The taksîm (Arabic taqsim) is often referred to in the musicological literature of the Middle East as an instrumental “improvisation” (Nettl 1973: 11).2 The taksîm has been known as a major musical genre during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in most of the countries of the Middle East which had been incorporated within the Ottoman Empire, especially Turkey, Syria/Palestine and Egypt. It is also significant in Tunisia, but less so in the rest of North Africa. In Iraq it became prominent only after the end of the Second World War. Earlier the taksîm had probably been known only to and practiced by a small Ottomanized Iraqi elite. In other Arab countries, such as Morocco and Yemen, the taksîm is largely a post World War II adaptation of Egyptian musical practice.3 In the European part of the Ottoman Empire, the taksîm has also left important vestiges in the musics of Greece, Bulgaria, and Macedonia, and to a lesser extent Romania (Garfias 1981). Its name, and a few of its musical characteristics were known even within the instrumental klezmer repertoire of East European Jews (Beregovski/Slobin 1982: 539; Feldman 1993a). The fact that current Arabian and Turkish performance practices are not identical, and were even more differentiated early in the twentieth century when the first sound recordings of taksîms were made in Turkey, Syria and Egypt, has not prevented Turkish, Syrian, Lebanese and Egyptian musicians from employing the word taksîm to refer to all the local sub-styles of the broader taksîm genre.

Dans l'ancienne culture islamique, la musique comme toutes les grandes traditions était liée à un regard métaphysique sur le monde. Cela est évident dans les représentations théoriques (figures circulaires, correspondances avec les niveaux et les domaines du réel, lois des proportions), aussi bien que dans la littérature soufie sur la musique (samâ'). La science musicale était le fruit d'une transmission initiatique remontant d'abord aux maîtres, et au-delà, aux grands théoriciens (Safîuddîn, Fârâbî), puis aux sages philosophes (Pythagore, Platon), aux prophètes (Moïse), enfin aux anges (mythe de la création d'Adam) et au Verbe divin (mythe du alast). Comme la religion, elle avait ses Textes, ses herméneutes inspirés, ses écoles. La tradition par ailleurs avait une vocation éthique et une fonction édificatrice.

My report is based on Uzbek and Tajik materials with an excursus to the other former Soviet Central Asian republics. For the most part, I use previously unknown archival material not published in scholarly works, Communist Party documents, private correspondence, and several post-Medieval manuscripts on music from Bukhara. I want to call your attention to the following points. First, the creation of the key factors and mechanisms of culture policy in the 1920s and 1930s. Second, the struggle to create a national musical legacy during the early years of the Soviet national republics. These issues will be considered in relation to the current standing of regional musical cultures in Central Asia.

Since the last third of the nineteenth century, major reterritorialization1 has occurred in Central Asia, including both the geographical reformulation of political territories and the socially constructed reformulation of cultural territories. The central facts are well known: between 1865 and 1920, all of Central Asia north of the Amu Darya became part of the Russian, and subsequently, the Soviet, colonial empire. Under Soviet rule, Central Asia was divided into political territories whose boundaries did not accurately reflect the cultural boundaries of the populations that lived there. The Central Asian republics remained geo-politically stable from 1929, when Tajikistan was recognized as a full-fledged Soviet republic, until 1991, when the Soviet Union ceased to exist and the five Central Asian republics—Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenia, Kirghizia, and Kazakhstan—were thrust, some of them rather unwillingly, into a new life as independent states.

Turgun Alimatov is an eminent figure in 20th century Uzbek music. He was born in Tashkent in 1921, and has lived there all his life. His career as a musician began in 1939, and was connected to the musical theater and chiefly, to the Uzbek radio. Just two years ago, already an honored pensioner, he began to teach in the Eastern Music Department of the Tashkent Conservatory. In 1991 his first foreign appearance took place—in the United States—in connection with a tour of Uzbek musicians organized by the Asia Society. Before that, Turgun Alimatov only rarely went even as far as Moscow, usually for small recordings or to participate in various musical forums.

In March 1987, during the course of extensive interviewing among members of the Cantonese opera community in the southern Chinese city of Guăngzhoū,2 I listened with considerable amazement while Chàhn Keìhyàhn, the director of the Guăngdōng Cantonese Opera Institute, recounted an experience he had while staging a local Cantonese opera version of one of the “model operas” of the Cultural Revolution period. My fascination was only secondarily with the details of the story itself; of greater significance was what transpired on a linguistic, and even physical, level as this man related his story.

The Batak live in the countryside around Lake Toba in Northern Sumatra. According to linguistic and some other cultural differences they are divided into the subgroups Toba, Karo, Simalungun, Pakpak and Angkola/Mandailing. All Batak are obliged to the same adat, the traditional code of social behaviour which governs the relations among the three kinship groups (Simon 1982, 1984, 1987). The old-religious beliefs and customs of the Batak, upon which Christianity and Islam have been superimposed, are still an important part of adat ceremonies. I will confine myself here to certain old-religious implications of the ceremonial gondang music as found among the Toba and Karo.

Christian hymn-singing plays a prominent role in the daily life of many Pacific Island societies, and hymnody is acknowledged as a major historical influence on present-day Westernized music traditions. However, both contemporary performance practices and the historical foundations of Christian hymnody in the Pacific Islands1 remain little-documented, and, for the most part, neglected by ethnomusicologists. Contemporary traditions of hymnody in the Pacific Islands can be characterized as being diverse. The diversity is striking, considering the homogeneity of Western hymnody initially introduced by British and American missionaries throughout the region over a century ago. However, over time, different musical practices were used by missionaries and islanders in different locales. Therefore, any understanding of contemporary hymn-singing traditions must be placed in historical, as well as ethnographic, contexts.

This article examines the study of folk music traditions in Denmark, with an emphasis on collection, research and scholarly publication. Popular writings, use in education and the practice of folk music have been incorporated only sporadically. Geographically, the article covers what is now Denmark as well as the Faroe Islands. Greenland, which like the Faroe Islands has a commonwealth relationship with Denmark, is treated in a separate article.

The aim of this article is to present a survey of the development and present stage of dance studies in Denmark. The presentation focuses on research and publications of scholarly work and on collections concerning folk and social dance. Thus, otherwise important studies on historical dance, dance reconstruction, Bournonville tradition and dance in education are only sporadically mentioned below and are generally not listed in the bibliography.

The purpose of this article is to examine the study of traditional music in Greenland and thereby outline the history of traditional Greenlandic music and its present state. From the beginning of the century the study of traditional Greenlandic music has primarily taken place within the framework of the Danish Folklore Archives in Copenhagen. Many collectors were sent out by this institution, and nearly all of the sound recordings made in Greenland since 1905 have been deposited there.