ABSTRACT
In 1986, a group called the Pokrovsky Ensemble gave a performance of Russian folk music in a classroom at Harvard University. The audience was made up largely of professors, graduate students, and undergraduates of the Slavic Department. I was a graduate student at the performance, visiting from Yale University. As befitted the academic setting, the performance was accompanied by short lectures on various aspects of Russian folk singing. For instance, the ensemble’s leader, Dmitri Pokrovsky, told the audience that a bylina (epic song) was sometimes sung chorally instead of by a solo singer, and might last several hours; that with the choral rendition, the words would be so stretched out that one might sing a single word for several measures. The audience members had heard of the existence of byliny, and might even have read a text about the heroic exploits of Dobrynia Nikitich, but probably none had ever heard a bylina sung. I certainly had not, and it seems to me now, looking back, that I had never considered the possibility that they could be sung. Byliny were just texts in books assigned for courses in ancient Russian literature. When the five men in the group of ten singers performed the song, I was enthralled. It had something of the character of a sea chantey, but the musical texture was unfamiliar and exciting. The manner of performance was also unusual. The singers in simple linen peasant shirts appeared to be fully immersed in their musical communication with one another and with the audience. They swayed slightly and used arm gestures to punctuate certain beats or words. Everything about their bearing seemed completely natural, not forced or showy.
