The music of Bulgaria is an excellent example of a complex musical tradition which combines Middle Eastern makams (modes), regional microtonal structures, pentatonic scales, diatonic modes, and major/minor collections. This article analyzes “Bulgarian Suite,” an accordion piece written by the living Bulgarian composer Petar Ralchev. “Bulgarian Suite” is a trend-setting piece incorporating mixed asymmetrical meters, modal harmony, dense ornamentation, improvisation, folk motives from various regions of Bulgaria, and influences from Western music styles. Stylistically, “Bulgarian Suite” exemplifies Bulgarian concert wedding music from the 1990s, which became popular worldwide through the performances of Ivo Papazov and his Trakiya (Thrace) orchestra.

The analysis of “Bulgarian Suite” focuses on Ralchev’s compositional techniques and his innovative approaches to combined metric groups (several asymmetrical meters recurring periodically), heterometric rows (meters which do not follow a particular pattern), and modal/makam-based harmony. Ralchev’s primary compositional idea in “Bulgarian Suite” is to establish balanced asymmetry at the beginning of the piece and gradually progress towards more traditional and symmetrical structures. Due to the improvisatory nature of Bulgarian wedding music, “Bulgarian Suite” should not be considered a fixed composition. Rather, as seen from other recordings of the same piece, Ralchev uses the suite structure as a flexible framework that is varied to a great extent in different performances.

In addition to analyzing and adapting Western analytical tools to a particular non-Western piece, this article also introduces a new, comprehensive model of inquiry which could be applied to repertoire from other Eastern European countries exhibiting levels of metric and harmonic complexity similar to those found in Ralchev’s “Bulgarian Suite.”

Keywords: Bulgarian, wedding music, Petar Ralchev, accordion, folk

Contributor Information:

Kalin Kirilov is a Professor of Music at Towson University.

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