Le Mystère Des Voix Bulgares


Le Mystère des voix bulgares ou Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir est un chœur bulgare a cappella formé en 1952 et ayant acquis une renommée mondiale en alliant répertoire traditionnel et arrangements modernes.
Il fut créé en 1952 comme le chœur de la télévision et radio nationale bulgare par Philip Koutev, et il est actuellement dirigé par Dora Hristova.
Les chanteuses sont sélectionnées dans les villages pour la clarté de leur voix. Elles reçoivent ensuite une formation intensive à la musique bulgare. Le style est caractérisé par la diaphonie, et la dissonance (nombreux intervalles de seconde, septième et neuvième), l'échelle modale, le rythme syncopé, etc et qui est totalement différent de la musique grecque ou ottomane.
Leurs premiers enregistrements sont l'œuvre de l'ethnomusicologiste suisse Marcel Cellier. Ils ont reçu un Grammy Award en 1989 pour le second album.
Trois solistes éminents ont créé le Trio Bulgarka, audible dans les albums de Kate Bush : The Sensual World et The Red Shoes.En 1992, le chœur s'est séparé en deux, l'un pour la radio, Angelite - The Bulgarian Voices, l'autre pour la télévision, le Chœur féminin de la télévision d'État bulgare. 

Source: Wikipedia

Review/Music; Choir Unites the Many Voices of Bulgaria

By JON PARELES
Published: November 04, 1988

A forthright woman's voice announces a sustained, age-old melody with an upward step. A second voice, just as strong, joins in, and the two women sing in harmony so close it seems dissonant to Western ears. Soon, chords of almost weightless voices float in behind them, cushioning and transforming the traditional song, blending the earthy and the angelic.
That's only one of the signature sounds of the Bulgarian State Radio and Television Female Vocal Choir, which sang a sold-out concert Wednesday at Alice Tully Hall as part of its first North American tour. The choir, formed in 1952, brings together traditional singers from all over Bulgaria; an American equivalent might assemble Cajun fiddlers, New York rappers, Hawaiian guitarists, Chicago blues singers and Tex-Mex accordionists. Where that would be a Babel, though, the Bulgarian choir balances folk-style singing and formal, classicized arrangements. For the first part of the concert at Alice Tully, the 24 singers wore traditional dresses and headdresses (but with high-heeled shoes); they returned after intermission in black formal gowns with a conductor, Dora Hristova.
The choir gained sudden popularity in the West after the release in 1987 of ''Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares,'' a French compilation of its recordings that was embraced by trendmongers in Britain and then the United States.
But even trendmongers can have good taste. The choir and its arrangements are consistently, continually astonishing. Some songs use rich, hymnlike chords; others send bits of counterpoint scurrying around the choir. A seemingly mournful melody will start moving to a dancelike rhythm; a traditional diaphonic song - one voice on a melody line, the other matching its rhythm on an unchanging drone note - will unfurl eerie choir harmonies evoking Bartok or Stravinsky. One spectacular song used quickly articulated melodies to build chords that collided and meshed; its final sound was a downward swoop by the whole choir that was like a sudden free fall.
Songs for small groups and soloists backed by instruments - kaval (flute), gadulka (fiddle) and tamboura (long-necked mandolin) - revealed solo voices capable of sounds and ornamentation that would boggle opera singers: gleeful yips, controlled quavers and intricate turns and trills. The most striking soloist was an alto, Nadejda Hvoineva, whose elegiac ''Stani Mi, Maytcho'' (''Get Up, My Daughter'') was nothing short of heartbreaking.
While the music was enthralling, the concert's producers had been lazy. The program notes included only song titles and their translations, arrangers' names and some soloists' names, along with an essay about the music (reprinted from Vol. 1 of ''Le Mystere'') and a list of performers' names. There was no information on lyrics or on which regions the songs came from, not even a list of the backup group's instruments. For all the interest and curiosity that the choir has generated, its Western handlers seem determined to treat the music as an esoteric novelty. More information would not diminish its beauty. Source: The New York Times

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