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Joseph Jordania
The University of Melbourne
International Research Centre for Traditional Polyphony
Georgian Traditional Polyphony in
Comparative Studies:
History and Perspectives
• Comparative studies:
Completing the circle or gradually increasing?
The development of the scholarly study of traditional music for the last 120 years
is usually summarized as a strategic shift from comparative studies (1884 – 1940) to deep
regional studies of separate traditions (after 1945). The last few years have been marked
by several attempts to revive comparative studies in Europe and America: publication of
the book “The Origins of Music” (2000 by MIT Press) resurrected such themes as music
universals and music origin theories; in 2001the ICTM World Conference in Rio de
Janeiro discussed the possible comeback of the comparative method as the first theme of
the conference; in 2006 the journal “World of Music” published a comparative article by
Victor Grauer on the early history of music in human evolution with commentaries from
a few scholars; and my own book on the origins of choral singing (2006) was mostly
based on the comparative method. These attempts to revive the comparative method in
ethnomusicology is bringing the development of ethnomusicology to the point of
completing the first “full circle”.
Well, it would be naïve to think that the development of ethnomusicology strictly
followed the trends outlined above. For example, according to the history of the study of
my native Georgian traditional music, a study of regional traditions has been paramount
for Georgian scholarship since the 1860s. The same can be said about the history of the
study of traditional music in Russia, where research of regional traditions also dominated.
The same was true in the Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Portugal, Greece,
Bulgaria, Canada and in many other countries of the world. As a matter of fact, if counted
summarily, comparative works, coming mostly from the representatives of the great
Berlin school of comparative musicology during the first half of the 20th century, were in
a huge minority compared with the many hundreds of regional studies conducted by
native scholars, and published in an array of different languages in the same period.
Paradoxically, since WW2, after the establishment of the so-called new non-
comparative paradigm in ethnomusicology, national scholars, on the contrary, expressed
more interest in comparative studies. In Georgia, for example, few books containing
comparative studies were published after the 1980s (Gvacharia & Tabagua, 1983;
Maisuradze, 1989, Jordania, 1989, 2006). In Russian and Ukrainian scholarship
comparative studies of the Slavonic world also became more important from the 1960s
1
(for example, monographic studies by Rubtsov, 1962; Goshovsky, 1968, Zemtsovsky,
1975, 1987). If we try to summarize the gigantic output in ethnomusicological research
throughout the world we will find that in most of the national scholarships of the world
the share of comparative studies have actually increased after WW2. (Although we must
remember that regional studies have always grossly prevailed in national scholarship).
Despite the possibility that many of my colleagues might agree with what I have
just said, most of them would still reject seeing the history of the study of traditional
music from other than a western perspective. This kind of Europecentrism, which in my
2006 book I called the “milk-drinking syndrome” reminds us how far we still are from
objectively covering the wide gamut of research methods of world scholarship1.
Therefore, the change of paradigm in the study of traditional music (from
comparative to regional studies) was primarily a shift in western, Euro-American
scholarship. For the majority of world countries comparative study has never been a
leading method of study, and contrary to western ethnomusicology, the importance of
comparative studies has been increasing since the 1950s.
It was natural that the study of so-called “non-European cultures”, that gave birth
to comparative musicology, started by the representatives of big colonial powers, who
could easily go and study their “own” colonized territories. As a matter of fact, colonial
powers considered scholarly study of colonized territories as their responsibility. In a
certain way, the old name of ethnomusicology – “Music History of non-European
Cultures” - could be interpreted as “Music History of European Colonies” (see, for
example, the array of works of British and French scholars in the colonized African
regions, or the works of Russian scholars among the peoples of the former Russian
Empire and the USSR). I consider that the unique international position of Germany (an
ambitious central European power without colonies), prompted German scholars to start
studying the whole world from a comparative perspective, often without any reliance on
their own fieldwork materials.
• First attempts at a comparative study
of Georgian polyphony
Not surprisingly, the first attempts at a comparative study of Georgian traditional
polyphony was conducted by representatives of the great German school of comparative
musicology (Nadel, 1933, Schneider, 1940). These attempts followed the first
publications of Georgian traditional polyphonic songs made by German and Austrian
scholars from Georgian war prisoners during the First World War (Lach, 1917,
Schunemann, 1920). Nadel was the first to suggest that the emergence of European
Medieval professional polyphony could have been the result of the influence of Georgian
polyphony. In his review of Nadel’s book, Marius Schneider remarked that Nadel was
“going too far” in his suggestions, but a few years later Schneider himself went even
1 “Milk-drinking syndrome” stands for the Europecentristic phenomenon, when the European experience is
extrapolated onto the whole world, although facts seen worldwide do not turn out to support the European
point of view: until the 1960s it was generally believed that all human populations can drink and absorb
milk. By the end of the 1970s it was found that almost all adult populations of the world could not absorb
milk, with the exception of only North and partly Central Europeans. Worldwide charity missions had to
change their food-providing strategies to most of the regions of the world. This remarkable and
methodologically important fact, which teaches us to be cautious in extrapolating European experience
onto other parts of the world, is still not widely known.
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further, suggesting that Europe did receive the first impulses of polyphony from the
Caucasus (Schneider was trying to avoid the use of the term “Georgian”, using instead
the broader geographic term “Caucasian” and he was using materials from North
Caucasian peoples. Schneider, 1940). In his subsequent publications Schneider remained
loyal to his suggestion that Caucasian polyphony played a major role in turning European
professional monophonic singing tradition into polyphony (1951, 1961, 1969). To keep
historical records straight, we should also mention, that for Schneider (unlike Nadel)
Caucasia was not a region where polyphony was “born” or “invented”. According to his
approach to the origins of vocal polyphony, based on fabled “cultural circles”, vocal
polyphony was first created somewhere in South-East Asia, and came to Georgia via
Iran. Considering that there is hardly any vocal polyphony in Iran, Schneider’s historical
reconstructions were at best weakly founded.
In 1956 a small article on the parallels between Georgian and Albanian polyphony
was published by Erich Stockman. The article was very small (only two pages), was
based on the superficial analysis of one Georgian and one Albanian example of three-part
vocal polyphony, without any social or historical context. And still, for the first time
Georgian traditional polyphony was compared with traditional polyphony from another
culture (prior to this, Georgian traditional polyphony was analyzed in the context of the
history of European professional polyphony).
For the biggest part of the development of Georgian musicology and
ethnomusicology, there were no sizeable attempts to compare Georgian traditional
polyphony with traditional polyphony from other regions. For example, in his 1925 book
the founder of the scholarly study of Georgian traditional music Dimitri Araqishvili
mentioned the presence of polyphony in medieval Great Britain (the well known
information from the Giraldus Cambrensis from the end of 12th century), and in Russia,
but without discussing these traditions in a comparative aspect. This was mostly due to
the fact that most of the polyphonic traditions of the world were not known at the time.
For example, listing the peoples of the USSR with the traditions of vocal polyphony,
Shalva Aslanishvili mentions only Georgian, Russian, Ukrainian and Ossetian traditional
music (Aslanishvili, 1954:3). It was a common phrase for Georgian musicologists to
assert that Georgian polyphony was a “polyphonic island” in the “sea of monophonic
cultures”. This trend changed from the 1980s, when a few publications, looking at the
Georgian traditional polyphony in comparative perspective appeared (Gvacharia &
Tabagua, 1983; Maisuradze, 1989, Tsitsishvili, 1990, 1991; see also Jordania, 1989,
2006).
Besides of the unique tradition of vocal polyphony, Georgia boasts of possibly
one of the oldest languages of Europe (together with Basque and some North Caucasian
languages). Studies in comparative linguistics of the Georgian language had been going
on for more than a century before studies of Georgian polyphony even started. As a
natural consequence, the results of linguistic studies had a tremendous influence on the
comparative works of Georgian musicologists. So in some of their works scholars were
trying to strictly follow the results of linguistic research:
(1) In their 1983 book “Basque Folk Songs” Vazha Gvacharia (linguist and
musicologist) and Ilia Tabagua (linguist) compared Georgian and Basque musical
traditions and polyphony. Their conclusion that Georgian and Basque musical traditions
are very close to each other was mostly following the well-known (and still controversial)
3
linguistic hypothesis on the ancient relationship between the Georgian and Basque
languages. As a matter of fact, Basque traditional polyphony bears major signs of the
influence of late European professional polyphony (parallel thirds and sixths, European
functional harmony, etc.), and has closer connections to Italian or Balkan “Europeanized”
polyphonic traditions than to Georgian traditional polyphony. So called “western branch”
of Georgian urban choral music is also close to Basque polyphony, but the reasons of this
closeness does not go into the pre-Indo-European antiquity. So in terms of musical
parallels, the polyphonic traditions of the Albanians (studied in the article by Erich
Stockman) or Bulgarians (see Tsitsishvili, 1990, 1991) are much closer to Georgian
polyphony than the polyphonic traditions of the Basques.
(2) In her 1989 book “Georgian Folk Music and its Historical-Ethnographic
Aspects” Maisuradze studied links of Georgian polyphony in the context of Caucasia.
There are truly very interesting musical and historical links between Georgian and North
Caucasian musical traditions, but unfortunately, the scholar tried to strictly follow the
linguistic map of the Caucasus, and the results of linguistic research. As a result, the work
completely ignores the very rich and important polyphonic traditions of the North
Caucasian Balkarians and Karachaevis (obviously because the languages of the
Balkarians and Karachaivis belong to the Turkic language family).
The desire to follow in the steps of linguists was not characteristic for Georgian
scholars only. When the Russian composer and music theorist Sergey Taneev (student of
Tchaikovsky) recorded the traditional music of the same Balkarians and Karachaevis,
carriers of the Turkic languages, he was trying to prove that their music was based on the
eastern chromatic scales with microtones, despite the diatonic character of their music.
We should note though, that Taneev truthfully recorded the polyphonic character of
Balkarian and Karachaevian singing back in 1886 (see Taneev 1947). More paradoxically
and importantly for our topic, in an attempt to bring the musical traditions of the
Balkarians and Karachaevis close to the monophonic cultures of the Moslem Turkic
peoples, a few later collectors of Balkarian and Karachaevian songs were publishing their
traditional polyphonic songs without the bass part(!), as one-part, monophonic songs (see
the review in Rakhaev, 1988). This kind of neglect of salient musical characteristics was
the natural result of overestimating the importance of linguistics for ethnological and
ethnogenetic studies, as musicologists tried to closely follow linguistic data and
conclusions.
• What we compare and how we compare
Comparative studies use different methodologies and different elements of music
to establish connections between cultures, or to establish common principles that
underlay different scales, polyphonic types, musical instruments, etc, and to map big
geographical regions of the world according to these principles. Possibly the earliest (and
the most intuitive) method for research was the immediate comparison of general aural
impressions. This method is still in use. For example, Victor Grauer’s 2006 very
interesting article amply uses aural impressions for large-scale geographic and historic
comparison. Some works base their comparisons on scale systems – let us remember that,
as a discipline, ethnomusicology actually started after Ellis introduced the system of cents
for the precise measurement of different scales. Some works are mostly based on
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rhythmic formulas – this method is very characteristic, for example, for Russian and
Ukrainian ethnomusicology. The comparison of melodies and melodic formulas is one of
the most widespread methods of intercultural comparisons. Comparative works can also
use combination of several elements, sometimes with the whole system of ethnographic
elements from the compared cultures. Some comparative works aim to establish a
relationship between cultures (sometimes geographically distant ones), and some works
aim to study a specific musical phenomenon (for example, the distribution and origin of
pentatonic scales, or the history of bowed instruments).
All the abovementioned elements of music that scholars had been using for
comparative studies (scale systems, rhythmic formulas, melodic formulas) are present in
both monophonic and polyphonic music. It is very important to remember that, besides
these common features, polyphonic music has few specifically polyphonic elements that
are very helpful for comparative studies. These elements are (1) polyphonic type (drone,
heterophony, ostinato, counterpoint, parallelism, etc), (2) vertical coordination of voices
(coordination on consonant or dissonant intervals and chords), (3) social organization of
the singing ensemble (how many people are singing the melody and other voices, or
how important is the antiphonal alternation between the soloist and group, or between the
groups), (4) social organization of musical activity within the society (is society divided
into performers and listeners? Are there professional musicians in a society? Or is the
whole society involved in a performance?).
In my own comparative research of polyphonic traditions I primarily used the
features associated specifically with polyphonic music: polyphonic type, principle of
vertical coordination between voices, social organization of the ensemble and society,
(the features are listed in decreasing importance). I found that these features are
extremely stable through the time span, and as a result of this stability, they often unite
huge regions and whole continents (like the whole sub-Saharan Africa), or help to
establish the unity of geographically isolated traditions of polyphony in Europe. Only
occasionally I used scale systems, metro-rhythmic and melodic formulas. Regarding
audio impressions, I admit that audio impressions are extremely important, particularly at
the initial stage of comparison, and sometimes they can be even overwhelming, but I tried
to avoid making any far-reaching conclusions based on audio impressions alone.
• Georgian and North Caucasian polyphonic traditions
For many reasons (geographical, historical, cultural) any elements of Georgian
culture or ethnography must be primarily compared with the cultures of the North
Caucasian peoples. At first sight it might seem that this comparison will be a very
difficult one, because North Caucasia is one of the regions of the world, where on a
relatively small region side by side carriers of over 100 different languages and different
religions live together. So, for example, linguistically speaking, Georgians are close to
some North Caucasian peoples (Adighis, or Circasians, Abkhazians, Chechens, Ingushes,
and Dagestanians) who are sometimes all united under a term Caucasian languages, but
there are carriers of other language families as well in Caucasia: members of the Turkic
family of languages (Azerbaijanis, Balkarians and Karachaevis), and the Indo-European
family of languages (Armenians and Ossetians). Besides, there are large groups of
relatively recent populations of Russians, Ukrainians, and a few other peoples. According
5
to religion, Caucasia can be roughly divided into Christian and Moslem parts. The
Christian peoples comprise Armenians, most of the Georgians, most of the Ossetians, and
some Abkhazians. The Moslem religion unites the Azerbaijanis, Dagestanians, Chechens,
Ingushes, Balkarians, Karachaevis, some Ossetians, some Abkhazians, and a small group
of Georgians. According to the research of physical anthropologists, Caucasia is
populated by the representatives of at least four main European groups: (1) the so-called
Caucasionian physical type (the earliest type of population) consisting of the
mountainous Georgians, Balkarians, Karachaevis, Ossetians, Chechens, Ingushes, and
most of the Dagestanians; (2) the so-called Pontian physical type, which is genetically
connected to the previous Caucasionian physical type, and consists of lowland Georgians,
most of the Circassians and some Dagestanians; (3) the so-called Caspian physical type,
which shows parallels with the populations south and east of the Caspian Sea. This group
comprises mostly Azerbaijanis, and some Dagestanians; and (4) the so-called
“Armenoid” physical type, close to the Caspian type, is represented in Armenian
populations (Alexeev, 1974).
According to its singing traditions, Caucasia can be divided into two parts: (1)
peoples with polyphonic and (2) peoples with monophonic singing traditions. The group
of peoples with polyphonic singing traditions consist of the Georgians, Abkhazians, most
of the Circassians, Balkarians and Karachaevis, Ossetians, Chechens, Ingushes, and some
Dagestanian groups. Monophonic cultures consist of the Azerbaijanis, Armenians, and
some Dagestanians.
If we compare the traditions of polyphony of different Caucasian peoples more
specifically, we will see that the parallels are quite clear: (1) drone polyphony dominates
in all Caucasian vocal polyphonic traditions; (2) the vertical coordination of voices is
mostly based on dissonant intervals and chords (often containing seconds and sevenths);
(3) the social coordination of the singing group is also the same – melodies are sung by
the soloists, and the drone is sung by a big group of singers, and (4) the social
organization of musical activity is also the same, as in many Caucasian cultures
traditional polyphonic singing involves all members of society. Of course, these features
are not universal everywhere (for example, 1600 years of domination by the Christian
religion managed to separate the singing of men and women in Georgia, although in the
most isolated mountain regions men and women still sing together).
If we compare the cartography of vocal polyphony, outlined above, with the
linguistic, religious and physical anthropological maps, it is not difficult to see that there
are correlations with the data of physical anthropology (Jordania, 1989:250-253). As
physical anthropology tells us about genetic relationships between peoples, and as
physical features of the population survive even when the population loses its language or
religion, the correlation of a musical map with the map of physical features strongly
suggests that the features of the vocal polyphony can be much more stable and reliable
for the historical studies, than the linguistic features, studied by the historical linguistics
(Jordania, 1988).
• Georgian polyphonic traditions in the European context
It is obvious that Georgian polyphonic traditions has typological and historical
connections with European regional traditions of vocal polyphony. Most of the existing
6
publications dealing with comparative research of Georgian polyphony discuss European
links with Georgian polyphony. I am not going to discuss in detail the nature of parallels
of Georgian traditional polyphony with the existing polyphonic traditions of different
European peoples. To give a general survey, I can summarize that Georgian (and
Caucasian) traditions of vocal polyphony shows promising parallels with most European
polyphonic traditions: from the mountainous Balkan traditions, to the swampy Polesie,
Mordvinian and Baltic traditions, to the mountainous regions and the islands of the
Mediterranean sea. Instead of a detailed comparison of Georgian polyphony with all
these polyphonic traditions, I’ll try to outline the general picture of European polyphonic
traditions, and will discuss the place of Georgian polyphony in this picture.
In my recent paper, delivered at the polyphonic conference in Portel, Portugal
(October 4-6, 2007, see Jordania, in press), I suggested five main types of polyphony in
European traditional music to be distinguished. These five types of polyphony have a
different geographic distribution, and different historical roots. These five types of
polyphony are:
1. The drone-dissonant polyphony
2. The melismatic-rubato polyphony
3. The chordal-triadic polyphony
4. The variant-heterophonic polyphony
5. The melismatic-chordal polyphony
Let us now have a look which of these types of European polyphony are present
in Georgia, if there are any typological parallels with other European cultures, and what
could be the nature of these parallels.
• Svanetian Polyphony:
The most Ancient Style of Singing in Europe?
Svaneti, a mountainous north-western part of Georgia, is the perfect candidate for
the most ancient style of European polyphony for many reasons. Locked among the
impenetrable mountain ranges of the Caucasus (the highest in Europe), where the
mountain ranges exceed 5,000 meters, and the roads were usually blocked for a major
part of the year, Svanetians still speak an extremely archaic Svanetian language (a
member of South Caucasian, or Kartvelian [Georgian] family of languages), which
arguably has deep connections with the Sumerian language, the most ancient language
known in human history; their traditional poetry still does not acknowledge rhythm and
does not exist without a song; most of Svanetian families still have medieval family stone
towers; they are still fiercely egalitarian and family-oriented; and Svanetians still sing
three-part most dissonant songs with obvious pre-Christian connections, and virtually
every song is still accompanied by a round-dance.
Svanetians are the representatives of the first type of European polyphony, which
I call “drone-dissonant” polyphony (although the dissonant element is much stronger in
Svaneti, than the drone, which is quite movable). As the name indicates, this polyphony
is based on drone and dissonant harmonies (often seconds). Besides these two features,
7
this type of polyphony is also based on small range melodies and precise rhythmic
organization. Outside of the Caucasian mountains, this polyphonic type is present among
the most geographically isolated populations of the European continent (particularly, but
not only, in mountainous regions). As drone and dissonant intervals are arguably the two
most important elements of musical language of traditional polyphony in the whole of
Georgia, we can say that this style of polyphony is more or less present in all musical
dialects of Georgia, and is prominent in most of the North Caucasian polyphonic
traditions.
As I have already mentioned, this style of polyphony is present in several isolated
regions of the European continent: the mountainous Balkan regions (particularly among
the Labs in Albania and the Shops in Bulgaria), the biggest forest and swampy region of
Europe – Polesie (the border region between the Ukraine, Belarus and Russia), the Baltic
region (particularly in western Latvia and north-east Lithuania), and a few other isolated
“polyphonic islands” of East Europe, including Mordva.
So, drone-dissonant polyphony has a very peculiar stratification all over Europe –
they are scattered through huge territories, and each of the traditions represent an isolated
environment or a geographically marginal zone. This kind of geographic distribution is
very typical of the archaic, relict phenomena, and that’s why the idea of the “ancient
survival” of this type of polyphony has been circulating among European
ethnomusicologists for almost a century (beginning with the works of Ludwik Kuba in
the 1900s). As you would expect, different authors expressed different ideas about
locating the origins of this style of polyphony in time and space, but the majority of
scholars agreed that this was arguably the oldest surviving singing style of the old
European peoples (see, for example, Rihtman, 1958, Kauffman, 1966, Lomax, 1976).
Suggestion of the archaic character of drone-dissonant polyphony has been one of the
most obvious and loud “dissonances” in the placidly accepted view among musicologists
about the late origin of vocal polyphony.
In recent years Rudolf Brandl expressed an alternative view on the age of drone
polyphony in Europe, suggesting that this type of polyphony could be a very recent
phenomenon (maybe less than a century old), and possibly influenced by the instrumental
forms of drone polyphony (Brandl, 2008). I appreciate the critical approach of the
German scholar, but I have to state that Brandl’s model does not offer any answer to the
question of why this type of polyphony appears in the most isolated geographic regions
of Europe only. Have all these polyphonic traditions developed independently from each
other? And why this has happened only in inaccessible mountain gorges, swampy forests,
continent fringes and islands? I believe Brandl needs to find the explanation for the
specific pattern of geographic distribution of this style of polyphony for his idea to be
considered viable. On the other hand, the model of “survival” does explain this peculiar
geographic stratification very well. Therefore, I believe the pattern of distribution of this
type of polyphony suggests this polyphonic style to be a survival of a very archaic
common tradition of European peoples. The question is: how archaic?
Stratification of the drone-dissonant type of polyphony in the context of the
history of the European continent suggests that this type of polyphony must be connected
to the common singing culture of the old pre-Indo-European populations of Europe
(sometimes referred as “Old Europe”, the term coined by Marija Gimbutas for the
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Neolithic pre-Indo-European cultures, and widely used in later publications, including
musicological works such as in Cantometric publications).
Migrations of Indo-Europeans radically changed the map of languages in Europe,
although they did not fully replace the old pre-Indo-European population. According to
the linguistic map of contemporary Europe, only two isolated (and of course,
mountainous) regions of Europe represent the remnants of the oldest pre-Indo-European
family of European languages: these are the Pyrenean Mountains and the Caucasian
Mountains. Pre-Indo-European family of languages in the Pyrenean Mountains are
represented by the Basque language, and in the Caucasian Mountains they are
represented by three language families: South Caucasian, or the Kartvelian family,
consisting of the Georgian, Svan and Megrelian languages, the Northwest Caucasian, or
the Abkhazo-Adighian family, consisting of several Adighian, or Circassian and
Abkhazian languages, and Northeast Caucasian, or the Nakho-Dagestanian family,
consisting of the Chechen, Ingush, and several Dagestanian languages.
It is extremely important to note that all the carriers of pre-Indo-European
languages in Europe are carriers of the traditions of polyphonic singing. Out of them,
Basque traditional polyphony shows obvious signs of the late influence of European
professional polyphony2 (no recordings of the drone-dissonant polyphony are known
from the Basque country to my knowledge), but the carriers of all three of the Caucasian
family of languages have mostly retained traditional drone polyphony with dissonant
intervals.
The idea of the survival of the ancient elements of the pre-Indo-European
population, languages and culture in the Caucasian mountains is well known from other
historical disciplines. The leading contemporary geneticist Cavalli-Sforza, for example,
sums up the importance of the study of Caucasian populations for the study of the pre-
Indo-European languages and the history of Europe with the words: “Caucasus is one of
the few areas that lends itself, for geographic and ecological reasons, to the survival of
relic languages… thorough investigation of the Caucasus populations must be a high
priority” (Cavalli-Sforza at al, 1994:300).
It is not difficult to reconstruct the picture of the gradual dispersal of the old
European population into geographically isolated regions (mountain ranges, swampy
forests, islands, continental fringes), after the Indo-European migration waves entered
Europe. The important question to answer is what kind of musical traditions were
brought by the migrating Indo-Europeans.
According to our current knowledge, we can state that although there is a
difference of kind between the Indo-European, Arabic and Turkic languages, from the
point of view of their musical cultures, they belong (including some early Indo-
Europeans) to the same musical macro-family, containing (1) monophonic singing
traditions with (2) tetrachordal scales, (3) melismatic embellishments, (4) subtle micro-
interval modulations in melody, and (5) the freely flowing rubato metre3.
After the appearance of Indo-European waves, autochthonous pre-Indo-European
populations, carriers of drone-dissonant polyphony, were gradually pushed away from the
2 This could a result of the fact, that Basque country was one of the earliest in Europe to be industrialized.
3 The closeness of the musical traditions of the early carriers of Indo-European languages (for example, the
Dorians in Ancient Greece, or the Armenians in South Caucasia) to the musical traditions of the peoples of
the Middle East is well known since the works of Curt Sachs and Khristophor Kushnarev (Sachs, 1937;
Kushnarev, 1958).
9
most accessible and fertile lands, so the elements of the old population and culture
managed to survive only in the isolation of high mountains, continent fringes, swamps
and islands.
Of course, this must have been a long and complex process of the mixture of the
populations, languages and cultures, and it would be natural to expect the appearance of
some mixed styles of singing in Europe. The next polyphonic style, we are going to
discuss, was born as a result of the mixture of the old European drone-dissonant
polyphony and the monophonic traditions of the carriers of the Indo-European languages.
• Polyphony of Kakhetian table songs:
Legacy of Indo-Europeans?
The second type of European polyphony which I call melismatic-rubato
polyphony represents mostly a pedal-drone polyphony with richly embellished specific
melismatic melodies (uncharacteristic for the drone-dissonant style), wide range melodic
lines, and often free rubato metre.
Kakheti, the plain sunny region of eastern Georgia, covered with wineries, and
famous for its magnificent table songs, is the “classical” representative of this type of
polyphony. Many characteristics of Kakhetian polyphony that set it apart from the
polyphony of western Georgia are similar to the main characteristic features of the
Middle Eastern (and supposedly the early Indo-European) monophonic singing style (see
Tsitsishvili, 1998:137, also in this volume). Could we talk about the mixture of old
European and Indo-European elements in Kakheti (and neighboring Kartli, the central
region of East Georgia)?
The possible reasons for the appearance of the Middle Eastern singing style in
eastern Georgia can be traced with the help of historical evidence. According to the
archaeological and anthropological data, as you would expect from a region where people
still speak a pre-Indo-European language, there has been a tremendous continuity of the
culture and physical type of population in the territory of Georgia. And only between the
3rd and the 2nd millennia B.C. there are signs of two major influxes of a new population
and culture in Georgia (Japaridze, 1976, Abdushelishvili, 1964, Alexeev, 1974). Scholars
agree that these influxes were most likely connected to the appearance of the carriers of
the Indo-European languages in Georgia (elements of Indo-European languages are also
found in the Georgian language: see Machavariani, 1964; Gamkrelidze & Ivanov, 1984,
1990).
Most importantly for our discussion of the singing style of Kartli-Kakhetian table
songs, according to the data of archaeology and physical anthropology, the new Indo-
European population and culture were spread only through the lowland territory of East
Georgia, the region where the melismatic-rubato type of polyphony are present today
(Jordania, 1992). According to the archaeological (and physical anthropological)
evidence, the territory of western Georgia was not influenced by the migration of the new
Indo-European populations.
Is there a possibility of explaining the new features of the East Georgian
polyphonic style as a result of local inner development only, without any connections
with the migration of the new populations? Theoretically it is possible, of course, but
10
when the changes in musical style concern such important elements as losing the
rhythmic structure, the appearance of free metre, a change in the range of melodies, a
change of scales and the appearance of rich melismatic embellishments, and when all
these changes happen in a region where there is strong archaeological and physical
anthropological evidence of the migration of the new population (with supposedly
similar characteristic features of their musical culture), then the possibility of totally
“independent cultural development” (without any external factors) seems remote.
Obviously, the influx of Indo-European populations was not enough to break the cultural
legacy of autochthonic Georgian tribes, that’s why vocal polyphony, the crucial element
of the musical culture of Georgian tribes survived, together with another crucial element
of Georgian culture – Georgian language.
Therefore, I suggest that Kakhetian long table songs represent a brilliant creative
mixture of two totally different styles of music: (1) ancient European drone-dissonant
polyphony, and (2) melismatic-rubato type of melody based monophony.
After discussing the historical background of the appearance of the melismatic
rubato style polyphony in eastern Georgia, let us remember that a mixture of pre-Indo-
European (Drone-Dissonant, or DD polyphony) and Indo-European populations and
cultures was taking place not only in Georgia, but all over Europe (and in fact, beyond
Europe). Examples of such a “mixed” style of polyphony are represented among the
Chams from Albania, the Farsheroti Macedonians from Romania, and drone singing from
Albacete, Spain. (The magnificent polyphonic traditions of the Corsicans, Sardinians, and
Sicilians, ostensibly belonging to this type of polyphony, will be discussed later.)
Therefore, despite the obvious audio and typological resemblances between East
Georgian, Albanian Cham, eastern Spain, Farsheroti Macedonians and a few other
European polyphonic styles (see, for example, Stockmann, 1956), I suggest that there has
been no late direct ethnic or cultural contacts between the populations and polyphonic
traditions of these regions. I suggest that the presence of a very similar type of
melismatic-rubato polyphony in several regions of Europe is the result of the mixture of
two styles of singing: ancient drone-dissonant polyphony and melismatic-rubato
monophony.
Unlike the polyphony of Kakhetian table songs, where the mixture of the
autochthonous Caucasian and indo-European styles can be heard and historically traced,
polyphony of lowland regions of western Georgia does not bear any sizeable signs of
external influences (until the appearance of the urban singing style in the second half of
the 19th century – see the next section). Imeretian, Megrelian, Acharian and particularly
Gurian contrapuntal songs are strongly connected to the autochthonous polyphonic style
with the abundance of dissonant intervals and chords. Here I should note, that together
with the use of drone, Gurians developed a unique contrapuntal polyphonic style with the
maximum freedom of the participating three (or four) vocal parts, and with very specific
virtuoso yodeling in the highest register. Interestingly, German scholars in their
comparative studies mostly used the examples of west Georgian (often Gurian)
polyphony in order to compare them with the examples of early European professional
polyphony, but they never compared Gurian polyphony to the folk polyphonic traditions
of other European peoples.
• Kutaisi:
11
The Capital of the Late European style of polyphony
Kutaisi, the second biggest city of Georgia, is the central city of western Georgia,
capital of the biggest region of western Georgia – Imereti. Despite the fact that Imereti is
a home of wonderfully developed three-part traditional polyphony with dissonant chords
and contrapuntal polyphony, possibly the most characteristic feature of Imeretian
traditional music is the presence of a late urban style of polyphony. Urban polyphony is
often excluded from the sanctuary of “Georgian traditional polyphony”, and Georgian
ensembles usually (but not always) specialize either in urban or rural singing styles. At
the same time both of these contrasting styles of polyphonic singing have been affecting
each other in Georgia for more than a century. The urban style of polyphony in Georgia
emerged after the appearance of the Russian guitar-accompanied romances from the
beginning of the 19th century, and particularly flourished after the opening of the opera
house in Tbilisi in 1850 (see Mshvelidze, 1970).
This late European style of polyphony (which I call the “chordal-triadic
polyphony”), with prevailing parallel thirds and elements of Tonic-Subdominant-
Dominant harmonic functions is very widely distributed in Europe, and in fact,
throughout the world (for example, some of the best known songs of this European style
come from the Polynesian islands).
There are multiple sources of information in different regions of Europe
suggesting that the emergence of the new singing style was connected to the late spread
of the European professional musical language. The rich choral tradition of the Alps, the
tradition of “na bas” singing in the Balkan mountains and the ubiquitous singing in
parallel thirds throughout Europe is the evidence of the wide spread of the late European
musical language.
So, this style of polyphony, which I call “chordal-triadic polyphony” has the
widest distribution throughout the European countries (and in fact, the whole world), and
it is most likely to be the latest polyphonic style that spread in many countries of the
Europe.
• Polyphonic style which is absent in Georgia
The brilliant expert of traditional polyphony of Russia and the peoples of the
former USSR, Izaly Zemtsovsky wrote once that “"forms [of part-singing], which are
absent in Georgia, should not be counted as a definite type of part-singing" (Zemtsovsky,
2005:201). This quite categorical claim and challenge to ethnomusicologists is still to
find its followers and critics, but variant-heterophony is a style of polyphony Georgia
does not know. Variant heterophony is distinguished by the tradition of a group (unison-
heterophonic) performance of the main melody of a song. Unison singing, the “breeding
ground” for the emergence of heterophonic texture, is not characteristic for Georgian
traditional singing, so the absence of variant heterophony is the logical result of the
absence of unison singing. Variant heterophony is spread through most of the territory of
East Europe, covering continuously a few million square kilometers (see Zemtsovsky,
2000). The pattern of the distribution of variant heterophony clearly points to the
12
secondary character of heterophonic polyphony compared to the more ancient drone-
dissonant style of vocal polyphony (Jordania, 2006:225-229; Also Jordania, in press).
• From Georgia to the Mediterranean Islands
It was quite a sensation when Georgians first heard (through the musical program
of the central USSR TV channel) the polyphonic singing of Corsicans in the mid-1980s.
For the first time Georgians were hearing a polyphonic tradition that sounded so much
like Georgian. Here the power of the audio impression was at its best – the sound of
strong male voices with a bit of nasality, singing long melismatically embellished
melodies in three parts, and long moving drones were “shockingly Georgian”.
Very recently, after meeting in Corsica a wonderful Corsican singer Philippe
Rocchi (a member of the much revered ensemble “Voce di Corsica”) I found out that
Corsican traditional musicians also had a similar musical “shock” when they first heard
recording of Georgian traditional polyphony in the beginning of the 1970s (personal
communication from October 20th, 2008).
At the same time, if you analyze the structural elements of Corsican and Georgian
polyphonic traditions, you will notice that Corsican singing style has a mixture of
elements you can not find in Georgian traditional music (Jordania, 2006:186). This
polyphonic style, which I call melismatic-chordal polyphony, is a specific singing style in
Europe with an interesting mixture of characteristics: this is a drone polyphony (based
mostly on pedal drone), with wide range and richly ornamented melodies, in free rubato
metre, with triadic chordal structure and a Tonic-Subdominant-Dominant harmonic
system. I consider this type of polyphony the most interesting from a historical
perspective. If the “melismatic-rubato polyphony”, discussed above mostly on the
example of Kakhetian table songs, shows signs of the mixture of two distinct singing
styles, the melismatic-chordal polyphony shows signs of the mixture of three distinct
musical styles: (1) ancient drone-dissonant polyphony, the legacy of the old pre-Indo-
European residents of Europe, (2) melismatic-rubato monophony, brought to Europe by
the early carriers of Indo-European languages and the monophonic singing style, and (3)
the late European style chordal-triadic polyphony.
This polyphonic style is best represented by vocal polyphonic traditions from the
Mediterranean Islands, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, and from continental Dalmatia as well.
Some elements of this style can be also found in some other regions of Europe (for
example, south Portugal).
The character of the mixture of these three elements strongly suggests that the
latest element to complete the formation of melismatic-chordal style was the late
European harmonic style. I suppose that before the introduction of the European
harmonic element, the style of singing in these regions must have been the melismatic-
rubato polyphony.
This polyphonic style is not present as a major stylistic element in Georgian
traditional polyphony. Although all three elements, which constitute melismatic-chordal
polyphony, are present in Georgia, they are present in different regions of Georgia: the
melismatic-rubato style is present in eastern Georgia only (no melismatic and rubato
singing is present in western Georgia), while the major influence of the late European
chordal style is mostly present in western Georgia.
13
Of course, it would not be correct to propose that East Georgian traditional vocal
polyphony stayed totally out of the influence of the omnipotent European professional
polyphony. Even the first professional Georgian ethnomusicologist, Dimitri Araqishvili,
wrote about this influence. At the beginning of the 20th century Araqishvili remarked that
European professional music was having a “negative influence” on Georgian traditional
polyphony. Araqishvili was mostly referring to the appearance of excessive parallel thirds
in the two top melodic parts of Georgian three-part singing, instead of the traditional
more adventurous coordination between the two leading melodic parts. Despite this early
influence, the functional connection of European professional music did not penetrate
into Georgian traditional polyphony4. In Corsican and Sicilian traditional polyphony (but
not in Sardinia, which shows more ancient features) the jump by the bass part a fifth
down is a very important stylistic feature, and it links these polyphonic traditions with the
late European musical language.
So, despite the wide distribution of European-based musical characteristics in the
Georgian urban tradition, the chordal system of European professional music did not
replace the native second-based chordal changes in rural music. Interestingly, when
Corsican singers from the group Voce di Corsica, after hearing Georgian singers,
intentionally added drones to the Corsican traditional monophonic threshing song
“Tribbiera” in a “Georgian style” (when drones move a second down and up), the
resulting polyphonic style came very close to the East Georgian three-part polyphonic
style (Personal comm. from Philippe Rocchi on October 2oth, 2008; also see Bithell,
2007:185-187). The new “Georgianized” polyphonic Tribbiera was performed on the
French National TV after Voce di Corsica wan the prestigious “best album of the year”
award in 1995.
There are some signs that this style of polyphony might be in the process of
development in Georgia, introducing a new element in the East Georgian urban singing
style (like some versions of the urban song Tsutisopeli).
• Are there any Parallels Outside of Europe?
Understandably, most of this article was dedicated to the parallels of Georgian
traditional polyphony with European vocal polyphonic traditions, but I want the readers
to know that parallels of Georgian traditional polyphony lead us to some non-European
polyphonic traditions as well. Sometimes these parallels are quite obvious. For example, I
earlier suggested that Nuristan polyphony (from the eastern Afghanistan impenetrable
mountains – again mountains, of course!) is one of the best survivors of the drone-
dissonant polyphonic style of the “old Europe” (Jordania, 2006:240-247). The polyphony
of the Tuaregs in the African Sahara is another tradition that needs careful study in a
European context (Jordania, 2006: 252-255). Less similar forms of vocal polyphony are
also present in South-East Asia, North Japan (among the Ainus), Melanesia and
Polynesia. Victor Grauer (2006) suggested that the remnants of the polyphonic style all
around the world could be connected to the initial style of vocal polyphony, still present
among Pygmies and San (Bushmen). I also believe that polyphony has extremely archaic
4 The European harmonic system is primarily determined by the resolution of the dominant into the tonic,
or when the G major chord, or the “Dominant”, resolves into the C major chord, or the “Tonic”. This jump
a fifth downwards (or the fourth upwards) is the most obvious element of the European harmonic system.
14
single origin, and I agree that some common elements of polyphony can be found among
European and African polyphonic traditions, although I think today they belong to two
distinct big families of world vocal polyphony – European and African. Unlike European
polyphony, African polyphony is more characterized by the absence of drone, more
consonant-oriented vertical coordination (although singing in seconds also can be found
here), and the importance of the parallel movements of different parts (obviously the
influence of the tonal character of sub-Saharan African languages).
• Conclusions and the problem
of the origins of traditional polyphony
At the end of this article I would like to address the topic that might have been
better to discuss at the very beginning of this article. How old is Georgian polyphony?
When I propose that the type of polyphony that is present in Georgia today could have
been present in the singing traditions of the pre-Indo-European peoples, or when I speak
about parallels with the polyphonic traditions of the Baltic peoples, or the Mordvinians,
or the Nuristanians, or the Ainus, how deep should be the origins of polyphony as a
phenomenon?
The problem of the origins of vocal polyphony has been one of the central issues
in the history of musicology. Fortunately, the old and outdated belief of musicologists
and ethnomusicologists in the late origin of vocal polyphony from monophony has lost
most of its supporters during the last few decades. In my 2006 book I presented numerous
well-documented cases from all over the world where the tradition of vocal polyphony
was lost (Jordania, 2006:200-2003). At the same time, I was unable to find even one
documented case of the appearance of traditional polyphony from monophony anywhere
in the world as a result of internal development (ibid, 204). Even in Soviet Union, where
the state ideology was trying very hard to bring the common “Socialist musical culture”
(with symphonies, operas and vocal polyphony), using large sums of finances to create
choirs and to send Moscow educated composers to help monophonic peoples to reach the
“inevitable polyphonic stage of the development”, there is not a single case of the
appearance of a new polyphonic tradition, and as soon as Republics became more
independent after Perestroika started, the first thing that happened in monophonic Central
Asian republics, was that choir were disbanded.
These facts strongly suggests that vocal polyphony is not a result of the late
cultural development of musical culture. In my 2006 book (and earlier publications) I
suggested that the origins of polyphony are connected with the early evolutionary history
of Homo sapiens, with the defense strategy of early hominids, the emergence of rhythmic
movements and dance, bipedal locomotion, the use of stone tools, the origins of human
language and speech, and many other factors.
Following this line of argument, it was not difficult for me to accept the
possibility of the presence of vocal polyphony in the pre-Indo-European populations of
the Europe. Even the idea of common roots of European and African “polyphonic
families” has a firm support from my model of the origins of vocal polyphony.
Georgian traditional polyphony, on one hand, is an incredibly rich cultural
artifact, one of the potent symbols of Georgian identity, acknowledged by UNESCO’s
15
declaration of it as a part of the “intangible heritage of humanity”, and is often regarded
as a unique phenomenon. On the other hand, Georgian polyphony has myriads of
historical connections with the polyphonic singing traditions of Europe and the whole
world. For me it is not a right scholarly goal to search for the origins of Georgian
polyphony, or Albanian polyphony, or African polyphony, as I believe that polyphony
has an extremely ancient single African origin, connected to the human evolutionary
history (see Jordania, 2006, 2009).
I am happy to see that the research of traditional polyphony is fast becoming one
of the biggest themes of contemporary ethnomusicology. Special conferences, dedicated
to traditional polyphony, are becoming a routine part of scholarly life (17 such
conferences have been held in Europe within the last couple of decades). Three
international scholarly bodies, specifically dedicated to the study of traditional
polyphony, have also been established within the last 15 years in Europe (in France,
Georgia, and Austria). The scholarly network between scholars involved in research into
traditional polyphony, as well as the number of publications on traditional polyphony, is
fast increasing. With the increase of speed and the availability of information, and with
the new means of contact between the scholars from different countries, the return of the
comparative method seems to me a welcome development in ethnomusicology. I believe
that comparative study of Georgian polyphony, which started some 70 years ago with the
representatives of the great German school of comparative musicology, still has a huge
potential to inspire a second big wave of the new worldwide comparative research of
traditional polyphony on a qualitatively new level.
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