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Turkmen music is a treasure trove of folk art, which has always attracted and inspired researchers, travelers, composers, artists and writers. The musical heritage of the Turkmen includes wise proverbs and riddles, cheerful and sad ritual songs, love, solemn and heroic songs of bakhshi, epics and destans about the glorious exploits of heroes, defenders of the land of the people, performed to the accompaniment of the invariable dutar. It is in vain to think that this literature was only the fruit of popular leisure. It was the dignity and intelligence of the people. It strengthened its moral character, was its historical memory, and filled with deep content its entire measured life, flowing according to customs and rituals associated with its work, nature and the veneration of fathers and grandfathers.

The monograph “From Folklore to the Art of Bakhshi: Genre Parallels of Turkmen Music”, published by the international scientific publishing house “Lambert Academic Publishing” (Germany), is devoted to the issues of studying the folk musical heritage of the Turkmen. The author of the work, Jamilya Azimovna Kurbanova, is an ethnomusicologist, PhD in Art History, who has devoted many years to studying the folk musical heritage of the Turkmen. Having begun her career as a researcher of the dutar tradition, she was one of the first to study the instrumental heritage of the Turkmen, to study the phenomenon of dutar music as a unique phenomenon. She was also one of the first to study the biography of Nury Khalmamedov, having written a monograph and several dozen articles on the work of the Turkmen composer, with a detailed analysis of his works.

The book “From Folklore to the Art of Bakhshi: Genre Parallels of Turkmen Music” is already the author’s fifth monograph; she dedicated it to the memory of her father, journalist and researcher Azim Akhmedov.

The focus of the monographic study is on the classification of genres of the musical heritage of the Turkmen, as well as the problems of the formation of musical samples of the oral tradition. The presented analysis is based on archival audio and video materials from the traditional music fund of the Turkmen National Conservatory named after Maya Kulieva, as well as from the author's own field archives. The result of the study is a typology of genres, compiled taking into account the functional purpose of the genres of musical heritage, the ways of their existence and local features, compositional structures and musical expressive means.

The main message of the monograph is to present the musical creativity of the Turkmens from the point of view of its significance in the pan-Turkic cultural heritage. Representing an important branch of the pan-Turkic culture, Turkmen music combines the traditions of folklore creativity, as well as the richest layer of oral-professional heritage, called the art of bakhshi. The study reveals the evolution of genres of musical folklore, from the moment of their origin in ancient times to samples that have preserved the tradition of existence in the world today. Passed from generation to generation, the genres of folklore, as well as numerous instrumental pieces and songs of the Turkmen bakhshi, actively function in our time, representing the most valuable layer of national culture.

"The Turkmens," the author notes, "have preserved the traditions of their ancestors and their musical culture to this day. Pre-Islamic elements found in the customs and rituals of the modern people are associated with the pagan cults of the ancient Turks. The nomadic way of life, which determined the life of Turkmen society for centuries, was reflected in all aspects of its musical life. In the process of live performance, orally, from musician to musician, works of musical and poetic creativity were passed on."

D. ​​Kurbanova's monograph consists of four main chapters. The first chapter, defining the goals and objectives of the study and its methodology, describes in detail the methods of classifying the genres of Turkmen folk music. Here the author, using such terms as "classification" and "typology", reveals the methods of their systematization.

Musical and poetic creativity of the Turkmen is distinguished by a great variety of genres and forms. Scientific characteristics of folklore genres and musical heritage of the Turkmen bakhshi are developed in detail in the works of outstanding researchers N.Abubakirova, Sh.Gullyev, M.Gapurov. Based on the entire spectrum of musical research materials collected to date, D.Kurbanova carries out their holistic analysis, deducing a single typology of genres of Turkmen music.

The second chapter of the monograph - "Genre categories of Turkmen folklore" - includes two large sections devoted to ritual and everyday folklore of the Turkmen. The taxonomy of ritual folklore includes genres associated with ritual actions, these are rainmaking rites, national holidays, carol songs, fortune telling, wedding cycle, spiritual purification rites and dance genres.

The author classifies work and lullabies, lyrical and game genres, and children's folklore as everyday folklore. All these genres are considered in the monograph with a detailed analysis of the musical and poetic content and the basics of the compositional structure of the form.

The third chapter, "The Art of Bakhshi and Sazanda," consists of three large sections, with an emphasis on the instrumental, song, and epic traditions of the Turkmen. The methods of analyzing instrumental music presented by the author in the section "Dutar Sazy" reveal the features of the compositional structure of pieces from the Akhal school, the center of dutar performance, and other regional trends. An important point in the analysis of dutar music, from D. Kurbanova's point of view, is its dynamism, as well as the three-stage compositional structure, which originates from the common Turkic tradition of nomadic peoples.

The term canonical triad introduced by the author includes three main points - theme, culmination and completion. This compositional pattern is present not only in the dutar performing tradition, but also in gidzhak and tuyduk music.

The art of Turkmen bakhshi in Turkmenistan is represented by the performing tradition of bakhshi-tirmechi, bakhshi-yanamachi, as well as epic storytellers bakhshi-destanchi. Each direction has its own patterns in terms of form and genre features. The main postulate of this chapter is the author's identification of the strophic form as the basis for the formation of bakhshi songs, which is widespread in all areas of oral professional creativity.

The fourth chapter of the study, entitled "Genre-compositional parallels in Turkmen music", is a summary. Here the author, relying on the structural, modal-melodic and metro-rhythmic features of the musical heritage of the Turkmens, reveals the results of his classification system. In general, the conclusions of the work are based on the description of the stages of the formation of the folk tradition, the genre diversity of the musical heritage, the identified typology of folk music genres, the description of genre-stylistic norms and original performing traditions, as well as the structural-typological analysis of the song, instrumental and epic heritage of the Turkmen bakhshi and sazanda art.

The undoubted merit of the book is its brevity and clarity of presentation, beautiful, polished language. Its content traces the deep connection of modern bakhshi art with ancient folklore, which provides valuable knowledge about the sources of folk ideals. Particular attention is paid to the comparative characteristics of the genres of Turkmen musical creativity with the heritage of the pan-Turkic culture.

Intended for musicologists, folklorists, specialistы in Turkic philology, cultural scientists, performers of traditional music, as well as a wide range of readers, the book will become an indispensable guide to the world of customs and beliefs of our ancestors, the art of bakhshi, which form the basis of the spiritual life of the people.

Agadzhan ACHILOV, TNС

Photo: illustrative images