RE: Doina

[Gifford, Paul <pgifford...>]

-----Original Message-----
From: SamWeiss (at) bellatlantic(dot)net [mailto:SamWeiss (at) 
bellatlantic(dot)net]

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The following post is from Kurt Bjorling: 
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It is clear that the label 'doina' represents a much broader range of
types, 
styles, and modalities in Romanian music today than in historical
recordings 
of Jewish music, and it is true that the 'Oltenian Doina,' as played
in 
Romania in relatively recent times, has the same modality and primary
melodic features of the Jewish doinas.  But several examples I have of
'Moldavian Doina' also have the same characteristics, even in field
recordings made in the last decade or so, so I don't know how specific
or historically-based the term 'Oltenian Doina' is.  It may really
mean something, and it may mean almost nothing.  Socialist-era
Romanian politics (state-sponsored ensembles and their repertoires,
etc...) enter in to the picture and I think a really
historically-informed expert on Romanian music is needed to fully
answer these concerns.



<<Or is it because most of my Romanian doina recordings are more
recent than klezmer doina recordings? >>


I don't know if anyone can answer this question 'yes' or 'no' - I
can't - but 
I think it is the most important question being asked here.  It
invites a 
host of important questions about how and why the recordings were
made, 
titles chosen and applied, how the music was sequenced.  One thing is
clear: 
a sound recording is not a wedding!  As far as I, or anyone I've
asked, knows, there are no historical recordings of Moldavian music
from the same period as the important historical recordings of
'klezmer' music, so again we do not have certain basic information
from which to draw certain conclusions or generalizations that we
might LIKE to draw.

[Gifford, Paul] 
 
As I posted earlier, I have Romanian recordings of versions of 'Doina
Oltului' from about 1908 on to the present,
including a vocal version "Ca pe Olt," (with piano accompaniment),
from about 1920, though I can't remember the details off hand right
now. They are all by Bucharest ensembles, not Moldavian, though it's
likely that musicians from Moldavia played it. As I recall, the
diminished chord is missing from the earliest recordings, first
appearing in a Grigoras Dinicu recording from the 1920s or 1930s, if I
recall.  I used to have a Iancu Carlig cimbalom solo of Doina Oltului
that my father got in 1940 or so; unfortunately it broke and I'm
trying to find a replacement copy.  I think I also have a Fanica Luca
recording from 1937.
 
The repertoire of state-sponsored ensembles doesn't enter into this.
The Doina Oltului was a standard urban Gypsy tune by the 1920s, and of
course the other versions I mentioned all predate Communism in
Romania.  Also, the influence of such ensembles was much weaker in
Romania than in the Soviet Union or probably Bulgaria. The real money
was in weddings, anyway.
 
I once suggested on this list that the fashion for Romanian Gypsy
music in Russia, which began in the 1880s and continued until 1917,
and then even until the 1940s in White Russian restaurants in Paris
and New York, may somehow be responsible for introducing the Doina
Oltului to the klezmer repertoire. Maybe not, but it's possible,
especially if hotels in smaller cities in Ukraine hired Gypsy
musicians from Romania.  How it got to Jewish musicians, I don't know,
but it would seem to me that it would have more likely happened in the
larger towns and cities than in small villages. And in the pre-1918
Romania, it would seem likely that musicians from Bucharest would go
to Iasi or elsewhere in Moldavia (or from Braila to Odessa, etc.). 
 
Paul Gifford