Music and manners; personal reminiscences and sketches of character

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

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text excerpt

In a shady nook of the Kalemeydan the band of whatever regiment may happen for the time being to be garrisoning the citadel performs, throughout the summer months, during the afternoons of Sundays and saints' days. As the Greek Orthodox Calendar may confidently be reckoned upon for a supply of saints averaging at least three per diem for the three hundred and sixty- five days of the year, one is seldom disappointed in the matter of hearing the band, however casually one may stroll up to the Kalemeydan between five and seven P.M. from the first of May to the thirtieth of September. It would be somewhat difficult, from a musical point of view, to define the exact class of noise most closely resembling the sounds resulting from a Servian military band's executive feats. To native ears these remarkable achievements teem with melody, tender or inspiriting, and with harmonies of the most enchanting character. But foreigners, trained to the oral apprehension of "Western melodic forms and harmonic sequences", are apt to be hopelessly gravelled by the Servian compositions, as well as by the local manner of their interpretation. The national airs, if airs they be, are difficult to grasp, chiefly from the circumstance that they lack coherency, and consist, so to speak, of a number of random notes strung together anyhow and making up a perplexing total that can scarcely be said to exhibit an intelligible beginning, middle, or end.

excerpt from 'Music and manners; personal reminiscences and sketches of character' pp. 229 (241 words)

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1452087259124