SERBIAN FOLK MUSIC

 

СРПСКА НАРОДНА МУЗИКА

SERBIAN FOLK MUSIC

RTB, 1981, 2510057

As the cover suggest it, this is an album about the traditional peasant society in Serbia. The recordings were made in the field by Radmila Petrović and produced by the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Singing is quite dominant in the life of these villagers and they sing about the main activities and events : work songs, wedding songs, shepherd songs, ritual songs etc... Most of them are performed in antiphony with two groups of women or women and men. Instrumental music is illustrated by one solo on the flute svirala and two sets of kolos on two different types of gajda.
This is the "real stuff'' from the Slavic strata that persisted in Serbia at the time. Petrović who wrote the notes doesn't say when these recordings were made (I'd say the 70s considering the years of birth of the performers between 1905 and 1966).
Track B11 has a lot of saturation that I couldn't avoid (maybe the pressing is at issue ?); generally sreaking the quality of the recording is not perfect but the informants are quite outstanding.
Texts in Serbian an English. 

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LA DOINA ROUMAINE

 

Marcel Cellier présente

LA DOINA ROUMAINE avec Gheorghe Zamfir

M. Cellier presents

THE ROMANIAN DOINA with G. Zamfir

disques Festival, 1969, FLDX 544

Marcel Cellier (1925-2013) was an Swiss organist and musicologist who discovered Zamfir in Romania and brought him over to France and Swizerland at the end of the 60s. Here he had the good idea to produce an album made of doinas only. The doina is typical of the whole country but exists also in other areas by other names in the Balkan. Originally sung for a dead person or to express personal sorrow or anger it became a genre in instrumental music.
G. Zamfir has three tracks including one with a female singer. Other famous musicians are present like Dumitru Farcaș on taragot and Efta Botoca on violin. The remaining artists play the cymbalum, the clarinet, the saxophone or the violin. There is one nice example of whistling with cobza backing by Dumitru Capra.
All the recordings were made by M. Cellier in Romania. Texts in French and German.

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Η ΔΗΜΟΤΙΚΗ ΜΟΥΣΙΚΗ ΣΤΗΝ AMERIKΗ

 

Η ΔΗΜΟΤΙΚΗ ΜΟΥΣΙΚΗ ΣΤΗΝ AMERIKΗ (1918-1947)

FOLK MUSIC IN AMERICA

Afi Falirea/Pop Eleven, 1987, AF 91

As for other folk musical traditions, the USA played an important role in the recording and diffusion of thousands of 78RPM for the local communities as well as for the original ones. I think that the word ''rebetiko'' was found for the first time ever written on such a shellac. Here Jim Palis helped by Sam Chianis has gathered all sorts of Greek music from the mainland, the islands and Pontos. Most of these recordings were made in Chicago and New York except for tracks B3 and B7 made in Athens. Some names are quite famous to the connoisseurs like Alexis Zoumbas and Marika Papangika. Clarinet of course is quite present along with some lyra, violin and tsambouna playing. Also released as an LP.
The label was founded by the Falireas brothers, Pop Eleven being a branch of it. 

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