Music from Romania

Romanian folk music can be divided into two traditions, the one with its roots in the rural culture, the other with a more professional lineage that can be traced back to the lă utari, Romania’s traditional players. While musicians from the former tradition play the local music of their home villages, those from the latter perform mostly as instrumentalists and in ensembles. Their repertoire is also based on traditional folk music, but it is not as geographically bound.

Folk music from Romania is thus divided into two sections, the “rural tradition” and the “urban tradition”. In the second part we can hear Bucharest Radio’s light entertainment orchestra play songs and dance tunes on a range of instruments. The recordings were made by the renowned music-ethnologist Deben Bhattacharya. This popular album is now available for the first time on CD with partly revised liner notes that include descriptions of the featured instruments.