Bosnian Folk Songs

When Hungarian composer Bela Bartok (1881-1945) collected the folk music of Yugoslavia in the early part of this century, he noted the ethnic origin of each tune. This is fortunate for us, because now Yugoslavia has been divided by strife into separate nations, one of which is Bosnia. Though there are several tunes identified as Bosnian in Bartok’s collection, only two are used in this setting. The first occurs in the clarinets in measure 7, and is only four bars in length. The other tune occurs in the trumpet solo in mm. 44-47. All other material is original and was written to bind the two folk songs together in this piece. The tempo at the beginning is not fast, but should not drag either. At m. 42, the tempo should be slightly faster and the overall style calls for more of a "lift". At m. 67, return to the opening tempo. At m. 75, the upper woodwinds, mallets and snare drum should be light and lifted in style, while all the remaining instruments are playing longer values with slight spacing. Admiration is due to the students at West Ridge Middle School, in Austin, Texas, who requested that this commissioned work draw attention to the suffering of the young people in Bosnia. Perhaps this music can remind us that even war cannot silence the joy that can be expressed in the simple folk songs of a nation. The text of the first folk song begins as follows: "By Sarajevo there’s a green garden. In that garden there’s a well of cold water, By the well, a marble stone, On the stone, an aged vase, In the vase three flowers bloomed."