Music from Romania

These recordings were made by the celebrated musicologist Deben Bhattacharya in 1965, the year Nicolae Ceauşescu came to power. It was a very poor, predominantly rural country at that time, but musically very rich. The disc is in two parts – the first featuring rural musicians from three places in Transylvania and Moldavia, the second featuring professional Gypsy lăutari musicians in Bucharest. So it's a strange, patchy time-capsule, with the final ‘Ciocarlia’ (Lark) featuring the nai panpipes that Gheorghe Zamfir made so popular. They are played here by his teacher Fănică Luca. But none of these tracks are anywhere near as good as the Music of a Bygone Age releases from Asphalt Tango, which also have far better information and notes.

A few of the rural recordings feature lovely shepherds’ flute playing and slow doina laments, but are probably only going to be of interest to researchers. In the Moldavian town of Campulung Moldovenesc a ‘Leuşteanca’ dance on fluer (flute) and cobză (lute) sounds not so far from a melody Bartók arranged in his Romanian Dances.