RE: Very first klezmer recordings

[Gifford, Paul <pgifford...>]

With regard to the "Mihai Viteazul" record, it should be
noted that it is clearly a Jewish, rather than Romanian
group that is playing.  I don't know the record details,
but Mihai Viteazul was a prince who in 1600 united Wallachia,
Moldavia, and Transylvania.  Either the record company used
the pseudonym in order to market it to Romanians or perhaps
it was the band of the "Mihai Viteazul" Regiment, or something
like that.  I do have a recording of a Romanian military
band from 1906 or 1908 playing a medley of Romanian tunes,
and it definitely has more of a standard military band sound.

Another interesting point (from Jeffrey Wollock's article
in the ARSC Journal about early European klezmer recordings),
that most of the recordings were by what appeared on the 
label as "Romanian Orchestra" (like "Romanian Orchestra of
J. Belf"), is that Romanian Gypsy orchestras were quite
popular in Russia at that time and appeared on record,
like Goulesco's Romanian Orchestra.

Paul Gifford

---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+