Земледельческие Песни Арцаха

Abstract

The present work is dedicated to the Artsakh horovels; it aims to cover the peculiarities of the musical linguistic thinking of that region. Agricultural songs are one of the oldest layers of Armenian folk music. Our study is based on the notes of Komitas Vardapet, Robert Atayan and Matevos Muradyan, where Varanda region (present-day Martuni region) dominates. Back in the dawn of Christianity, Artsakh was one of the most important centers of the Armenian world, with its very unique dialect, ancient folklore and traditional composition. Probably this is the reason why Komitas Vardapet wrote the Artsakh horovels with special attention (10 out of 20 recorded horovels are from Artsakh). As a result of our comparative analytical work, we have come to the conclusion that almost all the horovels in that region have melodic-grammatical original formulaic expressions, the vast majority of them develop in the Tertiary-based Phrygian scale system. The expedition conducted by R. Atayan in Artsakh in 1957, during which a horovel was recrded, is getting published for the first time in the present article: (The decipherment is ours).