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STORIES ABOUT MUSIC IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA: dedicated to Folke

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 STORIES ABOUT MUSIC IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA:
dedicated to Folke Rabe
Stor i e s about Mu si c in B o sni a and He r z e gov ina: d edi cated to Fol ke Rab e

By
Lana Šehović
Fatima Hadžić
Jasmina Talam
Tamara Karača Beljak

1
 Published by
Institute of Musicology
Academy of Music, University of Sarajevo
Svenskt visarkiv/Caprice Records,
The Swedish Performing Arts Agency
Institute of Musicology, Academy of Music, University of Sarajevo
Svenskt visarkiv/Caprice Records,
The Swedish Performing Arts Agency

Sarajevo, 2022.

Reviewers
Dr. Nirha Efendić, Research associate at The National Museum of Bosnia STORIES ABOUT MUSIC
and Herzegovina Department for Ethnology
Dr. Gerda Lechleinter, Phonogrammarchiv of the Austrian Academy of IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA:
Sciences (retired) DEDICATED TO FOLKE RABE
Dr. Catharina Raduvere, Professor at University of Copenhagen,
Depratment of Cross-cultural and Regional Studies
Dr. Gunnar Ternhag, Professor emeritus in musicology, Stockholm
University, Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music and of
the Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy of Swedish Folk Culture

By
Translated by Kim Burton Lana Šehović
Proofreading by Hilary Hazzard Fatima Hadžić
Design and layout: Dejan Slavuljica Jasmina Talam
in an edition of 300 copies Tamara Karača Beljak

ISBN SARAJEVO, 2022.

2 3
CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PREFACE / Svanibor Pettan

INTRODUCTION

FOLKE RABE / Dan Lundberg

FOLKE RABE’S JOURNEY TO BOSNIA

THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT

THE STRATIFICATION OF FOLK MUSIC IN BOSNIA AND

HERZEGOVINA
From rural to urban: folk polyphony and the sounds of the city
Traditional instruments and instrumental practice

THE SOUNDSCAPE OF BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA FROM THE

RESEARCHER’S PERSPECTIVE
The first sources on the traditional music of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Ethnomusicological expeditions

THE SOUNDSCAPE OF BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA FROM THE

ARTIST’S PERSPECTIVE
Traditional music as artistic material
Folklore, inspiration, poesis

EXPLORING BOSNIAN MUSIC FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF OTHERS

Friedrich Salomo Krauss
Aleksandar Šandor Bosiljevac
Bogomir Kačerovský
Matija Murko
Gerhard Gesemann
Julius Gyula Major
Julius Fučik
Franjo Ksaver Kuhač
Ludvig Kuba
Abraham S. Suzin
Milman Parry and Albert Lord

WORKS REFERRED TO

4 5
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Illustration 1. Kulturkvartetten, 1971, Folke Rabes archive at the Centre for

Swedish Folk Music and Jazz Research.
Illustration 2. Jan Bark and Folke Rabe, Folke Rabes archive at the Centre for
Swedish Folk Music and Jazz Research.
Illustration 3. The Alan Lomax Collection: World Library of folk and Primitive
Music: Yugoslavia, CD cover Vol. 5, Rounder Records Corp.
Illustration 4. Report on the arrival of grant recipient Birthe Trærup Larsen, 27
May 1955, IF 322/55, Institute of Folklore Research, Archives of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Sarajevo.
Example 1. Transcription of the song Pivo pile age na Novome, Fasicle
I/60, Ethnographic Department Archive, National Museum of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Sarajevo.
Illustration 5. Moshe ben Rafael Atias (Sarajevo, 1845-1916), photograph
Julius Subak, Judeo-Spanish from Balkans: The recordings by Julius Subak
(1908) and Max A. Luria (1927)/CD/illustration (2009)
Illustration 6. Photograph of Leo Hajek’s informant Šemso Kuljuh, Private
archives of the Kuljuh family.
Illustration 7. Prosvjetino kolo, Mara Matĕjovská, in Lana Paćuka, Ženski
identiteti u muzičkom životu austrougarskog Sarajeva (Sarajevo: Muzička
akademija Univerziteta u Sarajevu, Institut za muzikologiju, 2019), 143.
Illustration 8. Poster for the historical musical drama Hajduk Veljko, Museum
of Literature and Performing Arts, Sarajevo.
Illustration 9. Jaroslav Plecity Iz stare Bosne for mixed choir, first page of the
score, in Horske kompozicije I: u duhu narodne pjesme Bosne i Hercegovine
(Sarajevo: Udruženje kompozitora NR BiH, 1954), 44.
Illustration 10. Jaroslav Plecitý Ašik osta’ na te oči for voice and piano, first
page of the score, Score of Ašik osta’ na te oči by Jaroslav Plecitý, sign.
46-334M.Poz, Library of the Academy of Music, University of Sarajevo,
Sarajevo.
Illustration 11. Portrait of Friedrich Salomo, Krauss Karl-May-Wiki, accessed
29 December 2021, https://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Friedrich_
Krauss.
Illustration 12. First violin part of the operetta Die braut muss billig sein!, Box
10, Folder 9, Krauss collection, Library Special Collections, University of
California (UCLA), Los Angeles. [Digitised copy held at the Institute of
Musicology of the Academy of Music, University of Sarajevo].
Illustration 13. A drawing of urban life, Box 5 Folder 46, Krauss collection,
Library Special Collections, The University of California (UCLA), Los
Angeles. [Digitised copy held at the Institute of Musicology, Academy of
Music, University of Sarajevo].

6 7
Illustration 14. Notation of guslar song Kad umire beže Osman-beže, Box 5
Folder 147, Krauss collection, Library Special Collections, University of
California (UCLA), Los Angeles. [Digitised copy held at the Institute of
Musicology, Academy of Music, University of Sarajevo].
Illustration 15. Title page of Jedna noć na istoku - fantastični istočni ples, Score
of Jedna noć na istoku - fantastični istočni ples by Aleksandar (Šandor)
Bosiljevac, H2-4*-162, Music Collection, Library of the National University,
Zagreb.
Illustration 16. Title page of the Album bosansko-hercegovačkih pjesama,
Score of Album bosansko-hercegovačkih pjesama by Aleksandar (Šandor)
Bosiljevac, Library of the Duh Sveti Monastery, Fojnica.
Illustration 17. Album bosanskohercegovačkih pjesama, Telal viče, Score of
Album bosansko-hercegovačkih pjesama by Aleksandar (Šandor) Bosiljevac,
Library of the Duh Sveti Monastery, Fojnica.
Illustration 18. Excerpt from correspondence with suggestions by Franjo Kuhač,
Appendix to letter no. 227, Pb-15/12, XII Register of Correspondence,
Department of the History of Croatian Music, Croatian Academy of Sciences
and Arts, Zagreb.
Illustration 19. The title page of Bosanske sevdalinke, Score of Bosanske
sevdalinke by Bogomir Kačerovský, sign. F. 302, the National Museum of
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo.
Illustration 20. Bosanske sevdalinke, Sjaj mjeseče, Score of Bosanske sevdalinke
by Bogomir Kačerovský, sign. F. 302, the National Museum of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Sarajevo.
Illustration 21. Cvijeće sa bosanskohercegovačkih livada, Score of -Cvijeće sa
bosanskohercegovačkih livada by Bogomir Kačerovský, Muzikologija, no.
32, Sarajevo Historical Archives, Sarajevo.
Illustration 22. Portrait of Matija Murko, 1936, Wikipedia, accessed December
29, 2021, https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matija_Murko.
Illustration 23. Murko’s record sheet for the song Sitna knjiga od žalosti, sung
by Avdo Mehić, recorded: September 10, 1913 in Mostar, protocol Ph 2149,
Phonogram Archive, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna.
Illustration 24. CD cover Series 16: Epic Folk Songs from Bosnia and
Herzegovina ‒ The Collections of Matija Murko 1912, 1913, Gerda
Lechleitner and Christian Liebl, eds., The Complete Historical Collections
1899-1950. Series 16: The collection of Matija Murko (1912, 1913) (Austrian
Academy of Sciences Press, 2017).
Illustration 25. Written communication between Gesemann and Huber regarding
preparations for fieldwork by the Committee for South-East Europe, 27 July
1937, digitised documentation 252-LR_57200-10_Fasz (10)242, document
213/37, Bosnienfahrt, University Library of Regensburg, Regensburg.
[Digitised copy held at the Institute of Musicology, Academy of Music,
University of Sarajevo]
8 9
Illustration 26. Singing to the tepsija, performers: Cvijeta Stolica, Milica Rogan,
Pava Rogan and Jevrosima Bujak, photograph: W. Wünsch, Regensburg
University Library, No. 447.
Illustration 27. The data about the informants and the recordings is given in
Katalog der Europäischen Volksmusik im Schallarchiv des Institutes für
Musikforschung Regensburg, Felix Hoerburger, Katalog der europäischen
Volksmusik im Schallarchiv des Institutes für Musikforschung Regensburg
(Regensburg: Bosse, 1952), 36.
Illustration 28. The Gajret mixed choir with its conductor Cvjetko Rihtman,
National Theatre, 5 March 1938, Photograph accompanying the article
Gajret, “Velika Gajretova zabava u Sarajevu,” XIX, 4-5 (April 1938): 80-82.
Illustration 29. Vejsil Hadžibegić accompanied by Hamdija Hadžihalilović
and Asim Jasika at the Festival of Folk Dance and Song in Belgrade, 1939,
Politika, “Festival narodnih igara i pesama bliži se kraju,” 27 May 1939,
[year XXXVI, no. 11130], 10, https://digitalna.nb.rs/wb/NBS/novine/
politika/1939/05/27#page/9/mode/1up
Illustration 30. Asimaga Jasika and Amir Haskić, Sarajevo 1937, No. 456,
photograph: W. Wünsch. Bosnienfahrt, University Library of Regensburg,
Regensburg. [Digitised copy held at the Institute of Musicology, Academy
of Music, University of Sarajevo].
Illustration 31. Guslars Nikola Korica and Jovo Antić, Sarajevo 1937, no. 450,
photograph: W. Wünsch, Bosnienfahrt, University Library of Regensburg,
Regensburg. [Digitised copy held at the Institute of Musicology, Academy
of Music, University of Sarajevo].
Illustration 32. The Aeroplan Kafana in Sarajevo, year unknown, The Aeroplan
Kafana in Sarajevo, n.d., unnumbered, Photograph collection of Sarajevo
City Museum, Sarajevo.
Example 2. The ballad Čudna jada od Mostara grada, noted by Brother Bruno
Adamčik, Bruno Adamčik, “Tri napjeva iz Hercegovine,” Sv. Cecilija 24, 5
(1930), 171.
Illustration 33. Letter from Julius Major to the Provincial Government, 1909,
Documentation of Joint Ministry of Finance, ZMF, 1909, 7211, Joint Ministry
of Finance, Archives of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo.
Example 3. Kuba’s transcription of the song Sinoć sam ti (Sarajevo), Ludvig
Kuba, Pjesme i napjevi iz Bosne i Hercegovine (Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1984),
251.
Example 4. Major’s arrangement of Sinoć sam ti (Sarajevo), Score of Bosnische
Lieder op. 70 by Julius Major, MS 10289-4, Musiksammlung, Austrian
National Library, Vienna.
Illustration 34. The score Bosnische Rhapsodie op. 71 by Julius Major, title
page Score of Bosnische Rhapsodie op. 71 by Julius Major, MS 17299-4,
Musiksammlung, Austrian National Library, Vienna.
Illustration 35. Poster for première of the opera Mila, Bratislava 1913, Collection
of Theatre Poster Photocopies, Bratislava Municipal Theatre, 1843–1939,
Bratislava Theatre Institute, Bratislava.
Illustration 36. Portrait of Julius Fučík, Darina Svobodová, “LIDÉ: 130. výročí
narození krále pochodů Julia Fučíka,” Neviditelný pes, accessed July 19, 2002,
http://archiv.neviditelnypes.lidovky.cz/clanky/2002/07/23388_13_0_0.html
Illustration 37. The first page of score of Fučik’s Sarajevo marsch op. 66, in
Julius Fučik, “Sarajevo marsch op. 66,” in Antologija klavirske muzike u
Bosni i Hercegovini, eds. Lana Paćuka and Maja Ačkar (Sarajevo: Muzička
akademija Univerziteta u Sarajevu), 28.
Illustration 38. Portrait of Franjo Kuhač, Proleksis encikopedija, “Kuhač, Franjo
Ksaver,” Leksikografski zavod Miroslav Krleža, 2021, accessed August 20,
2021, http://proleksis.hr/33074/.
Illustration 39. The title page of the collection of the South Slavic Folk Song,
Božidar Širola and Vladoje Dukat, eds., Južno-slovjenske narodne popjevke
(Zagreb: n.p., 1941).
Illustration 40. Ludvik Kuba in a painting studio, Vilém Faltýnek, “Za hlasem
malíře a folkloristy Ludvíka Kuby,” Český rozhlas, accessed August
22, 2021, https://www.radio.cz/cz/rubrika/zarchivu/za-hlasem-malire-a-
folklristy-ludvika-kuby.
Illustration 41. Contents of the Glasnik Zemaljskog muzeja, 21 (1909).
Illustration 42. CD cover Tragom pjesme Ludvika Kube, CD Tragom pjesme
Ludvika Kube edited by Tamara Karača Beljak (Muzička produkcija BHRT,
F0056, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2005).
Illustration 43. Durmi la nočada arranged by A. Suzin, Narodna židovska
svijest, September 7, 1926, 6, from: Dušan Mihalek, “Abraham Avraham
Suzin.”
Illustration 44. The folk singer Almasa Zvizdić outside her home in Gacko,
26 May 1954, Photographic Archive of the Ethnology Department of the
National Museum, Sarajevo.
Illustration 45. Fieldwork in Kulen Vakuf, September 1934, Milman Parry,
Photograph of the fieldwork in Kulen Vakuf, September 1934, Milman Parry
Collection of Oral Literature, Harvard Library, https://curiosity.lib.harvard.
edu/milman-parry-collection-of-oral-literature?utm_source=library.harvard.

10 11
 PREFACE Not only that the featured researchers and artists have different roots
(Austrian, Croatian, Czech, German, Hungarian Slovenian, US),
The (hi)story of music on the soil of Bosnia and Herzegovina is composed some of them did their work intentionally across ethnoreligious lines
of multiple layers and has both domestic and foreign (-born) protagonists. (e.g. Murko), while the others were involved in the musical life of
This book, written by some of the country‘s leading music scholars of smaller communities (the case of Suzin with the Jews) or registered
our time – two ethnomusicologists and two musicologists – provides a and commented participation of artists from smaller communities (e.g.
well-informed insider view of music and its contexts, recognizing the Gesemann‘s comments on Romani musicianship).
relevance of those individuals and groups of researchers and artists from The history of ethnomusicology tells us many stories about the mutually
abroad, who were active in Bosnia and Herzegovina for a rather limited complementing benefits from research done by domestic scholars and
time during the periods of Austro-Hungarian administration (1878-1918) by those from other countries. This book points to the importance of
and the subsequent kingdom of southern Slavs lasting until the Second documenting international scholarly and artistic communication, and
World War. as such will likely inspire similar publications in other environments.
A notable temporal exception from these periods is the Swedish At this point, I wish to congratulate the authors Lana Šehović, Fatima
composer Folke Rabe, who did research in Bosnia and Herzegovina in Hadžić, Jasmina Talam, and Tamara Karača Beljak, the Swedish partner
the 1960s, and whose case inspired the creation of this book. Presented by in this project Dan Lundberg, and the translator Kim Burton, who will
the ethnomusicologists from both Sweden and Bosnia and Herzegovina (along with some other colleagues) most certainly have a place in some
(Dan Lundberg and Jasmina Talam), the story of Folke Rabe marks the continuation of this book featuring researchers and artists of foreign
opening section and leads the story from the recording sessions in the origin who benefitted our knowledge of music in Bosnia and Herzegovina
village of Kuti decades ago to the destruction of the village in the war in in the more recent times.
the 1990s and to Rabe‘s search for survivors and his visit to Kuti‘s ruins
in 2007. Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 17 January 2022
A reader will certainly appreciate insights into both the contextual Svanibor Pettan
and structural features of Bosnian and Herzegovinian traditional music
and the use of local terminology with translations for both rural and
urban music-related phenomena such as singing practices and musical
instruments. The authors also provide relevant references published in a
variety of languages, enabling study beyond the aims of this book, which
for the first time brings together the accumulated knowledge about the
topic in such a concentrated and systematic manner.
The sections in which researcher and artist perspectives are discussed
nicely lead to the final section featuring a dozen foreign-born contributors
to the music of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Their outlined life stories,
motives, approaches, and products of their research or artistry are
accompanied by the lines on the reception of their achievements then and
from today‘s perspective. Particularly interesting are the cases of their
mutual relations: It is valuable, for instance, to know about the impact
of Kuhač‘s authority on musical works of Bosiljevac and Kačerovsky,
about Marjanović‘s impact on Murko, and about the relations within
Gesemann‘s research expedition named Bosnienfahrt.

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 INTRODUCTION

The incorporation of Bosnia and Herzegovina into the Austro-Hungarian

monarchy led to a greatly increased interest in its folk music on the part of
foreign researchers and musicians. Gerhard Gesemann, a distinguished
German Slavist and folklorist, once said in regard to his particular interest
in the country’s cultural life, that

“For four hundred years the Balkans were cloaked in impenetrable

darkness. Whatever happened in that part of Europe remained a mystery.
The only reports to arrive from there were of wars and uprisings. It was
only a little more than a hundred years ago that the darkness began to
lift, and it was then that Europe first came to hear its poetry, the foremost
representative of its cultural life. Fresh and redolent of the spiritual
beauty of the folk, it sprang from their inborn power. Europe’s first view
of the Balkans was thus arrested at its ethnography. Ingrained patriarchy,
the guardian of those ethnographic characteristics, preserved the moral
backbone of the folk and those powerful moral and ethical values that so
fascinated the great worthies of Europe.”1

Those with an interest in culture could become familiar with the folkloric
heritage of Bosnia and Herzegovina thanks to the works of these foreign
researchers published in journals or monographs. Their works contained
valuable information about their informants, those who preserved and
transmitted various types of music-making, and they remain important
sources for the study of the country’s traditional music even today.
Along with these researchers, many musicians and composers evinced an
interest in traditional music. Many of them collected folk songs, which
they arranged or used as inspiration for the composition of original works.
Compositions based on or inspired by the traditional music of Bosnia and
Herzegovina enriched its musical life in the Austro-Hungarian period,
and between the world wars.
Folklorists and composers from the lands of the Austro-Hungarian
monarchy were particularly interested in researching in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. They not infrequently received research grants which
enabled them to painstakingly prepare and plan their field work in

1 A. K., “Naučna ekspedicija sa d-r Gezemanom na čelu snimila je u Sarajevu naše narodne pesme,”
Jugoslavenska pošta, 7 October, 1937.

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 advance. Thanks to this financial support, researchers and musicians Folke Rabe and other researchers and composers who have left their
were able to spend considerable periods of time in the country, make mark on the culture of Bosnia and Herzegovina. We hope that this book
contact with a large number of informants, and record a large number of will stimulate further research into historical sources and the researchers,
folk songs. Until the beginning of the twentieth century, these researchers musicians and composers who have made the folk culture of Bosnia and
had generally recorded the texts of the songs. Only a few, such as Ludvik Herzegovina the focus of their research, or used it as inspiration for new
Kuba and Franjo Kuhač, had notated their melodies. works.
Researchers from further afield, such as Gerhard Gesemann and Milman
Parry, began researching in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1930s. Their
interest in the country’s musical traditions was mostly inspired by the
works of their predecessors published in Germany, France and the USA.
Although they made a major contribution to the study, promotion and
popularisation of the folk music of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the names of
these important researchers and artists are very rarely to be found in the
country’s scholarly literature. This is what has led us to write this book
on the work of those researchers and musicians who visited the country
for brief or extended periods between 1878 and the Second World War.
Their scholarly and artistic work includes research into its folk music,
arrangements of folk song, and the composition of works inspired by its
folklore. The researchers and composers who are the subject of this book
are introduced in accordance with the date of their visits to the country,
within a historical framework covering the period of Austro-Hungarian
rule (1878-1918) and the inter-war period (1918-1941).
This book is dedicated to Folke Rabe, one of Sweden’s most significant
composers. Few are aware that Rabe visited Bosnia and Herzegovina in
1963. In the years following the Second World War research by foreign
folklorists had been conducted under the auspices of the scholarly and
educational institutions of former Yugoslavia; Folke Rabe was the first
to have come to Bosnia and Herzegovina independently and without
any support, wishing to learn about its traditional folk music. Almost 30
years after his visit that Rabe composed a piece for orchestra inspired
by Bosnian folklore, and it was over 40 years after that visit that Rabe
returned to Bosnia, where he visited the Academy of Music and donated
digital copies of the recordings that he had made during his fieldwork.
A decade after Rabe’s death, Dan Lundberg provided us with a digital
copy of his orchestral piece, and the recordings of Bosnian music and
the accompanying documentation which he had donated to the Centre
for Swedish Folk Music and Jazz Research. From this came the idea of
a joint project with the Svenskt visarkiv/Caprice Records, The Swedish
Performing Arts Agency intended to demonstrate the significance of

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