A unique harmony from Europe
In many cultures, it’s common during festive dinners for one or more guests to stand, raise a glass and speak a toast.
In the central European country of Georgia, however, the tradition is thrillingly different: One or more guests will spontaneously stand and sing, often one of many “table songs,” such as “Mravalzhamier.”
Other singers quickly join in, adding complex harmonies and counter-melodies for this musical toast. The sentiment behind the song? “Many happy returns” or, literally, “Years and epochs of happiness to you.”
It’s a practice that leaves a humble “Cheers!” in the dust.
“This is our jazz, our classic music,” said Zurab Tskrialashvili, director of Basiani, the State Ensemble of Georgian Folk Singing, which recently undertook only its third visit to the U.S. Southern California stops are scheduled Saturday at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica and Sunday at UC Santa Barbara.
Tskrialashvili has led the group since 2002. He began singing his country’s distinctive harmonic folk music as a boy growing up in the Kakhetian region of eastern Georgia. He later moved to the capital of Tbilisi, where he lives today and where Basiani is based.
“Georgian harmony is unique in the world,” he said.
The group’s program while in the U.S. will touch on different styles of Georgian vocal music representative of the mountainous regions in the north bordering Russia, to the Kakhetian area on Georgia’s eastern border with Azerbaijan, to the western portions adjacent the Black Sea.
What distinguishes Georgian folk music from that of other cultures is the use, cultivated over centuries, of polyphony — the combination of different yet complimentary harmonies and melodies within the same piece.
In all-male ensembles such as Basiani, bass singers often sustain drone notes while baritones and tenors weave complex melodies over that foundation using adjacent intervals not common in Western folk music. It creates a richly complex and hauntingly beautiful sound.
Thematically, songs address the full range of human experience. Some are spiritual; others serve as work songs or songs of healing. There are dance numbers, humorous pieces, lullabies and love songs.
“There are hundreds and thousands of songs,” Tskrialashvili said.
In the West, interest in Georgian folk music was fueled in part by the research of early 1990s Georgian ethnomusicologist Edisher Garakanidze, also founder of the Mtiebe traditional vocal ensemble.
He approached the Centre for Performance Research (CPR) in Wales to help him compile and publish a volume Georgian songs — not as a academic treatise, but as a practical workbook for singers.
The first edition of his “99 Georgian Songs” was published by the CPR’s Black Mountain Press in 2004.
“Everybody without exception has the ability to sing, just the same as to laugh, cry, and run. It is from God,” Garakanidze once wrote. “Singing together is completely different. Singing in common gives the occasion to take into consideration another person, to give him or her something but at the same time also find pleasure oneself. And my and your pleasure together — it is a happiness.”
Georgia covers about 27,000 square miles, making it larger than West Virginia but smaller than South Carolina.
“The majority of young people show a keen interested in the full range of modern Western popular music,” Garakanidze wrote. “However, the ‘musical food’ of the majority of the population, including the younger generation, is traditional Georgian music, particularly vocal music.
“Despite losing ground somewhat in the rural communities in the second half of the 20th century, this music is still lively, full-blooded and strong.”
Tskrialashvili said that still holds true.
“Many, many young people, children, are becoming more interested in traditional music,” he said. “Of course, the world is full of music, all different kinds of music, so there is the globalization problem. It is like it is against the traditional music. But Georgia keeps the singing tradition very strong, especially in the villages, and also many choirs and ensembles keep that tradition very strong.”