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Written in Folk Roots issue 103/104, 1992

ANSAMBLUL SALBA PRAHOVEI
Ansamblul Folkloric Românesc
Syncoop 5750 CD112 (1990)

ENSEMBLE PECE ATANASOVSKI
Dances of Macedonia, Yugoslavia
Playasound PS 65076 (1991)

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Traditional Music from the Eastern Carpathians
Harmonia Mundi/Quintana QUI 903029 (1991)

SANDOR DÉKI LAKATOS & HIS GYPSY BAND
Hungary - Gypsy Violins
Harmonia Mundi/Quintana QUI 903027 (1991)

Ansamblul Salba Prahovei is a Romanian folk orchestra directed by Puiu Dragan, recorded in a Rotterdam studio, featuring violins (Victor Enache, Stelian Grama, Cornel Paraschiv, Adrian Hodoroaba), scampering cymbalom (Ion Dragoi), accordion (Vasile Dragoi), bass, clarinet (Constantin Anton), kaval, flute, cimpoi (bagpipe - a little unusual in this sort of line-up)(Stanila Zaharache), panpipe (Gigi Iancu) floating and zipping. Its repertoire is fairly, but not entirely, standard; varied, with doinas, sirbas, horas and other forms, excellently played, and undeniably exciting. A good range of solo instruments lead: panpipes, cimbalom, fiddle, accordion, kaval, cimpoi and clarinet, as well as some songs from the authoritative Eliza Ghica, whose voice is relatively deep and open-throated, unlike the tight hard sound of much Bulgarian singing.

      A sleeve of the "colourful folkloric" school, depicting a group of dancers and no musicians, and hugely inaccurate and quaintly translated notes in French & English give little hint of the rough wildness and compelling limping rhythms of the music of Ensemble Pece Atanasovski, played on bagpipe, breathy whistle or kaval, tambura, clarinet or taragota, shawm, accordion and drum. It's much more arabic sounding than the music of more northerly Balkan regions. No musicians' names or instrumentation are given, except to mention that the lead instrument is the violin (which as far as I can tell doesn't appear on the recording at all, any more than does the "syrinx" (panpipes)). The track listing claims that all titles are composed by B.Estacada, which I find impossible to believe. One wonders how a record label this disorganised can find its way to the CD plant. Despite it all, what we have here is powerful music. It might even be played by Ensemble Pece Atanasovski.

      Traditional Music from the Eastern Carpathians is a collection of field recordings, totalling 35 tracks, made of musicians and singers, solo and in groups, of the Hungarian minority in the Ukrainian, but previously Hungarian regions of Bereg, Máramaros and Ugocsa by Ferenc Kiss and Antal Stoller over a period of time beginning in 1971. Ferenc Kiss in his booklet notes laments the fragmentary condition of the once rich musical tradition of these people, the pressure against their using the Hungarian language, and the difficulty of contact across closed borders. He finishes: "We beg your indulgence for the instrumentalists' and singers' unsureness; we are dealing with musicians who had no opportunity to practise their art for twenty or thirty years... the clarinet was disinterred from the drawer, the accordion from the cellar, the violin from the attic, and the voice that sings is hoarse and tired..." Nevertheless, there's still much energy, skill and meaning here, in very varied music for many social uses - recruiting dances, a lament, several csárdás', including a recording of the Gypsy Band of Nagypalád, fairground rhymes and songs, a Christmas carol, counting out rhymes, a Wallachian skipping dance, a Gypsy rolling dance and stick dance, a Ruthenian wedding dance, round dances, a wedding rite, Jewish dances, Rumanian dances, a Ruthenian men's dance, an Alphorn signal and a vocal Alphorn imitation. Instruments include clarinet, fiddle, Hungarian zither (strummed, like an Appalachian dulcimer), harmonica, small cymbalom, accordion, double bass, drum, no-holed flute, Jew's harp, zongura (guitar) and saxophone.

      The work of Gypsy musicians, who, when playing for non-Gypsies at least, take local forms and play them brilliantly in order to earn a living while being outside society's career structure, runs, as does Jewish music for similar reasons, like lettering through the rock of European music. One of its flashiest manifestations is in Hungary, and Sándor Déki Lakatos and his Gypsy Band know how to go about it. Actually, none of the sources of the music on this 68-minute CD is described as traditional, though Hungarian Recruiting Dance and Quick Csárdás by Lakatos, Hungarian Ballad and Csárdás, Quick Csárdás in B minor and parts of other items have Hungarian forms as their basis. The majority of tunes are by Sándor or Tibor Lakatos, but, as one might expect with this style of violin playing, there's a Fritz Kreisler number, as well as a lovely Jules Massenet tune, Thaďs, adapted as Méditation, a version of Jenö Mezey's Caprice Noir featuring Rezsö Bujka on clarinet, and Pablo de Sarasate's adaptation of Chopin's Nocturne in E flat Major played by Sándor with Oszkár Ökrös as a violin and cymbalom duet. Sarasate or Chopin might find it a little, well, schmaltzy; I don't know if there's a Romany word for that piece of Yiddish, though perhaps if there is it would translate as "going for it".


© 1992 Andrew Cronshaw
 


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