Musical heritage of the XIII century and its relation to Turkmen composers’ creative work
Koneurgench was one of the ancient centers of the Turkmen people. This place of ancient settlement has been included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2005.
The medieval Chinese author-historian (of the VI century era is ours) Li Jan-Sheu in his composition “Beyshi” wrote: “the City of Urgench was very populous and was considered as a strong state. It was the centre of rich trade. Musicians play the big and small tambourines, a five-string psaltery and on a flute”.
Judging by this information, Turkmen music, whish takes its history from the remote past, has reached our days almost unchanged.
The rich and original Turkmen folk art of bakhshi has become a source of inspiration even for modern professional Turkmen composers.
The special interest in this contexst presents the compositions of the first Turkmen women composer – Jeren Kurbanklycheva written at the period of independence.
Composer’s reference to the deep roots of history, to the ancient Turkmen traditions, to the performance art of bakshi was shown brightly in Concerto for fortepiano and symphonic orchestra (Ayal bakshi), in Concerto for dutar and folk instrument orchestra, which was written in co-authorship with people’s actor of Turkmenistan Elaman Nurymov.
The leading role in these compositions have gained the primordial types of intonation, semantics of sound of Turkmen folk instruments as dutar, gijak, tuyduk, uda, kanuna and saz.
The national coloring of composition was created by assonances of seconds and kwarts, ornamental melisma, climactic areas: nowayi-shirwan, shirwan-kyrklar, rhythmic interruptions of metricses (3/8, 5/8, 6/8).
Juliya Jumayeva, musicologist,
Lesturer, Lebap Province Spesial Art School
