Rumanian folk music from Hungary

 

MAGYARORSZÁGI ROMÁN NÉPZENE

RUMANIAN FOLK MUSIC FROM HUNGARY

EDITED BY FERENC SEBŐ

Hungaroton, 1984, SLPX 180 77

F. Sebő is one of the main people who started the revivalist movement in Hungary. He spent some time collecting around in Hungary and Romania with a lot of other people in order to reconnect in a way with the traditional music of Hungarian people everywhere it was possible. So this is a great recording in the field made in 1981 about the Rumanian  minority in Hungary. In fact the revivalism in Hungary was of course interested in its own culture but from the beginning musicians and dancers from Budapest and other big cities were interested in other cultures from the area or the Balkan.
Three villages in Eastern Hungary are concerned here the main one being Micherechi inhabited by Rumanian speakers only while the others villages are mixed. There lived the great fiddler Teodor Covaci born in 1925. There are videos on youtube with Béla Halmos the other big name of the Hungarian revivalism with his long hair and big moustache trying to understand and play what Covaci was playing for him. Halmos looked a bit lost but he managed to keep up with it and used to play this repertoire. He sadly passed away in 2013.
A lot of informers were recorded : musicians on fiddle, kontra, clarinet, ... and singers-dancers. Dance music but also songs for Chistmas and the New Year (colinda), doinas, etc.. are performed.
F. Sebő explains in the booklet (in English, Rumanian and Hungarian) how as a student in ethnomusicology he met Covaci who took him in his wedding band. So  F. Sebő could learn and study peasant tradtions from the inside which is the best way of course if you really want to understand what you're doing. That was before 1981.
The booklet is quite informative with an general introduction about the local music and presentation of the tunes/songs and the performers. There are also scores for all the tunes played and lyrics of all the songs with their translations in Hungarian and English.
A great album and good work from  F. Sebő who produced many other excellent LPs for Hungaroton. Curiously, this label like other big labels decided not to release all its LPs on CD. So I hope to post some of those ''forgotten'' albums soon. 

download.wav