Selected Psalms, Old Verses and Spiritual Songs of the Canadian Doukhobors: Transcription and musical analysis.

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to select songs specific to the Doukhobor song repertoire which were not previously notated and to record, notate and analyze the melodies for use in music education. The first limitation of the study was to focus on the sacred repertoire which is comprised of three genre of song, namely the Psalms, the Old Verses and the Spiritual Songs. A comparison of the song titles of Old Verses and Spiritual Songs which are found in the two major Canadian Doukhobor song text collections was made with other Russian song text collections to determine a subset of songs unique to the Doukhobor tradition. The second limitation of the study was then applied, which was to select those Old Verses and Spiritual Songs believed to exist prior to the beginning of the twentieth century. Forty-five melodies, comprised of 11 Psalms, 18 Old Verses and 16 Spiritual Songs were included in the study. The notation of each example is accompanied by one verse of Russian text and transliteration and by documentary information stating the genre, the Doukhobor song text collection reference number, the singers' names, and a tape source in the researcher's private collection. Full and/or partial translations of the texts are provided.