Re: Romanian music in Klezmer repertoire

[Solidarity Foundation <svzandt...>]

Paul,
The question you ask is very important for the history of klezmer music.
I can't give you an answer, but perhaps the following two articles will
provide some clues (assuming you haven't already read them):

Zev Walter Feldman, "Bulgareasca/Bulgarish/Bulgar: The Transformation of
        a Klezmer Dance Genre." Ethnomusicology 38.1 (Winter 1994):1-35.
Jeffrey Wollock, "European Recordings of Jewish Instrumental Folk Music,
        1911-1914." ARSC Journal [Association for Recorded Sound Collections]
        28.1 (Spring 1997):36-55.

The old bulgareasca (Yiddish, bulgarish), ancestor of the bulgar, can be
heard in such tunes as "Shulems Bulgarish" (recorded by the button-accordion
& tsimbal duo of Yenkowitz and Goldberg, recently recorded in a very nice
performance on the CD "Budowitz: Mother Tongue" on Koch International);
"Fraytik noch'n Tsimes" by the band of Lieutenant Joseph Frankel; and the
dance section of Aaron Lebedeff's "Rumeynie, Rumeynie". Also Pesakhke
Burshteyn's signature tune "Hotza Mama". (I was told by his widow Lilian
Lux that he learned this tune as a teenager in southern Ukraine -- that
would have been before the first world war. 

For some time I've been aware that the famous "Jewish" doina is based on
the Oltenian Doina, but I never knew how that came about or the possible
geographical implications of the fact. Good luck!

Itzik-Leyb