Guest lecturer Žanna Pärtlas, Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, presents Big Enigmas of a Small Finno-Ugric Culture: The Ancient Polyphonic Singing of the Seto (South-East Estonia). This talk will be presented in hybrid format (in-person, with virtual option). Co-sponsored by the Music Theory area, the Music and Dance Library, the EMIC Graduate Student Association, and the Ethnomusicology program.
Throughout the 20th century, many oral musical cultures, which had developed over the centuries in the territory of agrarian Europe, suffered a sharp decline. The main reason for this is the disappearance of the traditional socio-economic environment that fed these cultures, and the massive impact of Western music through the media. All the more valuable are the remaining islands of traditional culture, which not only support cultural diversity in the modern globalized world, but also give valuable evidence of historical, ethnic, cultural, musical and other processes of the past.
The musical tradition of the Seto, a small ethnic group of Estonians, is one of these cultural islets, which has survived due to its peripheral location and cultural isolation. In speaking about Seto older songs, the words “rare” and “unusual” have often to be used. These songs are enigmatically different from those of the rest of the Estonians and of the neighboring peoples, representing a well-preserved cultural fragment from ancient times whose true origins remain unclear. Indeed, certain aspects of the Seto musical style appear “rare” and “unusual” on a far wider geographical scale — the structure of Seto vocal polyphony is peculiar, the rhythmic system of the songs and the manner of singing rather specific, and the musical scales and tuning extremely rare, if not unique. In this talk, Žanna Pärtlas introduces this little-known musical tradition and discusses hypotheses concerning its historical origins and possible connections with some geographically remote traditional cultures.
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Žanna Pärtlas is a senior researcher at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, Tallinn (Estonia), and an associate professor at the Institute of National and Folk Culture of the Ogarev Mordovia State University, Saransk (Russia). From 1983 to 1992 she studied musicology at the Rimski-Korsakov St. Petersburg State Conservatory, where she received her PhD in 1992. She has since lived in Estonia. Pärtlas’ principal area of interest is Seto, Russian and Mordovian folk song. Her research projects focus primarily on analytical approaches to traditional music and on general theoretical questions of traditional multi-part singing. Since 1981 she has undertaken fieldwork in various regions of Russia, Belarus and Estonia.
Lectures in Musicology is co-sponsored by The Ohio State University Libraries.
Lectures are held Mondays at 4 p.m. in the 18th Avenue Library, 175 W. 18th Ave. (Music/Dance Library, second floor, room 205), unless otherwise noted. These events are free and open to the public. Campus visitors, please use either the Tuttle Park Place Garage or the Ohio Union South Garage. All other garages in the vicinity of the 18th Ave. Library are closed to visitors before 4 p.m.
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