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Dintre genurile muzicii populare create pe meleagurile Olteniei şi Munteniei, discul de faţă prezintă un mănunchi de cîntece de joc şi cîntece propriu-zise.

Folclorul acestor teritorii prezintă asemănări şi deosebiri. Amîndouă sînt zone de largă afirmare a melodiilor cu formă liberă (balade, doine, o serie de jocuri), specii astăzi rare sau inexistente în restul ţării şi care trăiesc aci alături de melodiile cu formă strofică, aşa cum sînt cele cuprinse în acest disc.

Oltenia manifestă o mare tenaticitate a tradiţiei, dar şi o exuberantă afirmare a sensibilităţii artistice contemporane. Regiunea păstrează un fond bogat de vechi cîntări ceremoniale, un stil propriu al doinei — „cîntecul lung”, în care abundă recitativul —, hăulituri, neîntîlnite în restul ţării, cîntece vocale de joc („hore” şi „sîrbe”), apreciate şi preluate în întreaga ţară ; alături de acestea, balade, cîntece strofice, melodii instrumentale de joc, cu coloratură stilistică proprie.

Muntenia deţine un stil al doinei mai cantabil, mai dezvoltat melodic, concretizat într-o versiune tradiţională — ,,de codru” — şi o alta mai tîrzie — „de dra­goste”. In strînsa legătură cu cea dinţii s-a dezvoltat cîntecul strofic, de un ..lirism cald, evoluat de la stilul vechi al ritmului liber, al melo­diei mai reţinute şi al bogăţiei ornamentale, pînă la stilul modern al ritmului măsurat, al expansiunii melodice şi al simplificării ornamen­tale. Un loc important îl ocupă, ca şi în Oltenia, baladele, melodiile instrumentale de joc şi unele categorii de cîntări ceremoniale.

Stratul melodic cel mai tînăr, reprezentat în .Oltenia prin cîntecul de joc, iar în Muntenia prin cîntecul modern, este cultivat astăzi in­tens şi ales cu precădere, în ambele zone, pentru textele poetice de cea mai vie actualitate.

MARIANA  KAHANE

This record contains a selection of folk-dances, songs and ballads drawn from the various genres of folk-music characteristic for Oltenia and Wallachia. The folklore of these two regions shows similarities and differences. They are both rich in free-style melodies (ballads, „doinaş” and a number of folk-dances), types which today are rare or inexistent in the other parts of the country, but which persist here, side by side with melodies in verse-form, such as those on this record.
Today, the most recent type of melody, represented in Oltenia by the dance-song and in Wallachia by the modern ballad, is cultivated with great intensity and given priority in both regions for seltiing the most up-to-date poetic texts to music.
1. „WORMWOOD, BITTER WORMWOOD”. This is a song, in the true sense of the word, and one which typifies the modern style prevalent in Sub-Carpathian Wallachia. The lyrical text of this love-song, with alternating verse and refrain, blends with its regular rhythm and unitary beat.
2. „O ARGESH, HOW SWEETLY FLOW THY WATERS DOWN THE VALLEY”. This song is set to an extremely lively, rhythmic and tuneful melody, typical of the Oltenian „sîrba”. It provides a fine setting for the up-to-date text, which tells of the outstanding achievements of the new life pulsating throughout the country.
3. „LITTLE WHEAT OF THE BĂRĂGAN PLAIN”. This song belongs also to the new-style songs creation, using a Wallachian type melody. The poetical text shows an image of the socialist agricultural organization, by the voice of a young peasant lass who links the collective achievements to her own life’s joys and wishes.
4. „YOU WILL BE GLAD, MY SWEET-HEART”. This tune belongs to the .Oltenian dance-songs. The subject of the poetical text originates from the so rich and frequent love-thematic of the folk-poetry. It tells of a lovers’quarrel and winds up with a delicate retort from the lass who, with coquettish pride, declares that it is she who has forsaken her lover and not he who has forsaken her, as he hâd spread the rumour in the whole village.
5. „IN AM LONGING FOR MARIN”. This is another Oltenian „sîrba”, with deep roots in the tradition of this region, revealed in the „do’ina”-type echoes which continually recur in the melody. The poetical text relates yet another love- story, with a sly warning from a lass, dissatisfied with her lover’s lukewarm attentions. The artist’s musical sensibility blends with excellent mastery of the regional style, which is revealed in some effects of vocal techniques.
rhythm and by the presence of a refrain. With delicate lyricism, the text tells of a family integrated in the socialist way of life.
7. „WEDDING SONG”. This is a version of the bride’s song, traditionally played in Wallachia and Oltenia, while the bride is being arrayed. It is a farewell song in which the bride wistfully recalls her life as a maiden in her parents’house, from which she is parting. The young girls and women who assist in arraying her, in the tradiţional fashion, are listening to the song with tears in their eyes.
8. „MOTHER, MY LITTLE MOTHER”. This is one of the modern-type tunes of the Wallachian song. The rhymes express the sadness of a young bride’ who yearns for the family and village she has left.
9. „LITTLE WITHERED LEAF”. The lively tune of this folk-dance („sîrba”) is associated with a lyric love-song, the pattern of which is frequently met with in folk-poetry : the lass has enthralled the young man by her spells and he cannot escape from her toils. Nobody knows their secret love and Nature alone is its witness.
10. „IONEL FROM OVER THE HILL”. This modern-type Wallachian tune, influenced by the style of city songs, is characterized by the amplitude of its melody and of its strophic construction. From the two refrains, the second is of excepţional length, consisting of four melodic lines. This too is a love-song, in which a young girl, forsaken by her lover, tells that she continues nevertheless to wait for him.
11. „O VILLAGE, SWEET ABODE”. An Oltenian dance-song, in the more sedate rhythm of the „hora” and with a more developed melodic form. The rhymes give a moving declaration of ardent love for the native village, which blends in a single image with the soil, the rustling of leaves, the ancestral home and the memory of beloved parents.
12. „BESIDE THE WATERS OF THE JIU-RIVER”. This typical Oltenian tune, rhythmically animated, is created in the older melodic tradition of the region. The rhymes poetically express a beautiful image of love and yearning.
13. „AS LARGE AS IT THE SIRIU-RIVER”: This tune, which has certain features of the modern song, nevertheless contains some echoes of the ancient lyrics of Sub-Carpathian Wallachia. The text contains the poetical love-declaration of two separated lovers, in which the river becomes the natural messenger of the longing of one for the other.
14. “URGE ON YOUR BAY, MY LADY”. An Oltenian dance-song, marked