To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful.. This is power, it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking.
Agnes de Mille
Today's video features the group HKUD Osijek 1862 singing and dancing a kolo to tamburitza music. What is really cool is that they get practically the whole city to dance along with them in the square.
The cellist (Ana Rucner) is from the capital city of Zagreb. Check out the instrument she plays (it's made of metal instead of wood).
Osijek is the fourth largest city in Croatia, and it's located in the Slavonija region of the country. Slavonija is known for its lively and upbeat music. This city, along with Vukovar was damaged during the Croatian War for Independence in 1991 and a sizable number of lives were lost.
Tamburitza music is a staple of Croatian culture and the band in the video is a very fine example. The dance is a Drmes, of which there are many versions from different regions and towns. This one from Slavonija is one of my favorities.
I do love brash pop music. It's fun.
Romey Madley Croft
I never knew of the Eurovision Song Contest until I moved to Germany. My friends had everyone over to watch the show, which took place Saturday night in early May. It was a social event, something like the Super Bowl here in the States. We ate, drank and critiqued the songs. I remember it as a mix of mostly sappy love songs with a few humorous ones thrown into the mix.
Songs in a foreign language don't tend to go over well in the States, with few exceptions because people don't understand the lyrics. In Europe, children in elementary school learn at least one foreign language so they grow up multilingual. In the United States, young people don't usually learn a second language until high school.
Today's theme is the use of Balkan folklore in Eurovision. The theme for the year 2017 was "Celebrating Diversity." I didn't find any good songs for 2017, but here are some from years past with a strong folklore flavor.
Video #1 is the Bulgarian entry for 2013, Samo Shampioni(Only Champions) by Elitsa and Stoyan. Back in 2007 they had made it to fifth place with the song Voda (Water).
There are several folklore elements: the gaida player with the mask, the three women in the background with elaborate embroidered costumes, and Elitsa singing in the style of the Shope region.
This song placed 12th in the semi-finals; why I don't know. I give it a "thumbs up" for energetic performance (at one point it looked like a duel of the drums) and the use of Bulgarian folk motifs.
The Serbian entry for 2010 features brass band music, very popular in Serbia.
Ovo je Balkan (this is Balkan) is the name of the song. I detected a kolo rhythm at 1:14 and several times throughout the song. This is a dynamic performance, a bit crazy and fun to watch. You wouldn't know it from watching the performers, but this is a sexy love song. It finished 13th in the finals.
Video #3 is the Eurovision entry from 2013: Alcohol is Free, from Greece. During the intro, one of the musicians plays a tiny stringed instrument (tambouras), then all hell breaks loose after the drums and the trumpet play (at 0:41).
I found the lyrics in English translation (something always gets lost in translation) and what I got from them was a song about drunken sailors on a sea of whiskey (why not ouzo?) I give them points for a dynamic and fun presentation with the presence of Greek folklore. The band's name is Koza Mostra (a play on Cosa Nostra, maybe?) This is definitely not a love song!
The song placed 6th in the finals.
The Croatian entry for Eurovision 2006 was Moja štikla, (My High Heel) The dancing reminded me of the Greek Pentozali, the choral singing is pure Croatian.harmony.
The singer, Severina, really stands out in her red dress (she tosses it at 2:20) and her passionate performance, along with her backup (wearing folk costumes) was a pleasure to watch.
This song placed 12th in the finals. Maybe the judges and the audience just don't appreciate folklore and pop culture as much as I do.
There are, of course, inherent tendencies to repetition in music itself. Our poetry, our ballads, our songs are full of repetition; nursery rhymes and the little chants and songs we use to teach young children have choruses and refrains. We are attracted to repetition, even as adults; we want the stimulus and the reward again and again, and in music we get it. Perhaps, therefore, we should not be surprised, should not complain if the balance sometimes shifts too far and our musical sensitivity becomes a vulnerability.
― Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
In previous posts I have written about songs called "earworms." They take up residence in your head for hours and refuse to move out. Today's post features earworms from five Balkan countries.
Video #1 is Valle Kosovare/Shqiptare from Albania. The group is Valle Tona from Worcester, Massachusetts. This song rang in my head for hours the first time I heard it. You can find the lyrics here, in Albanian and in English translation if you'd like to sing along.
The song in Video #2 is by Maria Tanase, a Romanian singer who passed away in 1963 at age 49. During her relatively short life she gave performances around the world, and also had parts in movies and in a musical by Ralph Benatsky. Her most famous song, Ciuliandra, is very popular at folk dances.
Ciuleandra is not as much of an earworm as Bun ii vinu'ghiurhiulul. You will definitely need more than a glass of wine to remove this song from your head. You may even need an entire bottle!
Notice the 7/16 rhythm and repetitive refrain. It is the rhythm for the dance Geampara in Romania and Rachenitsain Bulgaria.
Earworms tend to have an element of repetition; a distinct rhythm and catchy lyrics, which is why they tend to stay in memory for a long time.They can even drive you crazy as you find ways to purge them from your head.
There is a science to this which is explained in Musicophilia, Tales of Music and the Brain, by Oliver Sachs, M.D. I borrowed the book from the library to check out his take on music. His research is primarily focused on neurology and experience with stroke, Parkinson's and dementia patients, musical savants, and classical composers.
There is an entire chapter devoted to rhythm and another devoted to what he calls "brainworms". I saw nothing on Balkan music and its asymmetric rhythms, nor does he mention folk instruments like the gaida and zurna. (If you want to read about how the Ottoman Turks used the zurna to intimate their enemies, see the list at the end of this post).
The song in Video #3 is from Croatia. For some reason, Croatian songs tend to stay in the brain forever. It's the repetitive lyrics and the tamburitza music that accompanies them.
U Selu Pokraj Dunava (In a village near the Danube) is about a man in love with the young woman who lives in the village. You can find the lyrics here, but no English translation.
One of the best sites for folk song lyrics in the original language, English and German is the Songbook for Nearsighted People, so named because because the lady who compiled typed the lyrics in a large font so they could be seen in places with poor lighting. It is also good for those who are visually challenged.
You can find the lyrics and sing along toOj Shope Shope in the Songbook. It has a German translation for the song which is about a young man from the Shope region of Bulgaria who thinks he's God's gift to the world. This is a song that refuses to be evicted from the brain. Last year it was part of a gala concert featuring several Bulgarian women's groups. It kept me awake that night.
Video #5 is a song from Macedonia, Dedo Mili Dedo, It tells the story of a day in the life of an elderly couple who still love each other after all the years they've been together. This song has that earworm quality: repetitive lyrics and a catchy rhythm. There is also a dance that goes with the music.
The cook looked at the old man, and her gibenica burned. Sukačica, Croatian folk song
Todays' dances can easily be confused because the names are similar. The first one is the very popular Sukačko Kolo from Croatia, based on a humorous song, Sukačica. It's about a cook who burned a gibenica (cheese pastry). Despite the disaster in the kitchen, everyone has a great time dancing. You can find the lyrics here, in Croatian, German and in English.
The video itself is also cool, because of the male-female costume reversal. It was mentioned in the comments on YouTube that the dancers wore Serbian costumes. A cultural faux pas, maybe, but certainly not a punishable offense :)
By the way, if you come to my house for dinner, you'll know that the food is ready when the smoke detector goes off:
Dance #2 is spelled a bit differently and has a different meaning. With the diacritical marks it's Šokačko Kolo, a dance of the Šokač people who live in Serbia, Croatia, and Hungary. Ethnically, they consider themselves Croats and dance to music played by tamburitza orchestras.
You can see why it's easy to confuse the name with the better known Sukačko Kolo. I couldn't find any videos of this dance from the States or Canada although I did find notes from the Folk Dance Federation of California. It was taught at a workshop back in 2009. For some reason it didn't become part of the repertoire.
High heels are not the best footwear to be worn when dancing, but since this video was taken at a wedding, that is to be expected. I recommend kicking off the shoes, all they do is get in the way.
There is more tamburitza music in version #2 of Šokačko Kolo. The video was taken during a party (Šokačka Večer) in 2014. You'll see dancers in traditional folk costumes along with the band.
Croatian dances are usually circular, and move in either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction (or both). The word kolo means either "circle" or wheel in Croatian (as well as Serbian).
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.
Khalil Gibran
Today's post features dance songs from Croatia and Romania that are named after rivers.
Raka Plava po Dravi from Croatia is a very strange song. The title translates to Duck Swimming in the Drava. The lyrics are rather strange, because the duck has a hat on its head, and the refrain is "this year the roses will bloom." The woman recognizes her beloved as he walks off a ship (he supposedly has a distinctive walk), and she wants to marry him.. The lyrics are really random, and there was no English translation (although I was able translate from German).
By the way, the Drava is a tributary of the Danube, River of Many Names, which has written about extensively on this blog (see the links to other posts). The Drava flows from the west, through Italy, Austria, Slovenia and Croatia.
Here's Raca Plava taught by Yves Moreau. He is a well-known teacher, primarily of dances from Bulgaria. He leads workshops all over the world; this one was held in Israel.
In the "village" of Vienna, Austria, they dance Raca Plava a little differently. At dance we have a saying, "he or she is "from a different village" when someone visits one of our dances and does a different variation. Choreography is not a static entity. Remember the game "telephone" you may have played as a child? Dance works the same way.
The next dance song is about a river in Romania Siriul din Buzau. This is another love song, a bit more romantic than the one from Croatia, with beautiful imagery (you can find the English translation here). The music sounds like flowing water.
This group is from the United States.
If you enjoyed this you may also like:
The River of Many Names (all the links are accessible from part seven); a pan-Balkan series with Danube songs from different countries.
Beli Dunav (parts one, two and three) Danube Songs from Bulgaria
A great resource for dance songs and translations is the Songbook for Nearsighted People. The Songbook features lyrics from many different countries (especially the Balkans) in the original languages (transliterated for Bulgarian and Macedonian). Most of the songs are translated into German and English.
You can view the publication in its entirety or each song as a single page. The font is large, perfect for those who are visually challenged :)
Blessed are they who go around in circles for they shall be known as wheels.
source unknown
Today's post features two kolos from Croatia that begin with the letter K, and a mystery kolo from Balkan Music Night 2011.
A kolo is a dance usually performed in a circle and sometimes in a line. In Croatia, they're done in a circle, using a hand hold, front basket hold, or back basket hold. The Croatian kolo is usually accompanied by tamburitza music, singing, and sometimes both.
Croatia was once a part of the multi-ethnic multi-cultural nation of Yugoslavia, which, surprisingly, stayed together for nearly fifty years. Yugoslavia broke up after the fall of Berlin Wall in 1989 and became like Humpty Dumpty. Once it fell apart, it never got back together. Croatia declared independence in 1991; it has been its own entity ever since.
The first video is of the Dunav group from Jerusalem in Israel performing Krici, Krici, Ticek(Chirp, Chirp Little Bird). The lyrics are provided so you can sing along :) It's moderately fast, and the dancers use a back basket hold. If you watch them closely, they resemble a wheel, going round.
The next video took place at a New Year's Eve party at a restaurant in Australia in 2009 The dance is Kukunjesce Kolo. The music, played by a tamburitza orchestra, is loud enough to way the dead! The crawling baby (at 4:56) wants to get into the act, too.
This video goes back four years, to Balkan Music Night 2011. It was quite late and by that time everyone was high on endorphins from all that dancing. The group Padjashi was finishing up a medley of Croatian folk songs and so far no one was kolo-ed out.
Notice the way the line flows around the room and then ends in a circle. Does anyone know the name of this dance or the music that goes with it? If you do, please post it in the "comments" section.
This weeks bonus video is a lesson on How to be a Croatian.. It focuses on important skills like cooking from scratch, preparing the house for guests and loading them up on leftovers when they leave. Oh. and don't leave the windows open in the bedroom, even in summer. The drafts can kill you!
It is my personality alone that has brought back the waltz and made it a global craze.
Andre Rieu
Music from the Balkans is best known for its uneven rhythms and odd time signatures.
Western classical and popular music, for the most part, has an even number in the time signature. A notable exception is the waltz, a dance in 3/4 time.
The waltz originated as an Austrian folk dance, the Ländler, native to southern Germany (Bavaria) and Austria. The most renowned composer of waltzes was Johann Strauss, Junior; although the Viennese waltz did not begin with him. His father Johann Senior and his friend Josef Lanner took Austrian folk tunes and dressed them up for the sophisticated audiences in Vienna and its environs. Their music became part of the classical music repertoire worldwide.
Here is an example of a waltz borrowed from folk music, the Styrian Dancesby Josef Lanner. Styria (Steiermark, in German) is a region in southeastern Austria; it shares a border with Slovenia, part of a country that no longer exists, Yugoslavia.
The fame of the waltz traveled far and wide throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire; it spread to Hungary, where Emmerich Kalman and Franz Lehar incorporated it into their operettas. It went further down the Danube, River of Many Names (Johann Strauss' most famous waltz was about it), into the Balkans, and even as far east as Russia.
The next waltz is from Croatia. The tamburitza orchestra gives it a distinctly Croatian sound. I don't know if this is a folk tune or a piece that was composed. The recording sounds quite old. By the way, much of the music at folk dances comes from vintage recordings.
Diko Iliev, Bulgarian composer (best known for Dunavsko Horo), has a birthday this month on the 15th. Although he composed many pieces based on Bulgarian folk dances such as daichovo, rachenitsa, elenino, and pravo, he wrote waltzes, too. The title of this one, translated from the Bulgarian is In the Vineyards Over Rabine. I have no idea where Rabine is, but it is probably somewhere in Bulgaria, which is a big wine producing country.
In Bulgaria, February is the month of St. Trifon the Pruner (Trifon Zarezan); it is the time when the vintners get to work pruning the vines to make them ready for the next growing season. It it is also celebrated with lots of wine!
And finally, here is a very famous waltz from Romania by a composer who is practically unknown nowadays. Pop culture buffs will recognize this piece because it has undergone several incarnations. One of them was The Anniversary Song performed by Al Jolson (of classic movie fame), in The Jolson Story. The other was a song popular in Korea titled In Praise of Death. The woman who sang it died tragically at a very young age.
This version is the original, by a composer of Serbian descent who lived in Romania. His name was Iosef Ivanovici and he was a bandmaster stationed in Galati. He had his first introduction to music when an elderly man gave him a flute.
He composed a number of pieces including hora, a dance based on Romanian folk tunes, and many other works, including waltzes, polkas, and marches. However, his best known composition was a waltz titled Waves of the Danube, also known under the German title Donauwellen.
By the way, the conductor in this video, Minseok Kang, ironically, is from Korea, and he conducts the Botosani Philharmonic Orchestra. He is quite the character, and an excellent dancer!
Announcement!
My new blog Light and Shadow has now been launched! If you enjoy humor and satire, photos and poetry, stop by to visit! I will be posting there about once a month. Eventually I plan to sell chapbooks of my poetry on this site, as well as feature anthologies where my work has been published.
Translation is not a matter of words only: it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture. Anthony Burgess
Have you ever wondered about what some of those folk songs mean? Before the Internet it was almost impossible to get translations of Balkan folk songs. Now they are relatively easy to find if you know where to look.
Today's post features two songs from Croatia with humorous lyrics. After I read the translations, I wondered if Croatia is a fantasyland full of crazy people and anthropomorphic creatures. From what I've seen of it in pictures, it looks nothing like Disney World. Croatia does, however, have some amazingly beautiful scenery, and it's a place I'd definitely like to visit. I've been to Disney World too many times, anyway.
The first song is Raca Plava, and the group in the video is a "bonding folk dance class" from China. They seem to take their dancing quite seriously; you can hear the teacher call the steps while the music plays.
Click this link for the lyrics in English translation. If you've ever seen a duck swimming with a basket on its head you have probably had a bit too much to drink or spent too much time in Alice's Wonderland. According to the lyrics, the man is in love with a woman who has a distinctive walk. Maybe she walks like a duck. The song as a whole is rather strange.
The next song Sukacica, (dance: Sukacko Kolo)is another excursion into surreality. This time it's a kitchen disaster, complete with burnt food, poultry with singed feathers, and roasted chickens with water running out of them (somebody tried to put out the fire). The cook and the rest of them danced all night despite the mishaps. They had a jolly old time. You can read the lyrics in Croatian, German and English here:
By the way, the Songbook For Nearsighted People is an excellent source of lyrics with songs from the Balkans and beyond. Most of the songs are translated into German and English. It's definitely worth a look.
Sukacko Kolo can be done in a circle (kolo is Croatian for circle) or as a couple dance. This group is from Belgium, and they use the "double kolo" method: two circles.
Share our similarities, celebrate our differences.
M. Scott Peck
I like to start Alien Diaries posts with quotes, and this one is no exception. I especially like M. Scott Peck's quote because it is so true.
What delights me the most about Balkan music is the asymmetrical rhythms, the sounds of unusual musical instruments such as the tambura, cimbalom, and kaval and the distinctness of each country's music. What I have found, however, is despite the differences, music from different Balkan countries often crosses borders, with some interesting results. For example, the Bulgarian dance rachenitsa has a Romanian counterpart, geampara.
In honor of Danube Day 2013, which takes place on June 29th, today's post features four songs from four different Balkan Danube countries: Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Croatia. They share one thing in common: a river runs through them.
The first song is from Romania (we are working our way upstream here). Balada Fetei Dunarene ("Ballad of the Danube Girl") is a poignant and beautiful song, with clarinet, violin and cimbalom accompaniment. The video has some beautiful photos of the town of Cernavoda. Cernavoda is a Romanian town with a Bulgarian name, and it means "black water."
This song is from YouTube via the Cernavoda Blog, which you may find interesting if you can read Romanian. I went there to find the lyrics for the song, but couldn't find them.
What I find disturbing is that the Cernavoda coat of arms has the symbol for nuclear energy. The town has a nuclear power plant, and those things don't have a very good reputation. I would definitely sings the blues about something like that. Do some of you readers remember Cherno byl? It wasn't all that long ago.....
More music, scenery, and this time dancers with elaborate embroidered costumes, from Bulgaria. This song is Dunave, Beli Dunave which means "White Danube." The River of Many Names is also the River of Many Colors. From what I've seen it can be white (during fog), gray, blue, gold, green and even brown.
This feel-good song conveys a completely different mood than previous one. It's lively and upbeat and accompanied by a loud brass band. According to the Bulgarian notes, the performers had to wait two hours for the fog to lift . Here is a translated excerpt which describes the making of the video.
Video for Dunave is realized in Oryahovo and it involved local dance group "Spring" community center "Hope 1871" and the brass band from Lovech - birthplace of the singer. Much fog proved an obstacle to the pictures, but the participants patiently waited for 2 hours. The picture completely meets the elevated mood of the song. The presence of different age participants passing ships, fishermen and boatmen, visually complement the song.......
If you are familiar with Bulgarian folk music, you will recognize the dance Devetorka. It is in an odd rhythm; the top number on the time signature is a nine. Devet means "nine" in Bulgarian. By the way, Devetorka is popular in Macedonia and Serbia as well as Bulgaria.
In the next song from Serbia Oj Dunave Plavi, the Danube is blue! You can see it here, through the viewfinder of a cellphone camera. According to the translation I found, this is a song about a lost love. If there is such a thing as blues music in Serbia, this is it. Instead of guitars and saxophones, Serbs sing the blues accompanied by an accordion or two. If they don't have an accordion, a keyboard will do. Some people consider accordions instruments of torture, that is not the case in Serbia.
The last song is from Croatia, and the singer is accompanied by a tamburitza orchestra. Tamburitza ensembles are extremely popular in Croatia and they have a unique and distinctive sound. When Croatians emigrated abroad, especially to the United States they brought tamburitza music with them, so they wouldn't be so homesick.
The song U selu pokraj Dunava is about the dark-eyed girl who lives in a village by the river. The singer is (supposedly) in love with her. She must be a damned good cook.
(monument to tambura musician Janika Balázs, from Wikipedia commons)
This week's post is about another musical instrument popular in the Balkans, the tambura. According to Wikipedia, it is "a long-necked metal-strung fretted lute used for rhythmic accompaniment as well as melodic solos." Some may view it as an instrument of torture much like the accordion or the bagpipe (gaida), which are also traditional Balkan folk instruments. This is the kind of music people either love or hate, there is no middle ground.
The first video is of a of a musician playing a Macedonian dance tune, Tropnalo Oro, on a solo tambura.
The next tambura piece comes from the Pirin region of Bulgaria. The first part of it is a rachenitsa, a Bulgarian folk dance in 7/8 time. Tambura music is very popular in the Pirin, probably because southwestern Bulgaria shares a border with the Republic of Macedonia, and music does not recognize national boundaries.
Now we travel further west, to a country which used to be a part of Yugoslavia, Croatia. Tamburitza orchestras are quite common in Croatia, and an integral part of this country's folk music. Tamburitza is another name for a tambura; in Croatia they come in a variety of sizes and shapes. The ensembles that play tamburitza music have a distinctive sound, and there's no mistaking them for anything else! This group is from Chicago, USA and they sing as well as play!
If you're interested in the instruments that make up a tamburitza orchestra, check out this page from Wikipedia.
The last video in this post is an excerpt from a folk opera, Ero the Joker by Croatian composer Jakov Gotovac. Although Gotovac was primarily a composer and conductor of classical music, Ero s onoga svijeta is a work based on folklore. The finale, Završno Kolo, is done in true Croatian style, and played by a tamburitza orchestra accompanied by an accordion. The music and dancing here are a treat for the eyes and ears.
If you enjoyed this you may also like:
More Interesting and Unusual Instruments in Balkan Folk Music
Musicians from the beginning of time have been there to express the mood and the musical feelings in the air for whatever's going on in that particular culture. It's the greatest joy as a musician to be able to translate that, be part of something and watch the scenery around you.
Trey Anastasio
In today's post we'll explore music by classical composers who were inspired by folk dances from the Balkans.
The Romantic Period in classical music, which took place during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was a time of musical nationalism, and composers from several countries used folk motifs as part of their compositions. Some famous examples from the 19th century include Brahms (who wrote 21 Hungarian Dances); Smetena (his folk opera The Bartered Bride is very popular to this day), and Franz Liszt, who wrote a set of Hungarian Rhapsodies.
There were also composers in Balkan countries who wrote music based on folklore themes; most of them they are unknown in the States, except for George Enescu, who did quite a bit of traveling. He gave concert tours in the United States and Europe and spent his final years in Paris, France, after the Communist takeover of Romania. They had confiscated his home in Bucharest, and he never went back.
This video of Romanian Rhapsody #1, composed in 1901 by George Enescu features some beautiful scenery from his homeland. The work was based on songs and dances from Romania; it's a very dramatic and beautiful piece. Although it's a bit long (14 minutes) it's worth a look and listen.
The next piece is by Bulgarian composer Petko Stainov (1896-1977). Stainov composed a number of works based on Bulgarian folk dances, this one is Rachenitsa (Thracian Dance). The concert commemorates a Bulgarian holiday, March 3, 1878, celebrating the liberation of that country from Ottoman rule.
The last video is of a kolo (circle dance) from the folk opera Ero s onoga svijeta (Ero the Joker). The composer, Jakov Gotovac, was a native of Croatia. When the opera made its debut in 1935, Croatia was part of a larger entity, Yugoslavia.
I heard the orchestral version of the kolo many years ago on a New York classical music station and maybe once or twice. I searched for it on YouTube using the words "folk opera Yugoslavia kolo," since had no idea who the composer was, and I had forgotten the name of the opera, but I recognized the music when I heard it.
This is the lively finale from Ero the Joker, Zavrsno Kolo, done in true Croatian style, with tamburitza accompaniment.
There is an article on Wikipedia about Jakov Gotovac, click here for information about his life and music.
If you love Balkan music and dance you have come to the right place! The Alien Diaries began in February 2010 and is updated at least twice a month.
This blog is dedicated to the memory of my cat Fatso (see avatar), who passed away on April 9, 2011 from congestive heart failure. He was the inspiration for several of my early posts.
Don't forget to check out my second blog, Light and Shadow, for some humor, satire, photos and poetry!
