Orava: Panorama of Folk Song and Music Culture

This double-CD and booklet is the first in a series of six important archival releases of traditional Slovak music. Orava is a district of the Slovak Tatras, west of Zakopane in Poland, which is much better known internationally. Certainly the modal nature of the music, with its characteristic sharpened fourth in the melodic lines, sounds close to the górale (highland) music of Zakopane and around. The 280 performers from 19 Orava villages performed at a folklore festival in Detva in July 1977 and were then recorded at a Czechoslovak Radio studio in Banská Bystrica early in 1978. These were some of the first stereo recordings of traditional music in the country.

The English notes describe how the repertoire was selected and refined to showcase the most traditional pieces, guided by composer and ethnomusicologist Svetozár Stračina. In time the villagers themselves also worked out which pieces might be most interesting for the collectors. The majority of the pieces are solo vocal or choral, with some strong vocal and bagpipe tracks from Oravská Polhora, evocative yodel-like female shepherd vocals from Novot’/Oravské Veselé, and choral and string band examples from Hladovka and Suchá Hora, with heavy, on-the-beat chords indistinguishable (to me) from the Polish górale music just over the border. There are fuller notes in Slovak with musicians’ names, lyrics, map and colour photos. More information is available from the website (www.panoramaludovejkultury.sk).