MATEVOS MURADYAN’S SCHOLARLY EXPEDITION «KARABAKH-58»

Abstract

The contribution of musicologist and folklorist Matevos Muradyan (1911-1987) to the process of collecting and recording the musical folklore of Artsakh is undeniable. During 10 scholarly expeditions, organized in the Soviet period and carried out under the leadership of M. Muradyan, more than 1800 folk and ashugh songs were recorded, which are now carefully stored in the A. Kocharyan Audio Library at NAS RA Institute of Arts. Among M. Muradyan’s expeditions, “Karabakh-58” – the first musicological expedition to Artsakh, organized by the Institute of Arts of the Academy of Sciences of the Armenian SSR – is worth highlighting, during which a total of 52 songs and instrumental samples were recorded. Folk music of Artsakh has not been studied to date, although rich musical folklore of the region once attracted Komitas, S. Demuryan, G. Syuni, as well as R. Atayan. One of the major problems during the work was difficulty understanding the audio material (the Artsakh dialect), which was due to the limited technical capabilities of the recording devices of the period (the 50s). From M. Muradyan’s “Karabakh-58” expedition, a remarkable example of a rustic lullaby “Sleep, my baby” is presented in the article for the first time. Drawing parallels with the traditional peasant songs, recorded by Komitas (“Dzig tu, kashi”) and R. Atayan (“Karabakh Horovel”), as well as conducting comparative analysis with other song examples of the region, we have come to the conclusion that musical folklore of Artsakh possesses distinctive features, one of which is the Phrygian scale with an auxiliary tertian base and lowered 4th degree.