DESCRIPTION:
L.van Beethoven: ODA RADOSTI (ODE TO JOY)
Arranged by IVAN PAVACIC JECALICEV (Dobrinj, island Krk, CROATIA), ethnomusicologist

SOPELE playing by Ivan Pavacic Jecalicev and Klaudije Dunato

About specific music in Northern Adriatic coast and Istrian peninsula in Croatia:
Folk singing and playing the „SOPELE", the ancient folk musical instrument of the Northern Adriatic coast and Istria in Croatia are very specific.
This music is one of the most arhaic genuine expressions in this part of Europe. It is based on the non-tempered tonal system, a sequence of six tones, interpositioned in such a way that no other tone can be placed between them. This is the basic difference when we compare it with tempered, diatonic system of music played in modern European and world music.
Therefore, we are dealing here with most ancient Croatian music system, not present in any other European music.
This genuine music expression, carried over from generation to generation, has been rooted in the essence of the people.

Melography (note writing) of the distinctive, genuine music has been made possible thanks to the great Croatian musicologist and composer Ivan Matetić Ronjgov (1880-1960), who has deciphered the patterns of popular singing in this area, has theoretically explained the essence of the music and has fixed the scale of hexacordic system of tight intervals , naming it later the „Istrian scale".

From sptember 2009, Istrian scale is on UNESCO`s Representative list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

* UNESCO`s description:
Two-part singing and playing in the Istrian scale - On the Istrian peninsula in western Croatia, several varieties of two-part singing and playing in the Istrian scale are preserved by Croatian, The style is characterized by vigorous, partly nasal singing.
Two-part singing and playing in the Istrian Scale is a complex style of folk music found even outside Istria and the Croatian Littoral, but it is most compactly preserved precisely in this area. Basically, two-part singing is based on non-tempered tone relations and a characteristic color of tone that is achieved in vocal music by powerful singing, partly through the nose.

There is often a degree of improvisation and variation during the performance in both voices, but endings in unison or in octave remain as a strict rule. This feature can be noticed in bugarenje sub-style, too, regardless of the fact that the lower voice drops additionally for a second or a diminished third.

Most of tone rows consist of four to six tones. Metro-rhythmical organization, formal structure and structure of the sung text range from simple to very complex patterns, and the relationship between music and lyrics is specific.