Zanina Raleva
 

The Composer Toma Proshev

            The previous time I was here, I spoke about the composer Tomislav Zografski and his primary stylistic neoclassical orientation. Even then, I emphasized that contemporary Macedonian music is a specifically interesting and significant part of our culture in general.
           This paper is a type of sequel, because when the period of the late 1950s and early 1960s is discussed, besides mentioning the three main music currents that shaped music expression - folklorism, neoclassicism, the avant-garde and experimental music, one must inevitably mention the three main representatives of this age: V. Nikolovski, T. Zografski and T. Proshev.

            Toma Proshev (1931-1996)

            The first composition noted in the opus of Toma Proshev is Sonata for violin and piano written in 1950. During this period, Proshev was staying in Zagreb. His opus was influenced by the period in Croatian music known as “new nationalism” or “national realism”. In 1961, the first Biennale of Contemporary Music took place in Zagreb, marking the beginning of the “new sound” i.e. avant-garde tendencies. In the meantime (from 1957), Proshev traveled to Ljubljana, where he studied with L.M. Shkerjanc and graduated in composition.
            In 1963 Proshev departed to Paris in order to study with Nadia Boullanger. She had worked with composers that developed as neoclassicists or followers of Stravinsky (Copland, Markevich and Piston). Proshev was not influenced by this style even though he claims that in his works, neoclassicism is present as “a fruitful standpoint with a new vision” and that “classical norms are embedded within him as proportions, a sense of system, balance and stability.” Nevertheless, the compositions written during this period - First Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Concert for Ondes Martenot, Radiants for Chamber Ensemble, Relations for Symphony Orchestra, Concert for Accordion and Symphony Orchestra, hardly relate to neoclassicism. The proportions Proshev spoke about have only a general meaning in terms of the disposition of music parameters.
 Inspired by the existence of several instrumental ensembles of contemporary music in Paris, he contributed to the formation of such an ensemble in Zagreb known as “Musica Nova” (1965). The expressionist piece Diametry was written for this ensemble. Generally, Proshev’s expressionist elements developed as a result of his work and stay in Ljubljana.
          Proshev is an extraordinarily prolific composer. His productivity embodies almost all music forms - form the smaller ones intended for solo or group instrumental music, to chamber-orchestral music, symphonic vocal-instrumental and concert pieces, as well as several ballets and operas.
 His artistic creativity began in the 1950s and underwent three stages of development; each stage overlaps with the beginning of a new decade:

1)From late romanticism to avant-garde;
2) Avant-garde;
3) Post avant-garde period.

           The initial variant from late romanticism to avant-garde in Proshev’s opus is one of the several specific features of the first stage of his creative development. This variant, enriched with current figures of expression, will present itself in Proshev’s later works.
In the compositions written during the 1950s, one may notice a technical sense of incompleteness, normal for every beginner in composition. Proshev compensates it with the use of traditional formal schemes, achieving an impression of an unstable link between the formal structures, or adds them in order to maintain the formal scheme. The music material in Proshev’s work is a thick chromatic tissue comprising of different thematic nuclei, intermingled with frequent interval leaps, tense passages and fiery late-romanticist gradations.
This prepares the ground for elements of an expressionistic atmosphere especially obvious in the 1960s. However, elements that will later be employed are visible here. For instance, in the Violin Sonata - one of the more important achievements in this period, he employs nine-tone scales as thematic material. Even though Proshev doesn’t function within a serial system, he makes use of these tones in his later pieces. From them he develops a scale which indicates the tendency to move toward “free” atonality (we use this term to point out that it is not set within a realm of a fixed system, since Proshev uses extended tonality). The associative tonality points are usually presented through arpeggiated triads or seventh chords or superposition of diatonic thirds. These are clear points in which the tonality association is broken with the passages of chromatic scales.
The features of such language of music are exposed in Proshev's works written after 1963. Except for the above-mentioned Violin Sonata, other compositions dating from this period are: Solitude for Piano, First and Second String Quintet, String Trio, First Symphony, Spider Web (opera), Pit (oratorio).
             The following year in Paris, Proshev composed the piece Concert for Ondes Martenot. Even though it moves closer towards expressionist melody, this composition observes the features of the preceding works, both in terms of formal structure and in terms of treatment of music material. He achieves this movement towards expressionism through several characteristic steps such as: he employs the solo instrument within its extreme limits, so that the theme nuclei oscillate in great amplitudes; he introduces separate horizontal lines that cover one another, forming a polyphonic structure without engaging polyphonic steps. The final purpose is to intensify the body of sound and cluster vertical sums. Thus Proshev chooses to move within free atonality and becomes alienated from any tonality associations characteristic for his previous works.
This piece is an imposing bulk of expressionistic sound realized through many expressive lines organized in two structures: vocal and instrumental (flute, oboe, trumpet, trombone, harpsichord and various percussion instruments). Every line is individualized so that it provides separate music material, as well as vocal effects. Within, there is a constant shift of new, condensed materials that change instrumental colors in the manner of a mosaic pattern. The method of using the so-called “progressive melody” excludes the method of repetition, thus sacrificing the usual manner of connecting music. Proshev had already paved the way for the avant-garde in Macedonian music.
              The introduction of avant-garde in Macedonian music is closely related to the Proshev’s creative output, as well as his creation of the ensemble “St. Sophia” in 1968. This ensemble was comprised of 16 musicians and frequently hosted vocal and instrumental soloists from Skopje and other centers from former Yugoslavia. “St.Sophia” existed and acted until 1980, managing to gather a group of composers who would write specifically for the ensemble. More than 30 new compositions were written for “St. Sophia” - all of which reflected the current influences of modern music. In that way, Macedonian music directly entered European contemporary music trends.
             Nonetheless, the introduction of avant-garde and experimental music wasn’t always enthusiastically accepted. Such is the case with Vlastimir Nikolovski, who saw avant-garde music as a reflection of incomplete knowledge of compositional craftsmanship, or even its vulgarization. (Kulturen Zivot, issues 7-8, p.78)
             The “St.Sophia” ensemble took part in several festivals such as Dubrovnik, Ohrid, Split, Ljubljana, Opatija, BEMUS. It also visited all of the larger centers of former Yugoslavia, as well as other countries abroad such as USA, Canada, Tunisia, Italy, Bulgaria, Czech Republic. This fact speaks for itself - the ensemble played a distinguished role in the promotion of Macedonian contemporary music and culture.

             The Macedonian cultural audience was introduced to current music trends with the ensemble’s performance of various European composers such as Penderecki, Webern, Varese, Fellegara, Becker. At the same time, their influence was felt by Macedonian composers who endeavored to compose works in this manner. The most frequently performed composers from former Yugoslavia were B.Sakach, J.M.Horvat, I. Kuleric, M.Jovic, M.Stibilj.
The gathering of Macedonian composers who wrote for the ensemble created significant works in terms of music modernism, as well as their own creative opus. Except Proshev as the main source, among the other composers included are: R.Avramovski, D.Ortakov and S.Golabovski.
The compositions created for “St.Sophia” are usually chamber music. A great number of them have been written in cycles. Such is the case with the composition Heptameron Gama, third from the cycle Heptamerons by D.Ortakov. In terms of melody and harmony, this piece is based upon a folklore scale known as an Istar’s scale, whose eight tones are successively involved in the composition. This causes relations between the fourths and fifths, discerning the author from the expressionist mode of thinking quite characteristic for his earlier works.
             The strong connection of folklore elements and contemporary compositional techniques is quite evident in S. Golabovski’s work. This author exhibits a keen interest towards musicological research in Byzantine and old-church Slavonic music tradition. Similarly, his works portray the attempt to emphasize this tradition through the postulates of contemporary music movements.
             In the atmosphere that refers to directions through which national characterization of modern sound is achieved through folklore motifs, R. Avramovski’s composition Psychophony 1 is noted. This composer used the steps of modern compositional technique, aleatorics, clusters, sound blocks, prepared piano (especially in Bibliophonics).
            The entrance of modern music in Macedonia which occurred around the existence of “St. Sophia” relates several directions: Schoenberg’s dodecaphonic music, “the melody of sound colors” and Webern’s punctualism, “total organization” of Boulez, Penderecki’s aleatorics, Stockhausen’s graphic expression and Cage’s stylistic negation. All of these influences usually combine with music folklore and spiritual church music.
           For this ensemble, Proshev wrote a number compositions for choir, readers, soloists and orchestra. His most important works are the cycles Tempera (10 compositions), Musandras and Chamber Music (for ensemble and solo instrument). These are cycles only in terms of the titles of the compositions, and within we encounter works for smaller and larger instrumental groups, string or chamber orchestras, with or without soloists.
          In the compositions written for and performed by “St. Sophia”, Proshev’s use of aleatorics is dominant. It is perceived in the manner of use of the European composers - as a new technical step in the organization of musical time. In such partial aleatorics, several musical parameters are fixed - usually tone and dynamics. Freedom is left to metrical-rhythmical structures combined with non-music sounds (prepared instruments, cries and pounding).

            Proshev’s relation with the popular Yugoslav composers in this period is reflected in the fuse of the elements of tonality with ones of modality and aleatorics. The most fitting example for this is the composition Sea.

            Toma Proshev’s dominant use of avant-garde techniques ended in the 1970s. Abandoning expressionist melody and searching for calmer, lyric melodies, Proshev turns to folklore. He never had a negative opinion of folklore melodies. He often said that “the sound perception of folklore is an established philosophical concept containing certain forms and categories included in its entirety” and that “the sad, slow and contemplative songs from our folklore in their sound atmosphere correlate to the slow movements in my opus.” (Kulturen Zivot, issue 1, p.71)
           Nevertheless, Proshev’s reasoning cannot be supported by evidence of real transformation of folklore material. Even where he employs folklore themes, as in his third and fourth symphonies - reflections of his post avant-garde period ? the themes are placed within a different context. In the two above-mentioned symphonies, Proshev makes use of themes of urban Macedonian folklore  “Tatuncho Vojvoda” and “T’rba T’rbi”, or he uses the fragmented song “Teshka beshe nashata razdelba” in the development section of the first movements (sonata form) in the third symphony.

           The introduction of folklore materials and their inclusion as music material, as well as the manner in which folklore is used, exhibits Proshev’s habit of blending different materials opposite in structure. Actually, the songs that are used as themes in the traditional formal scheme (sonata form, the first movements of the two symphonies) are placed “on top” of the orchestral tissue. The horizontal-vertical fusion do not “support” them, but the total sound is achieved by the merging of contrasting structures.
           The drift towards folklore melodies in Proshev’s opus points to another dimension of his creative way. Namely, in his post avant-garde period, starting from the 198Os, he turned his interest towards the restoration of the meaning of melody. That complies with the general movements in European music at that moment, which Proshev surely attempted to follow.
Hence his lyric dimensions in the melodies of his compositions dating from this period, as well as the return towards widened tonality. Such is the case with the oratorio Peace on Earth (1984). The choir sections in this piece are treated in a homophonic manner, with a chorale-like melody line that is based upon tonal-modal relations.

          The great and diverse opus of Toma Proshev exhibited a great range of creative interests that shifted and generally followed European trends in music. Hence his saying that he perceives his creative work as an open form that constantly moves towards new mental, aesthetic and stylistic demands.