Karlovac chant between tradition and innovation

Abstract

Church singing, which was created due to the circumstances that arose after the Great Migration, is better known as the Karlovac chant. It was named after the place where it was transcribed and represents our national way of interpreting liturgical music, characterized by accepted influences of Western European musical practice, manifested first in music transcription, notation, metrics, and Western European tonality. Those were necessary conditions for its further artistic transposition into a complex polyphonic choral facture, intended primarily for church music elite. Permeated with the standard authoritative Western European musical tradition, it succumbed to the influence of superior musical achievements. However, when exposed to Western European creative practices, it did not prove to be a harmonized expression of artistic subordination, but an example of an unpredictable musical achievement based on the synthesis of our rich musical heritage imbued with a unique confessional and national self-determination. Its basic characteristics go back to the traditional musical heritage of the Balkans and Byzantium, enriched by Western European influences.