristike inicijacije jer su sudionici samo pripadnici mlade
generacije koji bi trebali iste ili sljedeće zime stupiti u brak (po kriteriju društvene zajednice).
Obredno gonjanje na prostoru za ispašu, kao i kolektivno simuliranje ljubavne igre od prvog izgona
stoke, nije bilo uvredljivo za djevojku jer je imala pravo da se gonja s mladićem za kojega se
namjeravala udati.Međutim, da mladići nisu gonjali samo one djevojke s kojima su se imali namjeru
ženiti, čula sam od mnogih kazivača. Naprotiv, gonjali su se sa svim djevojkama, a posebno su
posezali za onima oholima, kojima su na taj način željeli pokazati svoju fizičku superiornost. Naime,
gonjanje je znalo biti i vrlo grubo pa su ga se djevojke bojale, jer su često iz tih „ljubavnih“ okršaja
izlazile izgrebane i s poderanim košuljama.)

Šijavica

1.4. Everyday Life

Everyday life in Zagora was exhausting. As said before, people lived to survive. Because of that
everybody had to work and there wasn’t any strict division of masculine and feminine jobs. The day
started when the sun rose and ended when the sun set. People told time by the sun’s position and the

3
Dinka Alaupović Gjeldum: O tradicijskoj kulturi srednje Dalmacije (Književni krug Split, 2019. – u
tisku)
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church bells. In an average household everybody had roles, from grandparents (baba, dida), parents
(mater, ćaća) to the children (dica). The families were large, with many children and because of hard
living conditions, the fathers often worked abroad or in Slavonija4, a more grateful part of Croatia. In
families with more sons, they were either sent to the military or seminary. As said by the author Ivan
Raos: “In the past, for a poor man, there only two ways, other than the hoe: red or white: a soldier or a
priest.” (“U prošlosti su za siromahe, osim motike, postojala samo dva puta: crveno ili crno: vojnik ili
svećenik.“) The daughters were always given to marry, hopefully to a better family. Pets were very
rare in the village. It meant that they had one more mouth to feed. Any dog who would be in the way
of the villagers would probably be hit aside with an exclamation of: “Beštijo”.
A normal house mostly consisted of two buildings. The kitchen and the house. Both are made of stone
and a ????. In the kitchen, the mothers would usually grind the wheat for the bread on a contraption
similar to a millstone. In the same place they would bake the bread underneath a metal bell. Other
family members and villagers would join in and socialize. Sometimes even with the native instrument
Gusle, in which case they would sing and talk about their day and tell stories.
Another very important place in the house was Komin. It is a fireplace where most of the socializing
in the house took place. Above it, the Gusle would hang.
Except making bread, there were many other jobs: work in the fields, which gave just enough, often
less that the family needed, leading the cattle to the pasture – mostly cows and goats, cooking and
getting water supply for the whole family. Each village had its own well (gustirna or čatrnja), where
the villagers took water. If the well dried out, they had to go to the nearest creek. The women usually
did this job. They had something similar to a flat barrel on their back, which could take up to 50L of
water, and with it they would go down to the creek, fill it up, and walk back uphill to their house. This
job was done after all the other jobs were finished, so it was often in the hottest time of the day,
around noon.

1.5. Influence of the Catholic Church

The church plays a big cultural role in Zagora. Throughout history this part of Croatia was always
connected to poverty and lack of education. The church and priests were the main source of
knowledge and were much respected by the villagers. The church is a big imposing structure in the
village. The inside is richer in ornaments than any home in the village (compared to coastal churches,
they do not look as rich), it is certainly tallest and the loudest of all the houses with its bells. The
church having great influence, the villagers were in awe of it. They respected God, priests and the
holidays. But, they wouldn’t be Vlajs if they weren’t hard-headed and raw. The whole population, as
much as they respect their religion and the church officials, they are the first to use swear words,

4
Eastern region of Croatia
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especially the ones including God and the Virgin Mary. As much as they go to the church, that much
they want to go back home.

1.6. Language expression

The language expression with Zagora natives is considered sharp, raw and oftentimes unsophisticated.
Besides many swear words, which are common in the language (as in any rural places), the names and
nicknames are a very interesting theme. The people are very direct and there are rarely taboo themes.
They also make many, by some considered harsh, jokes about others. If you have a big nose. They will
tell you how big your nose is and probably call you “nosy”. From that day your real name will be
forgotten and you will get a nickname. Sometimes the whole family gets a nickname because of one
member only. In every village there are many families with the same last name that aren’t related to
each other. To differentiate the families, they simply get nicknames. This is also often done with first
names. For example, in a novel “The Eternally smiling sky” (“Vječno nasmijano nebo”) by Ivan Raos,
beside the Ivan himself, there were two more Ivans in his village; Ivan Džajušin and Ivan Lucin. It is
possible to differentiate them, because the mothers of each Ivan are named Džajuša and Lucija and the
nicknames tell us to whom each Ivan belongs to. Though, not every nickname is so classic and
practical. In Zagvozd, where there are many Čagaljs. There is an old woman whose name I do not
know. I only know her nickname and it is Guze. In translation the nickname would refer to this
woman’s posterior. She got the nickname, of course, because she had a fairly big one and now her
whole family is referred to as Čaglji-Guzići.
The natives of Zagora pronounce many names differently, because they find it weird to pronounce
certain names correctly. They find many names too sophisticated or too correct. For example:
Makarska is Makraska. A name like Frane is Vrane.
What is also interesting that everybody is referred informally. Like in German, there is a difference
between “du” and “Sie” in Croatian. In Zagora, everybody is referred as “du” (ti). A little child or a
young person uses the “du” term when speaking to an elder. There are no barriers.

1.7. Literary art

What I find very interesting is looking at the main motifs and themes in the literary arts. They are
mostly connected to the nature.
First off, and I will mention this motif a lot in the musical analysis, are stones. Stones play a big role in
this place, because they are simply everywhere. They are a trademark. Stones are used as tools and
toys. The children who had nothing to play with, had only stones and their own imagination. Ivan
Raos even wrote a whole chapter in his book “Vječno nasmijano nebo” (“Eternally smiling sky”), the
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first book in his “Vječno žalosni smijeh” (“Eternally sad laughter”) autobiographical trilogy5. The
chapter is called Šareni kamenčići (“Colorful little stones”) and in it he paints the picture of the world
being a big heap of colorful little stones. And every good person exists in this place just to play with
them. So, he starts naming all of the people in his village dear to him: the fat priest, his mother who
talks to herself, grandmother with only one eye, his grandfather with a moustache, little Marija – the
priests young niece, all of the chickens, cows and dogs and compares them all to stones. To the stones
that you put in your pocket and run around in the nature until exhaustion. The simple stones are seen
as the dearest, most beautiful treasure.
Other very important motifs are animals. They are seen as creatures of the same world. Every cow,
sheep is a treasure. They give milk and meat. Wolves and snakes, the most common wild animals on
the slopes of Biokovo, are also seen as majestic creatures, altough they give nothing. Because of the
unfavorable terrain, they are searching for food for the whole day, just trying to survive, like the
people. Good example of connection to the nature and animals are poems by Petar Gudelj. In the poem
“To the wolf from Dinara” (“Dinarskom vuku”) the poet indentifies with the wolf. The poem starts off
with a question, asking the wolf what he ate today and continues naming motifs of a lamb, a snowball,
the sun and the wolves' heart. Then the poet connects himself to the wolf by saying that inside the wolf
a lamb is jumping, snow falling, the sun shining and his (the poet’s) heart is beating. The poem ends in
calling the wolf his brother.
NEŠTO O PROSJACIMA I SINOVIMA

5
„Weeping of the Lady“ trebam dodat sve knjige
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2. The music of Zagora

The hard way of life mirror itself in music. The relationship between the nature and the man and the
music born out of it is best described in a letter by Ante Čagalj for the Parish Gazette of Zagvozd,
which I am citing below:

Ante Čagalj
GANGA: Sounds of my childhood
(enclosure to Zagvozd Parish Gazette)

Life on the barren land, scarce in soil but rich in stone, and hard living conditions from times
immemorial have made its native a harsh, coarse person who is constantly fighting the nature and life
hardship to survive thus having no time to appreciate the beautiful. Fruits of hard labours were hardly
sufficient for mere survival leaving no chance for a better life in which an individual would have more
dignity and by working be able to create conditions for cultural development and enrich the heritage
of his homeland and his people.

Such way of life has influenced not only development of various customs but music and dance forms as
well (songs sung to the accompaniment of gusle - one-stringed folk fiddle, lullabies, funeral dirges,
ganga songs and some other similar forms) and a set of instruments respectively ( the instruments
such as: svirala6, diple7, gusle8) where the listener can immediately feel the sharpness and coarseness,
mockery or jest, and perceive folk wisdom of the past and modern times.
Sound is the basic symbol and driving force. It affects everything that surrounds us.
It has also had a great impact on me. Sounds of my childhood have certainly influenced both my
attitudes and my reflections on music to a great extent.

In my opinion most elementary ways of musical expression are:

1. voice (singing, shouting)

2. movement (dancing, jumping)

6 Svirala is a two-mouths musical instrument. Ethnomusicologists think that it was used by old Slavs (Kuhač 1877; Boras
1986). It is made of ash-tree with two longitudinal punched cavities the same as a mouthpiece. It can also be made of cornel-
wood or common maple.
7 Diple is a two-mouths instrument with a pair of ballows and a mouthpiece made of reed or elder-tree. The very name is

linked with the Greek word diplos meaning ''double'' (Buble 1993). The pair of ballows is most often made of lamb skin.
8 Gusle is a string instrument most often made of maple-tree.On a hollowed out trough kid skin, sheep skin or hare skin is

stretched. The bow is made of horse-hair. It is considered to be the predecessor of string instruments.
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We produce sound by voice, which is only the introduction to the idea that follows. When the second
voice is added and a relation between the two established with a certain time duration implied, we can
speak of a meaningful whole which has been developing in our region for centuries. It has the form of
two lines that are sung and it has developed into so called ganga. The vicinity and sharpness of two
voices is nothing else but the reflection of the harsh nature and hard work of our people, who are
creating something very similar to their life. So this is what ganga is about and its structure is the
piercing sound of the interval second.
It is difficult for me to say when I first heard ganga. It may have been at a fair or maybe it came out
from some inn where drunk people were singing and shouting. I may have heard it when sitting next to
a distilling copper or early in the morning half-awake in bed and listening to the song of some lads
going home from a bee-party and trying to drive away the fear of fairies and elves.

However, one thing engraved deeply in my mind that I can clearly remember is one sharp chord
loaded with natural energy and composed of one firm tone and skidding of the second one. There is
that eternal friction and clashing of the two, which in a special way reflects human suffering, sorrow,
happiness and the entire life turmoil.
Listening to that sharp interval, the friction of two tones, one comes to realize that second has
gradually become established as the beauty analogous to the soft sound of third sung by the people
living on the (Adriatic) coast and on the islands of Dalmatia.
Ganga, whose origins penetrate deep into the past, is a musical form of the people living in rural
areas. It is sung in two voices so that one voice (the first voice) is lower than the second (the second
voice is accompanying the first voice) and is ''doing ganga ''.
Researchers of folk art and folklore agree with the fact that the voice which ''does ganga''
imitates the sound of gusle (one-stringed Balkan folk fiddle). Particular significance is given to the
text which certainly tells a great deal about current affairs and everything that is important for the
man of our region. He is sincere and plain, radical and gentle in a coarse way.

2.1. Instruments
The most common instruments in Zagora are Gusle, Diple and Svirala.
Gusle is a string instrument where the sound is produced by bowing the strings. It is made of one piece
of wood and has 3 main parts: resonant box, neck and the head. The resonant box is covered in animal
skin (most commonly goat skin) and has a few smaller sounding holes in the middle. The instrument
has one, in rare cases two, strings made of horse tail. The bow is made of a piece of thin and solid
naturally curved tree branch, over which horsehair is tensed. The head of Gusle is made in the shape of
an animal or a folklore figure. It is not a solo instrument, it serves only as the accompaniment, and can
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produce 4-5 different notes. The players of this instrument are called Guslars and are well respected
and popular. They sing and accompany themselves. The Guslars songs are mostly based on
improvisations that accompany the text. The text is often in decasyllable, it can be an old folk song,
learned through oral tradition or also an improvisation.
Diple (Mih, mjeh, diple with a barrel) is an instrument similar to bagpipes. It is made of tanned goat or
sheep skin, a tube-like wooden channel through which the air is blown and a wooden pipe with two
reeds called dipla on which the player plays. We differentiate several specific types of Diple based on
the position and the number of holes for playing – the diple (mih) from Herzegovina, from Pelješac
peninsula, central Dalmatia and Istria. Each instrument is unique and is different from other instrument
in its melodies and in the playing technique, as was every musician who had a personally developed
technique and style. Diple are not a tempered instrument and the relationship between the tones is not
pure in intonation, so every song is very specific and unusually sharp, just like the landscape in which
this instrument is played.9

2.2. Dances
One of the very interesting dances from Dalmatian hinterland is Nijemo Kolo, the silent circle dance.
10

In 2011 it has been added to the UNESCO list of Intangible cultural heritage.
„In the nijemo kolo - silent circle dance, each dancer performs his own steps, jumping in a closed
circle or in couples, leading his female partners, one or two, to be clearly seen by everyone, and then
again energetically jumping from one leg to another, at the same time pulling his female partners
along, publicly testing his skill, seemingly without defined rules, spontaneously, depending on his
mood and desire for common vigorous and impressive movement in a circle when he joins with others
into the kolo with long steps.
The common characteristic of the silent kolo is that it can be, although it does not have to be, a
continuation of walking steps with singing. It is conducted entirely independently of vocal or
instrumental performance. A musical or vocal performance may, however, precede or follow the silent
kolo. The dance is performed spontaneously at carnivals, fairs and on holidays (feast days) and at
weddings. Nowadays, it is mostly danced by village performing groups at local, regional or
international folklore festivals and at local shows, carnivals or on the saint days of their parish church.
It is still passed on from generation to generation, more and more through cultural clubs.“

2.3. Ganga

9
https://www.gajde.com/instrumenti/gusle/
10
https://www.min-kulture.hr/default.aspx?id=7156
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Certain elements characterize all ganga forms. It has a very narrow ambitus with untempered
intervals and frequent chromatic movements, The second part of the form must always be performed in
polyphonic progression with the characteristic use of major seconds and ending on that interval,
which in ganga territory is experienced as consonant. Typical short grace notes are used in the lower
voice of the polyphonic section. Ganga is usually performed by a group of three to five singers, either
women or men (never mixed), "Properly" performed ganga is experienced and described as a
remarkable vocal genre within its cultural environment.11

The favourite motif of ganga and its messages is love in it every form, but also everything else that
followed the man from Zagora, the homeplace of ganga. That ganga commented on every, for various
reasons popular girl, her beauty, her behaviour and everything with what she captured the attention of
the villagers. The situation was the same for men, but in a smaller quantity. That ganga saved our
parents, grandparents and grand-grandparents from being forgotten. It sung the relationships within the
family, between guys and girls, every wedding, every joy and every sorrow, every work that was to be
done, from digging to mowing, going to army, wars, abroad… To put it shortly, it described
everything. Ganga commented on all of the societal changes and all of the home and world ongoings,
depending on how much the natives were informed.

Najomiljeniji motiv gange i njezine poruke je ljubav u svim svojim oblicima, ali, kao što je već
rečeno, i sve drugo što je pratilo čovjeka iz područja gange. Ta je ganga komentirala svaku bilo po
čemu poznatiju djevojku, njezinu ljepotu, njezino ponašanje i sve čime je ona skretala pozornost na
sebe. Isto tako, ali nešto manje i momke. Ta je ganga od zaborava sačuvala uspomenu na naše bake i
prabake, djedove i pradjedove, majke i očeve, opjevala odnose u obitelji, porodici i rodbini, odnose
između momaka i djevojaka, udaju i svadbu, svako veselje, svaku radost, pa i svako stradanje,
svakodnevne radove koji su obavljani u području gange, od kopanja i kosidbe do branja grma, odlazak
u vojsku, ratovanja, odlazak u tuđinu, zatvorske patnje, ukratko zabilježila je i opisala sve. Ganga je
komentirala sve društvene promjene i sva domaća i svjetska zbivanja, ovisno koliko je čovjek
područja gange čuo za njih i saznao o njima.“12

2.4. The interval of the second – the staple of Zagora

The smallest of the intervals, sharp and dissonant, the interval of the second is the core of ganga songs.
It is the sounds that came first before all the other sounds in this place. Its tension is so powerful and

11
Article by prof. dr. sc. Ankica Petrović, ethnomusicologist and social anthropologist and a professor in
ethnomusicology at Herb Albert School of Music (UCLA) (http://www.ganga.hr/index.php/pisani-
radovi/item/273-perceptions-of-ganga)
„Mijatović, Anđelko (2004). Ganga, pismice iz Hercegovine, Imotske krajine, od Duvna, Livna i Kupresa. Tomislavgrad:
12

Naša Ognjišta“
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rough that it sounds like the pure force of friction; two objects, notes, constantly colliding and crashing
into each other. This sounds are the sharp stones, which have cut every leg of any child in the village.
They are a cold house, where tired people sleep on the rough straw beds, probably after having no or
little dinner.
Ankica Petrović, a Bosnian-Herzegovian enthnomusicologist who took her PhD at Queen’s University
in Belfast with a dissertation13 on ganga, wrote that ganga singers could differentiate small nuances in
the songs. The songs are not notated, and are probably impossible to notate, but the ganga singers
could differentiate different ways of producing sound and movement of the intonation. The ambitus of
the melody cannot be big in the interval of the second. There is no room to move, everything is very
close and claustrophobic. That makes the tension. The small changes in the intonation make this
tension breathe and come alive.

2.5. Ganga vs. Klapa – 2nds vs. 3rds

Klapa singing is a traditional way of a capella multi-part singing from urban coastal Dalmatia. The
ensemble usually consists of 4-10 singers. Klapa is traditionally sung by men only, but there are some
female klapas. The word Klapa itself means a clique, a group of friends, meaning that friends would
meet and sing together for fun. Now it is considered a cultural treasure and is listed on the UNESCO's
list of intangible culturale heritage since 2012.

The leader of the singing group is the highest voice – I. tenor, followed by several II. tenori, baritoni
and basi voices. Multipart singing, a capella homophonic singing, oral tradition and simple music
making are the main features of traditional klapa singing. Another important feature of the klapa is
the ability to sing freely, without the help of the notation of tunes and their harmonisation. During the
performance, singers stand in the recognizable setup, tight semi-circle, communicating occasionally
by the hand gestures and moves of the singing leader – I. tenor. I. tenor starts the singing followed by
the others in a specific manner (singing formulas) where II. tenori sing in parallel thirds, basi feature
the major key functions and baritoni “fill” the harmony of the chords. Technically, klapa singers
express their mood by means of open guttural, nasal, serenade-like sotto voce and falsetto singing,
and usually in high-pitched tessitura. The main aim of the singers is to achieve the best possible blend
of voices. Topics of klapa songs usually deal with love, familiar life situations, and the environment in
which they live. Love, though, is the predominant theme.14
The names of Klapas are usually connected to the culture or the environment from where they are. The
most common ones are: olives, seagulls, sardines, or typical dalmatian expressions. (Klapa

Petrović, Ankica (1977.) "Ganga, a Form of Traditional Rural Singing in Yugoslavia", The Queen's
13

University of Belfast. Unpublished Ph. D. thesis.

14
https://www.min-kulture.hr/default.aspx?id=8336
 15

Rišpet=respect, Klapa Šufit=loft etc.)

Klapa is perceived as beautiful. While strolling through Split, you can hear a klapa on the street
singing, mostly for tourists and trying to sell CDs. If you find yourself in a local bar or a gathering
place you can hear the klapa singing “in nature”, so to speak. I wouldn’t imagine any tourists buying
CDs of ganga singing. And it would be even more unlikely for the locals to sing for tourists in the first
place! Or make a CD. There is an enormous difference between ganga and klapa. Of course,
musically, but also in the culturally. The Ganga-Klapa contrast can be best compared to the Village-
City contrast, present in many arts and literature. Vlaj is a name for a person from the dalmatian
hinterland. It does have a stereotypical connotation and is connected to primitivism and barbarism
which is considered the opposite of the urban culture and civilization in related to the Dalmatian
coastal cities. The Vlajs on the other hand, find the city life and its inhabitants too soft and indirect,
which is a contrast to the people of Zagora, who are very blunt and sharp. Musically, both folk songs
have an important interval that builds the whole musical structure and style. For ganga it is interval of
the second, and for Klapa is the interval of the third.
ovdje moram jos bolje usporediti
 16

3. Triptych Montanense (Pictures of my village15)

First work that Čagalj ever wrote was based on ganga – Rodrigo in Zagora. After his mother’s death
he wrote it at a table in his kitchen in Split in 1997 and dedicated the piece to her. After Rodrigo, three
more pieces followed: The Bells of St. Duje, Dojdek and Epilogue, which are The Four Dances – his
autobiographical work. His musical path is an interesting one. Čagalj started playing the guitar at the
age of 17, which is considered very late for a classical musician in Croatia. There are public music
schools where children usually start before the age of 12. He already had a high school that enabled
him to work after finishing it and had a sure job in the Split port waiting for him. Though, he chose
music and finished the music school in only two years. At the age of 19 he went to an entrance exam
at the Academy of Music in Zagreb with a borrowed guitar and passed. Because his family was poor
he had to finance himself, so from the first day he started working as a teacher at the Elly Bašić Music
School. That is how his pedagogic career started. He has no formal education in composing. It wasn’t
available and he wasn’t in a good financial situation. Studying himself was the only option, and a
spontaneous one. He studied and drew inspiration from other composers, especially J.S.Bach,
improvised small pieces and arranged chamber music works for his students and later, The Zagreb
Guitar Quartet, which he lead. Though, with all this long history, he started composing intensively a
few years ago. Most of his inspiration is ganga and the interval of the second.
The Montanense Triptych is about Zagvozd, Montanense being a Latin name for it. The piece is visual
and programmatic, hence the word triptych16 in the name. It is a memory of composer’s birthplace
expressed in three small parts, three pictures, which are: Gango moja, The dream of the water-bearer
and Gumno-dance.

3.1. Gango moja

At the beginning of this picture we hear the song (ganga) coming somewhere from the mountains. The
elders from the village are going to a meeting (silo) and are singing to pass the time travelling through
the steep mountain passes. After the song dies out, we hear the rhythm of their footsteps which quickly
turns into swift campanilla passages imitating the wind which outvoices the song.

3.1.1. Campanillas
Th3 campanella technique is used often by the composer because it imitates the pianistic pedal and
mixes different sounds, making the interval of the second more present everywhere.

15
Orig. Cro: (Slike moga sela)
16
Triptych is a work of art (usually a panel painting) that is divided into three sections, or three carved panels
that are hinged together and can be folded shut or displayed open.
 17

3.1.2. The Ganga song

The way Čagalj imitated ganga in the beginning is interesting. The first phrase represents the lead
singer singing the lyrics solo. The other two phrases, which are identical, is where the other voices
come in. Suho i svijetlo, a remark that means dry and bright. To amplify the dryness and brightness of
the sound the e notes are meant to be played in unison, one of the e’s being the first spare string. The
grace notes in the other two phrases imitate the accompanying voice which creates the narrow
intervals between the lead voice and gives plasticity to the sound.
slika iz nota

This theme is also played at the end of the piece, but in a different way because the villagers are going
away and their song is fading out. Structurally, the first phrase is left out and to the other two phrases
that are left a third one, almost identical is added. The only difference is that the last note is longer and
the phrase isn’t concluded, because the conclusion is the first note of the next movement. From the
technical side, the fingering of the left hand is completely different which creates a different colour
and an effect that the music is hear from far away. The grace notes aren’t played with slurs in the left
hand, as is the general practice. The interval of the second on which the grace note is and the grace
note itself, every one of the notes is played on a different string. In this concrete example, e is played
as a spare string, f-sharp is played on the third string and the grace note g on the second. Holding this
chord in the left hand, the player pulls the strings with the index finger as a descending arpeggio. But
to preserve the character of the grace note, the player must play it shorter than the other notes,
meaning that he must stop it. It is actually very simple: the player must remove the finger from the
fret. So, the effect is something like playing an arpeggio and stopping the grace note g on the second
string with the left hand.
slike iz nota kraj

3.1.3. The Footsteps figure

There is a figure in music that represents footsteps. In this piece it is present in the bars 18-21. The
figure consists of two eighth notes making ascending or descending movement in the interval of the
second. The first note is accentuated and is played in legato with the next form. The accompaniment is
a pulsating quarter note playing one note in unison or a 2nd.

Slika figure koraka

3.1.4. The default chord

The chord Čagalj often uses in his ganga-inspired works is a dissonant chord built of 2nds and 8ths.
 18

The voicing of this chord most commonly found in his works is: a1, b1 (played twice in unison) and
b2. Sometimes instead of playing two b1s, one of them is played an octave lower. This chord is
something like a default sound of everything that is in Zagora: the nature, the clash between the force
of nature and man, the heated stone in the sun… It is a chord that always comes as a stopping point in
his works, like a reset to default and waiting to start something new after it.
The chord is often preceded by a syncopated or a triplet figure with a simple melodic figure moving in
neighbour notes.

slike akorda, mozda dvije, jedna iz rodriga u zagori ili treceg stavka slika mora bit s prijasnjom
figurom takt 47-48, 110-112

3.1.5. Classical ganga theme and imitation

Another way Čagalj used ganga theme is a more classical one. It first appeared in Rodrigo in Zagora
as the main theme and is the main motive and inspiration from which most of the figures are
derivatives of.

Slika teme iz rodriga

Because of his great love for J.S. Bach and his influence, Čagalj often uses imitation as a
compositional technique. The most notable works where he used it are: The Bells of St. Duje, Dojdek
and Put Prema Selu, where he used Croatian folk songs from Međimurje17, Zagorje18 and coastal
Dalmatia as themes.
In this work, the theme is a little bit modified, the imitation starts in stretto, but before the second
voice can finish its entry, the bas forcefully overtakes the main role by playing the theme in deep
register while other two voices accompany it with sharp 2nds.
What the composer does often when graphically marking the score is write many staccatos when there
are important voice leadings. It is because the contrast between the voices is very important. When the
upper voice is legato, the lower one is staccato and the other way around. Though, the melody does
not necessarily have to be played staccato. The idea is to play it with articulation. The composer
wanted to warn the interpreter of this contrast, making it more obvious by marking it staccato.

Slika imitacije takt 50-59

17
Međimurje is a small geographical region in Northern Croatia comprising the area between the two large
rivers, Mura and Drava.
18
Zagorje is a cultural region in northern Croatia, traditionally separated from the country's
capital Zagreb by the Medvednica mountain.
 19

3.1.6. 2nds as a pulsating ostinato

When used as a pulsating figure, 2nds represent a constant. Something that is always there present in
the background. In this example they are pulsating in quarter notes while other voices make short
entries. The seconds are a gentle, but a dissonant sound. Above and below, the two voices are
communicating with small two bar phrases. The higher voice is saying one thing, the lower one some
other thing and like a grumpy old man, always disagrees with everything. But everything is happening
in a small space around the 2nds.
slike taktova 60-65??

3.1.7. Sequencing the ganga theme

The theme is sequenced in a very simple way, only the first two bars of it are sequenced once a step
lower. The accompaniment is quite interesting. It is syncopated, but does not have a typical syncope
character. Mostly because the composer wanted to create a dissonant second voice that consists of two
2nds played on two different strings meant to be mixed, or under a pedal. He could have easily wrote a
sixteenth note figure in this voice, but that would have been to complicated to play.
slika taktova 92-95

3.2. San nosačice vode (Dream of the water bearer)

Every day, the woman of the house had to go to the gustrina and fetch the water for the whole family.
On her back she had a “vučija” which is a 50L containter, similar to a barrel and a backpack. Because
people of Zagora had no time for beauty, the only way for it to exist is in a dream of a suffering
woman. This woman is dreaming of better days, living not only to survive. Her hands are full of
blisters and her eyes tired. The movement is in ABA’ form.

3.2.1. Ganga theme and water drops

The movement starts off with an e note in unison, being the resolution of the last chord of the previous
movement. While the one of those voices continues pulsating throughout the movement like a drop of
water falling, the other voice brings us a ganga theme, slightly modified with appoggiaturas.

Slika pocetka

This theme is repeated in the whole A part. The main focus is on entries of new instruments in lower
register which sound like celli if it were orchestrated.

Slike drugih tema u stavku

The B part is fairly short and brings a break from the main theme. It flows more with the movement in
the lower voice. The main theme comes in syncopated, like irregular water drops. There is a
 20

arpeggiated Cmaj7 chord with an d-c appoggiatura in the bass which sounds like water spilling,
followed by a sudden modulation to B-minor which brings a new colour. The theme starts to play and
builds up in motives of the B part, but with 2nds in accompaniment making it sound rougher.
The main ganga theme comes at the end, but does not conclude.

3.3. Gumno – Dance

slika gumna ona s konjem i samo gumno

3.3.1. 2nds
There are two very interesting uses of the interval of the second in this movement. In the first example
they are used as an ostinato, but it is very different from the pulsating one from the first movement. It
differentiates in rhythm, 8th-16th-16th-8th-8th being the pattern here and articulation: the first note is
accentuated and staccato. With a strong melody in the soprano, it sounds very sharp, dry and bright.

Slika takt 28-34

The other example is a full build up using only 2nds. The 2nds are mostly used in some kind of a
context: with a melody, with pedal etc. which makes them appear softer and tamer. In this place their
full raw potential is shown. A two-bar pattern is being imitated through the voices, which travels to a
three-bar dance pattern with sharp grace notes in the bass and 2nds in the soprano. The seconds are
then pushing further, with a small rhythmical modification on the third repeat only to end in the chord
which stops and resets everything – chord build from 2nds.

Slika takt 40-49

3.3.2. Ganga theme

In the movement, the ganga theme appears a few times. It can be seen as a memory of the song, or
somebody is singing during the dance and a party at the gumno.
In the beginning, after an opening virtuosic passage, the the comes, slightly modified to fit a dance like
character. The main change is that the first two bars of it are the step figures from the first movement,
which indicate that the dance is a heavy peasant dance, without any elegant steps. Accompanied with
long, dissonant chords serving as a very basic rhythm, the theme is announcing that the dance begins.
The second entry of the theme is a is right after the first one and this one is only a memory of the song
because it is a direct quotation of the sequencing from Gango moja, but in another key.
 21

slika takt 1-12

There are three more appearances of the theme. Two of them are very similar.
The theme is in the bass and the accompaniment is in seconds, sometimes with a slight rhythmic
motive. The second theme appearance is different because it has a third voice added on top. In its case,
a parallel can be drawn to the motive with pulsating 2nds from the first movement. The 2nds are
surrounded by the voices.

Slika takt 15-20 50-55

There is another theme appearance which starts in seconds and continues to play in the bass, while the
2nds accompany in the soprano. It has a playful and a mocking character and is marked as burlesco.

Slika takt 70-74

3.3.3. Jumping grace notes

Grace notes in the bass, followd by a 2nd represent a jumping movement in the dance. It is a wild
peasant dance where no one cares to be elegant. The main character is to move in a rhythm, walk,
jump and dance. A grace note from below gives that effect and sounds very sharp. Above them the
markings say scherzando.
slika takt 62-65

3.3.4. The end figure

There is a typical figure that Čagalj uses in his endings. It is a derivative of the ganga theme and it
imitates the drop that the voices make when singing the end of the real ganga song. In his works he
usually uses it in faster pieces, where he wants to finish the piece with a virtuosic effect. It is a figure
with three sixteenth notes, not beginning on the beat, concluding in the dissonant chord, which I
previously mentioned and called the default chord. The chord is played broken, the bass being played
one sixteenth note after it in Bartok pizzicato. This ending was used in works Put prema selu and
Lijerice moja.

slike krajeva kompozicija