EVERY GENRE PROJECT - April 25 - Croatian Folk Music

Genre of the Day - Croatian Folk Music 🇭🇷

Album of the Day - Četiri Frtalji by Dunja Knebl (2011)

April 25, 2024

Today is a very special day for this column! Today I got to discover some more music from one of my ancestral places—Croatia. I also believe it to be one of the prettiest places I’ve ever been. I’ll never forget being on the island of Korčula, staring at an impossibly sheer cliff face dominating the island across the sun-dappled aquamarine waters at my feet, taking in the impossible luck of a country to have so many gorgeous islands. Unfortunately, due to extenuating circumstances, we had to cut the trip short and weren’t able to do the second leg that involved traveling east to the countryside where my great grandmother’s town of Petrijevči lies. Today, though, I got to get a little bit closer to that goal, taking in some songs that may sound like ones she grew up with.

I never knew my great grandmother, but I know she was a trailblazer. The oldest of five daughters, she left eastern Croatia for the far fetched land of Colorado, married an Orthodox man while seemingly not batting an eyelash over the (minor, but tell that to Yugoslavia) religious difference, and raised five children after he died in a mining accident. She could snap flies out of the air: she made bomb povitica, the traditional walnut bread of Croatia. She was an inspiration, and her coolness inspires me to seek out more connection to this portion of my heritage in particular.

Hailing from near where my great grandma did, today’s singer Dunja Knebl didn’t begin a singing career until 47, continuing a long history of badass Croatian women. Croatian and neighboring folk traditions are deeply intertwined with their quest to share stories: the guslar is an epic singer who weaves long narrative tales of Croatian history through their songs while playing the instrument gusle, a lute that’s played with a bow as a violin is. Besides a litany of singing traditions beyond the guslar like the putničko/kiridžijsko (travel singing) and wail-esque dissonant mountain singing known as ganga, Croatian folk music also includes instrumental quartets. Croatians use the gusle, bagpipes, another bowed lute known as the lijerica, and the bass-like gunjci. Try pronouncing any of those: Eastern European vowel configurations are a spectacle to behold.

I’m noticing a pattern with our recent folk selections—this is our third straight day of folk music—that one thing that differentiates the folk genre notion is that most of the output in the past fifty years is the first to officially designate it as folk music. Before that, because music was confined to one particular region without the recording industry, it was just music. Which is part of why today’s artist is an inspiration: she discovered a treasure trove of lost Croatian songs and put them to music herself. Dunja Knebl didn’t begin singing until nearly fifty, but one benefit of starting a career in music late is her deep consideration of Croatia’s history in breathing life into these songs.

Insatiably cratedigging, she has made it her goal to record as many Croatian folk songs as possible. She’s also blessed with a gorgeous and feathery light tone, each syllable unfurling delicately from her tongue. There’s a gorgeous variety found on his album. There’s the cute number “Janica” with ear-perking, subtly skittered drumming transitioning straight into ominous, weighty “Majka Čerku Sprevajala.” These songs often feature simple but effectively beautiful prose: “Dej Mi, Bože, Joči Sokolove” pleads with God to bestow upon the singer the eyes of the hawk to fly over the sea and kiss her beloved. The closer, “Ružica Sam Bila” lays down a particularly effective lonesome acapella with a melody that feels inherently tale-spinning no matter if you understand the words. It’s a wonderful journey back to a musical space my ancestors once inhabited, and a reminder that at any point in life you can dive into sharing your musical passion with the world. So I thank Dunja Knebl for this wonderful opportunity, and Croatian music for meriting such preservation.