(Rom. Republica Moldova).
Country in south-eastern Europe bordered by the Ukraine to the north, east and south and by Romania to the west. The capital city is Chişinău, and the population numbers c4.5 million, 75% of whom speak Romanian. In 1990 the country gained its independence and became known as Moldova.
VLADIMIR AXIONOV (I), YAROSLAV MIRONENKO (II)
Studies suggest that Moldovan folk customs derive from those of Thracian peoples (the Getae and Daci), strongly influenced by Roman and Slavonic arrivals. In the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries a national identity was formed, to be embodied in the Moldavian state with its capital at Iaşi (1387), and the resulting congruence of latinized (Wallachian) and Slav cultures had its effect on folklore, and thereby on secular and, in part, sacred music.
The first professional musicians in Moldavia were the lăutari and their ensembles, the tarafi, whose music was oral. The Orthodox Church, whose liturgies were originally in Greek or Church Slavonic, introduced the Romanian language in the 16th century, and the first manuscripts of chant in Romanian date from the first third of the 18th century. A further early musical tradition was that of the court and military orchestras, which flourished from the 15th century onwards. In the 17th and 18th centuries military bands took on a Turkish colouring and became known as ‘tubulkhanya’ or ‘meterkhanya’. Dimitrie Cantemir (1673–1723) made an important contribution to the study of both Turkish and Moldavian music, and his Chant des derviches (Paris, 1714) found its way into Mozart's Entführung.
Compositions with Moldavian folk elements began to appear at the end of the 18th century in the operas of the Russian-based composers Józef Kozłowski, Aleksey Verstrovsky and K. Eizrikh. At the beginning of the 19th century the German cellist Bernhard Heinrich Romberg, enchanted by Moldavian folk melodies, wrote the fantasy Mititica on them. During this same period Italian music gained favour: during festivities organized by Prince Grigory Potyomkin in Chişinău in 1788–9 Sarti's Te Deum was performed, and early in the next century G. Magi wrote incidental music for the theatre in Iaşi.
Between 1812 and 1918 the greater part of Moldavia was included in the Russian province of Bessarabia, with its centre at Chişinău. But though the influence of Russian culture grew, links with the West were not broken; indeed, visits by both Western and Russian opera companies, choirs and soloists became more frequent. Among musicians who established themselves in Chişinău were A. Khlebovsky (a pupil of Liszt), P. Kakhovsky and V. Gutor (graduates of the St Petersburg Conservatory) and M. Schildkret, who had studied at the Vienna Conservatory. At the same time there were Bessarabian musicians who enjoyed international careers: the singers V. Cuza, A. Antonovsky, L. Lipkovskaya and J. Athanasiu, the pianist and conductor Alexander Ziloti, the pianist Aleksandr Goldenweiser and the choral composer-conductor Gavriil Musicescu.
When Pushkin was in Chişinău (1820–23), there was music at the houses of the boyarin Varfolomey and the collegiate assessor Z. Ralli. Later the town had a musical society (1835) and the Garmoniya Association (1880), of which the latter became in 1899 the local branch of the Russian Musical Society, signalling a change from amateur to professional status in its members. The branch ran a music school, headed by Vladimir Rebikov, and there were two other music schools in the town, founded around the same time by Gutor and K. Khrshanovskaya. Among composers, J. Perja, Khlebovsky and V. Gofman wrote chamber and instrumental music, M.S. Berezovsky and M. Bârcă produced church music and folksong arrangements, and Rebikov and Khrshanovskaya pioneered opera.
Bessarabia was assigned to Romania in 1918, but the region on the left bank of the Dniestr remained in Russian possession and in 1924 became the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (MASSR). The professionalization of music was helped by the founding in Chişinău of the Unirea Conservatory in 1919, the Natsional'naya Konservatoriya (National Conservatory) in 1925, on the basis of the IRMS music school and the Munitsipal'naya Konservatoriya (City Conservatory) in 1936. Also in Chişinău there were attempts to found a permanent opera, philharmonic society and chamber music associations. Choirs flourished: Maria Cebotari, later a leading opera singer in Germany and Austria, began her career in Berezovsky's. Composers working in Chişinău between the wars included E. Coca, A. Il'yashenko and V. Bulďchev, a pupil of Sergey Taneyev, as well as V. Popovici and S. Neaga, both of whom had studied in Paris. Neaga's works, among them a symphony in C minor, a string quartet and a piano sonata, were of fundamental importance in the development of Moldavian music. There were also Ukrainian composers who played a decisive role, including V. Polyakov and N. Vilinsky. In 1928 a small orchestra was set up by M. Caftanati in Balta, then the capital of the MASSR; it was succeeded in 1930 by a symphony orchestra in the new capital of Tiraspol. Also in 1930 K. Pigrov founded the Doina choir, and in 1937 the Moldavian branch of the Union of Ukrainian Composers was set up.
In 1940 the region was reconstituted as the Moldavian SSR with its capital in Chişinău. Doina and the symphony orchestra became part of the Moldavskaya Gosudarstvennaya Filarmoniya (Moldavian State Philharmonia); the union became the Soyuz Kompozitorov Moldavii (Union of Composers of Moldavia, now the Union of Composers and Musicologists of Moldova); the City Conservatory became the Kishinyovskaya Gosudarstvennaya Konservatoriya (Chişinău State Conservatory, now the Musicescu Academy of Music); and the Moldavskiy Muzikal'nďy-Dramaticheskiy Teatr (Moldavian Music and Drama Theatre) was founded. All these organizations were disrupted during World War II, but important compositions were produced, including Coca's Vesennyaya simfoniya (‘Spring Symphony’) for violin and strings, and Neaga's Moldavskaya fantaziya for violin, piano and strings, Violin Concerto and symphonic Poėma o Dnestre (1943), which embodied the conflict of the war years and heralded a new style of dramatic symphonism in Moldavian music.
The decade after the war was overshadowed by Soviet cultural policy, but then development was renewed, thanks to the relaxing of constraints and to events within Moldavia. The opening of the Pushkin Moldavian (Opera, Ballet and Drama) Theatre in Chişinău (now the National Opera) in 1955 stimulated local composers, among them D.G. Gershfel'd (the heroic-historical operas Grozovan, Aurelius and Sergey Lazo), V. Zagorsky (the ballets Rassvet, ‘Dawn’, and Perekryostok, ‘The Crossroads’), A.G. Stârcea, Gheorghe Mustea (the opera Alexandu Lăpuşneanu), E.T. Lazarev (the ballets Antony i Kleopatra and Idol, as well as comic operas), Zlata Tcaci (the ballet Andrieş), E. Doga (the ballet Luceafărul) and L. Ştirbu (the rock opera Mioriţsa). A new opera house opened in 1980. Between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s two tendencies in Moldavian composition may be distinguished, one fulfilling official demands during the era of stagnation with ‘festive’ choral works, ‘jubilee’ overtures and so on, the other preferring abstract genres, assisted by new performing organizations and by the inauguration of the Organnogo Zala (Organ Hall) in Chişinău in 1978. Examples of the latter stream include the seven symphonies of V. Polyakov and the works of Solomon Lobel', Zagorsky, Gheorghe Neaga, Tcaci and Pavel Rivilis. Stravinsky's modal and rhythmic language had an effect on Rivilis, and there are serial elements in Zagorsky's Rhapsody for violin, two pianos and percussion and Neaga's Second Symphony.
During the period before and after the founding of independent Moldova in 1990, there were diverse attempts to liberate national culture from foreign influence. These expressed themselves musically in quotations, imitations or recreations of folklore (as in the works of Tudor Chiriac, Yu. Tsibul'skaya and E. Mamot) and in revivals of the previously repressed tradition of church music (as in V. Ciolac's Liturgy and works by Teodor Zgureanu). Other composers sought to combine national with contemporary international elements: the instrumental and vocal works of Ghenadie Ciobanu, V. Belyayev and A. Fyodorova are based on individual interpretations of spectral music, and the later symphonies of Dmitry Kitsenko employ minimalist techniques. On the organizational front, the integration of Moldova's music into the wider world has been helped by the UNESCO National Commission and by the festivals Mertsishor and Days of New Music, which are held annually in Chişinău.
D. Cantemir: Discrieraea Moldovei [Description of Moldova] (Neamţ, 1825, 2/1923)
Muzďkal'naya kul'tura sovetskoy Moldavii [The musical culture of Soviet Moldavia] (Moscow, 1965)
Istoriya muzďki narodov SSSR [History of the music of the peoples of the USSR] (Moscow, 1966–74)
B. Kotlyarov: Muzďkal'naya zhizn' dorevolyutsionnogo Kishinyova [The musical life of pre-revolutionary Kishinyov] (Kishinyov, 1967)
Muzďkal'naya kul'tura moldavskoy SSR [The musical culture of the Moldavian SSR] (Moscow, 1978)
Z. Stolyar: Moldavskaya sovetskaya pesnya [The Moldavian Soviet song] (Kishinev, 1979)
B. Kotlyarov: Iz istorii muzďkal'nďkh svyazey Moldavii, Ukrainď, Rossii [From the history of musical interaction between Moldavia, Ukraine, Russia] (Kishinev, 1982)
Ye. Vdovina: Moldavskiy sovetskiy romans [The Moldavian Soviet romance] (Kishinev, 1982)
Z. Stolyar: Stranitsď moldavskoy muzďki [Pages of Moldavian music] (Kishinev, 1983)
V. Aksyonov: Moldavskaya simfoniya: istoricheskaya ėvolyutsiya, raznovidnosti zhanra [The Moldavian symphony: historical evolution, and varieties of the genre] (Kishinev, 1987)
E. Kletinich: Kompozitorď sovetskoy Moldavii [The composers of Soviet Moldavia] (Kishinev, 1987)
Muzďkal'noye tvorchestvo v sovetskoy Moldavii [Musical creativity in Soviet Moldavia] (Kishinev, 1988)
Ye. Golubeva: Muzďka baleta sovetskoy Moldavii [The ballet music of Soviet Moldavia] (Kishinev, 1988)
Moldavskiy muzďkal'nďy fol'klor i yego pretvoreniye v kompozitorskom tvorchestve [Moldavian musical folklore and its realisation in the art of composition] (Kishinev, 1990)
Ye. Korolyova: Moldavskiy baletnďy teatr [The Moldavian ballet theatre] (Kishinev, 1990)
Muzďka v Moldove [Music in Moldova] (Chişinău, 1991)
Folclorul muzical din Moldova şi creaţia componistică [Musical folklore in Moldova and the art of composition] (Chişinău, 1993)
Probleme actuale ale artei naţionale [The current problems of national art] (Chişinău, 1993)
A. Danilă: Opera basarabeană [The Bessarabian opera] (Chişinău, 1995)
4. Dramatized games and folk dramas.
The sources of traditional music in Moldova can be traced back to the ethno-cultures of the Getae and the Daci in the 4th century bce, the descendants of the Thracians of the 9th century bce, whose economy combined agriculture and cattle breeding. The musical culture of this specifically pastoral way of life was destined, in all probability, to play the most significant and decisive role in the creation of traditional music in Moldavia. The most notable result of this influence is the fact that Moldavian folklore has a well-developed monodic tradition for solo voice. Characteristics of this are the extensive embellishment of melodies and richness of singing between syllables; the widespread frequency of melodies beginning with an octave leap, probably the result of loud singing in open spaces and the acoustics of a hilly steppe-like terrain; the parallel functioning of melodies of vocal and instrumental types and their interaction with one another, which may be why the verbs ‘to sing’ and ‘to play’ in Moldavian, ‘a cânta’, are the same; the complexity and variety of rhythms and the capriciousness of the rubato system; and the meditative character of many lyrical songs (ex.1).
Moldova’s pastoral milieu has been preserved to the present day. The genre system of traditional pastoral music can be divided into three types:
Such forms of communication are threefold: (a) invocations directed at the phenomena of the cosmos, la răsăritul soarei, an invocation to the sun, zorzile, to the dawn; (b) invocations directed towards people, including a favourite girl (când veneam de la fete, children (chemarea copiilor la masă), members of sit-around gatherings (chemarea la şezătoare) etc; (c) invocations directed at animals, including ‘sending the sheep on their way’ (porneala oilor); when the shepherd gathers his sheep into the pen (când strîngă oile la stână); when the cows are sent into the hills (chemarea vitelor la munte) etc.
Dance is a fundamental part of traditional pastoral music. Many dances have developed as a result of choreographic interpretation of working processes and some of these dances have penetrated into the common environment of the village. Hora (round-dances) are the principal type performed by shepherds. They are characterized by dynamic movement and complex steps and are generally performed in groups of five to seven with the shepherds’ arms around their fellow dancers. They include the Ciobăneasca (cioban, ‘shepherd’), Mocăneasca (mocan, ‘shepherd’), Cârligul (carlig, ‘shepherd’s crook’), Strunga (strunga, ‘sheep-pen’), Cârlăneasca (carlan, ‘lamb’), Bârzoiu, Corăgheasca, Bătuta, Arcanul (arcan ‘lasso’) and Mărioara (a diminutive form of Maria). În jurul bătului (‘round the stick’) is a dance performed by a single shepherd.
The works of heroic epic poetry which in the past were in the repertory of shepherds and lăutari have been preserved to the present day, although apparently only by shepherds and only in the form of individual fragments. From these it is possible to determine that the performance of heroic epic poetry had nothing in common with the performance of ordinary songs: works of epic poetry were performed dynamically and loudly with great fervour, their melodies, characterized by a declamatory style of delivery, not restricted to recitative, rather using expressive turns of intonation. Melodies, the manner of performance and numerous invocatory exclamations gave the performance of epic poetry an active character of appeal.
Among the most ancient ballads in which conflict of personality and social environment found expression is Când ciobanul a pierdut oile which tells of a shepherd who lost a flock of sheep belonging to the community, and having thus ‘betrayed’ the trust of the community was harshly punished. Such ballads reveal how actions shaking the collective basis of a community were judged without compromise, and how the relations of people within communities were built on trust, with any action that violated such trust harshly censured. It also reveals how social conflicts engendered by differentiation in a large patriarchal family find reflection. This ballad is more widespread in an instrumental form of delivery of the poetic subject, usually performed on the fluier (flute). Another ballad, known as Mioriţa, reveals how two powerful categories of early human thinking, mythological and syncretic, come together. The attitude and outlook typical of those living in a pastoral environment found their expression in the links between people and nature, the cosmos, life and death, the material and the spiritual, people and destiny. Due to a rare richness of content, this particular ballad has stimulated numerous scholarly interpretations, creating specific difficulties in studying the way in which it first emerged.
Musical instruments can be divided into two groups, according to their function within shepherds’ lives: those for making signals and those for playing various types of melodies. In the first group is the bucium, a wooden cylindrical-conic pipe 3m long and braided with birch bark, which is used to produce sounds based on a natural scale; the corn, a shepherds’ horn, which is used as a summons to milking sheep; and the fluier lung, a 50–90 cm long flute with a semi-aslant aperture, which allows the player to produce both a melody and guttural vocal sound. The second group includes the fluier, which is both the most widespread musical instrument and that with the greatest technical possibilities, including legato, staccato, arpeggio, trills and passages. The fluier is 27cm long, has six holes for playing and is commonly made of elder, lime, beech or plum. There are several types of fluier: the fără dop (without a whistle), cu dop (with a whistle) and a variation of the fluier that contains a reed. Also used primarily for melody are the caval, a wooden pipe 50–89 cm long and made of plane with six holes for playing; the cimpoi (bagpipes); and the tilinca, a primitive musical instrument from the fluier family, which has a pipe up to 80 cm long without holes for playing. All musical instruments were made either by shepherds themselves or by a local joiner.
Against the background of an agrarian culture unison singing also developed. Unison and heterophonic singing is characterized by a tendency to unify rhythmic relationships, with moderate use of embellishments in melodies and a comparatively narrow pitch range (basically a 5th or a 6th). Unison is the timbre in Moldovan folklore associated with the idea of ritualistic cults and is used exclusively in ritual works. It is characteristic of both the colinde and the cântece de stea (songs of the star) sung on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, which have fallen on 6 and 7 January, since Moldova adopted the old style calendar for the church festival year (ex.2).
On New Year’s Eve (13 January) cântece despre Malanca, ritual songs about Malanca, are sung. In the north of the republic they can be heard as a group of closely related variants completely unknown in the rest of Moldova (ex.3). In the south of the republic New Year songs of another genre, the Sorcova, are found.
On New Year’s Eve the calendar ritual Pluguşor is practised everywhere, performed in its fullest form by flăcăii, unmarried lads, who go around all the houses where fete mari, marriageable girls, live. At the end of the ritual, the latter, as a sign of thanks, present the boys with a large, beautifully baked loaf. The ritual includes the delivery of a poetical text, based on an agrarian theme, called a hătură, which is accompanied by an artistic and sonorous depiction of ploughing with oxen. While one of the participants loudly and rapidly declaims the text of the hăitură, the other lads at specific moments in the text exclaim ‘Hăi, hăi!’, as if urging on the oxen. Another of the participants holds and constantly rings the little bell which normally dangles from the oxen’s neck; the regular cracking of a whip is heard, while on the musical instrument, the buhai (a type of membranophone – buhai also means ‘ox’ in Romanian), glissando sounds in a low register and of indeterminate length are produced to represent the bellowing of the oxen. Performance of the hătură creates a rather complex polyrhythm and from the declamation produces the impression of a kind of rhythmic ensemble. Strong links run between the Pluguşor ceremony and the Joc, a village dance festival. The same lads who go on the Pluguşor organize the Joc, and the girls to whom the Pluguşor was directed become its participants. The girl whose loaf the lads consider to be the finest is given the honour of dancing with each participant of the Pluguşor. Money raised during the Pluguşor is used to pay for musicians. The link between calendar and family rituals can be factually ascertained, something which is a regular feature of traditional culture: it is possible that these types of links took shape during the syncretic period of development. In a number of villages calendar rituals were not performed throughout the village, but strictly within particular parts of it. It therefore may be deduced that in the past going round the houses for calendar rituals was restricted to patrimonic relatives rather than all the inhabitants of a village.
Perhaps nowhere in Europe has such a variety of theatrical forms been preserved until the late 20th century as in Moldova, and mostly in the north. They included calendar and ritualistic works performed only on New Year’s Eve (the only participants were boys and young men who took all the roles, including female ones); others were performed at sit-around gatherings, weddings and during evenings of dancing. All forms of art of these folk theatres can be subdivided into elementary dramatized games, more sophisticated performances and folk dramas proper.
Dramatized games form the initial phase in the history of the art of folk theatre. Among dramatized games are some of ancient origin including the Ciocârlie (the Lark), the Băsmăluţă (the Little Kerchief), Scursul vinului (wine pressing) etc. In Moldavian mythology the lark is thought to be an enigmatic bird, cursed and racked by torments. The myth tells how a fairy asked for the freedom of the skies, the ability to fly and how, in reply, the thunderclouds grew angry, but a prophetess (soothsayer) turned her into a bird of the fields, of the dawn, and of thunderstorms, constantly following in the tracks of the tiller of the land. In the dramatized game the part of the Lark is acted by a lad who, wearing a mask, represents the body of the bird, while two girls on either side of him represent the wings, all three imitating the flight of the bird. Following this, the lad chooses one of the girls to dance with. Dance movements are learnt from the people most senior in age, although not everyone is capable of performing the dance for it requires a virtuoso. In another dramatized game, the wine pressing, the lads imitate the pressing of bunches of grapes within a circle of girls who sing a rhythmically precise song, accompanied by clapping. Folk plays are characterized by more elaborate subjects and by the inclusion of poetical texts. Dependent on their principal subject, this kind of theatrical art can be subdivided in three ways: (a) about animals: the bear (ursu), the goat (capbra), the deer (cerbul), the ox (buhaiul), the ram (berbec); (b) about historical personages: the Turks (Turci), the Gaiduks (Haiduci); (c) about fantastical personages, essentially the Paparuda, evil spirits (Strigoii) (ex.4). Folk dramas with elaborate subjects made more complex by the inclusion of various kinds of events as well as a structure of culmination and dénouement, used unaccompanied dialogues, dialogues performed with a chorus, dances, marches and various sound effects, with the courtyard, and exterior or interior of a house serving as the stage set. There were several kinds of folk dramas: including the Făt-Frumos, or fantastic drama and the historical drama. This latter form can in turn be divided into two types: the drama voinicească or heroic drama including Novăciea, Brîncovenii, Şoldan Viteazul (Şoldan the Brave); and the drama haiducească or Gaiduk dramas, including Haiduci (the Gaiduks), Ceata de haiduci (the band of Gaiduks) and Codrenii. A list of the dramatis personae of the heroic drama Novăciea included Novăciea (a Moldavian peasant woman), Lenkutsa (her daughter), Pasha, Sultan, Bey, Arap (soldiers from the corps of the Sultan’s Guards), involving a Turkish fairy, various kinds of mummers and a musician.
Dance is a valuable part of Moldova’s musical culture and is characterized by a rich variety of poetic images and themes. Its forms and functions identify it with dances of the Carpathian-Balkan area. Moldova’s ancient choreographic culture is represented in circle, semicircle and line-form dances, whereas dances from the 18th century onwards are in pair-form. Moldavian dances have a great variety of genres, with over 300 named forms, including many ritual dances. Some ritual dances are related to the calendar (there are numerous examples of New Year dramas) and to fertility rituals. The Drăgaica ritual included dances in which the most beautiful girl in the village (the Drăgaica) was adorned with garlands of wheat, and danced through the fields with her companions. The dance was intended to promote good harvests and fertility, and was performed until the middle of the 20th century. The Paparuda is an invocation for rain that is still performed. Village girls between the ages of seven and 15 go from house to house dancing and singing a specific poetic song. Many dances are related to marriage ceremonies including the dansul miresei (‘dance of the bride’), la scoaterea (‘dance of the bride’s dowry’) and the hora mare (‘wedding party dance’). Several times a year, at Christmas, Easter or chosen Sundays, villages organize a Joc (or hora). These have strict traditions governing the behaviour of all participants and the order in which dances are performed. Dances are divided into four groups according to the choreographic and rhythmic patterns of both the music and dance: the sarba, batuta-hora, Ostropat and Geamparale, and hora mare. Other dances are based on non-instrumental forms. Brief poetic strophes screamed out by dancers are known as strigatura (a striga ‘to scream or to shout’) and are used to increase the emotional level of the dance, as well as to direct the movements of the dancers. Cantec de joc (‘dance with song’) is a form of dance without instrumental accompaniment.
The lăutari, professional folk musicians, can be considered as a separate social world. Drawn from both village and urban backgrounds, for the most part the lăutari have never been formally musically trained, their repertory in essence compiled through the oral tradition: despite the fact that for the most part the lăutari do not read musical notation, they achieve a serious level of perfection of virtuoso playing technique. The word lăutar is derived from lăută, a plucked musical instrument which had long been obsolete. The names of certain musicians have been passed down from the 15th century onwards, thanks to historical documents and travellers’ chronicles, informing, for example, about the existence of the lăutar Stoica during the rule of Ştefan the Great (Ştefan cel Mare; 1457–1504). At first the art of the lăutari was widespread only in the villages, where they played an important part in one of the most ancient folk games, the Căluşari, in which the participants, in keeping with pagan notions, chased away evil spirits. Lăutari took part in the springtime gatherings of young people with their swing (scrânciob), traditionally a cartwheel on top of a pole with seats hanging from the outer rim.
The lăutari perform in various kinds of ensembles particularly the tarafs, usually grouped around a well-known lăutar consisting of between 12–18 people. The group usually includes most Moldovan folk instruments, that is: two violins, viola, double bass, the kobza, a plucked lute-like instrument whose strings used to be plucked with a goose feather (fig.1), fluiers of various kinds, clarinets, a nay (panpipes) (fig.2), cimpoi, two trumpets, trombone, percussion and later the cimbalom (fig.3). The violin and fluier take the leading role in the taraf. During the 16th century the proliferation of lăutar ensembles led to their acceptance by the ranks of the aristocracy, becoming an indispensable attribute of the houses of landowners, the courts of voyevodas and rulers, as a manifestation of bon ton. Tarafs were invited in for victory celebrations, weddings or any other kind of important event. The best Moldavian ensembles gained recognition not only in their own land but far beyond it. Thus, in 1740 a taraf of nine people was invited to St Petersburg to a celebration at the court of the Russian Empress, Anna Nikolayevna. The lăutari gradually settled in Moldavia’s expanding and developing towns, affirming national music traditions in an urban environment, with groups of musicians appearing in the streets and squares of towns as direct participants in national festivals, joci and weddings etc.
As the number of professional folk musicians increased, the need arose to regulate the relations between certain musicians and between them and their owner-patrons. In addition to their direct duties, many serf musicians were forced by their owners to play whenever required, such seasonal work being widespread in Moldavia as in other countries. This harsh exploitation of labour was the source of considerable revenue for the owners of serf musicians while for the lăutari it was a way of earning a living. As a result both owners and lăutari were interested in developing this type of work, which therefore became widespread. It led to the formation of corporate associations of lăutari which played a major role in their lives. Musicians’ guilds gradually appeared, although it is difficult to say when exactly this happened in Moldavia. The peculiarity of the process meant that written or printed charters were set down on paper long after the guilds themselves came into being: thus the first stages in the establishment of the guilds with their colourful practices found no written reflection, but were secured on the basis of traditions passed down from generation to generation. The first charters establishing corporate rules and regulations already speak of these guilds as ancient and long-established traditions.
The large number of violinists among the Gypsies who were widely represented in lăutar ensembles resulted in such words as ‘fiddler’ and ‘gypsy’ being used synonymously. It is therefore difficult to ascertain when the words ‘fiddler’ and ‘gypsy’ are used in old Moldavian written documents, whether people are referring to nationality or profession. The first mention of Gypsies can be found in Moldavian documents of 1428 during the reign of Alexandru cel Bun, Alexander the Good. The active participation of Gypsy musicians in the tarafs resulted in the formation within the art of the lăutari of a certain independent stylistic domain where the intonations of traditional Moldavian and Gypsy music are closely intermingled. This area, which covers both instrumental and vocal music, allows a certain parallel with similar processes in Spanish music, which led to the development of flamenco, and of verbunkosh in 18th-century Hungarian music, to be drawn. The love and the general esteem within society in which the Moldavian lăutari were held for many years resulted in the preservation of music, traditions and names, including Yanku Perja, Kostaki Marin, Georgy Kherar, Kostaki Parno, Georgy Murga, Karp Kornitse, Alexander Cheban and Barbu Lăutar who captivated Franz Liszt by his art of improvisation and rare musicality.
In traditional musical culture much attention was paid to the musical development of the child beginning from the earliest age. Consequently, musical works intended for this age group are numerous and varied, both in terms of function and form. These works form two groups. The first consists primarily of short songs, less commonly musical dialogues for mother and child designed to develop co-ordination of movements, good humour and a feeling of rhythm and musicality. One single Romanian word, dezmierdare, meaning ‘caress’, ‘spoil’, ‘feel pleasure’ expresses this. During these songs, the mother prompts the child to move in time with the rhythm (ex.5). The second group consists of lullabies, which are also aimed at improving a child’s perception and developing musicality, but their general purpose to relax the child, is different. Lullabies, a variety of lyrical song, are fairly old in origin and have evolved little with time. As a rule the melody moves in a narrow range; small intervals of a 2nd and 3rd predominate, with a tendency towards repeating rhythmic and motivic patterns.
The doina is a type of musical movement that is characterized by short note values without regular metre and by heavy use of rubato. Its melodies are informed by a combination of variation and improvisation. Its subjects are mostly love or themes of nature.
During the last 30 to 40 years of the 20th century the traditions of the lăutari were actively developed in the Republic of Moldova, most notably in the formation of numerous folk music ensembles of professional as well as amateur calibre including Flueash, Folklor, Lăutari, Mertsishor, Mugurel and many others (see fig.3). They perform folksongs, various instrumental melodies, doina melodies and dances with appropriate arrangements. Dance companies are accompanied by various types of orchestra. The selection of works to be arranged, peculiarities of arrangements, make-up of the orchestra, choreography of the dances, manner of performance, even the costumes of the dancers and the orchestral players have a strong tendency towards stylization. Success in resolving artistic problems depends wholly on the way folk material is treated. The most authoritative directors of folk music orchestras include Sergey Lunkevich, Dumitriu Blazhin, Nikolae Botgros (who comes from a lăutari family), Sergey Chukhry, Aleksandr Vakarchuk and others. Among celebrated performers of folksongs are Nikolae Sulak, Valentina Kozhokaru, Nikolae Glib, Zinaida Zhulya, Tamara Cheban and Lidiya Bezhenaru. Parallel to this trend in traditional music there is another which strives towards traditions of pastoral music and music of agrarian life. Among the folk music ensembles of this type which have achieved particular popularity are Tălăncuţă established by Andrey Tamazlďkaru and Tălăncuţă directed by Gleb Chaykovsky-Mereshanu. The role of the older generation in handing down traditional songs to the younger generation has decreased, with a greater preference for imitating folksongs heard on radio and television programmes. A recent widespread trend is characterized by a synthesis of the achievements of national Moldovan music with folk music of the lăutar traditions.
D.G. Gerşfeld: Cântece [Songs] (Tiraspol, 1940)
I. Balţan and others: Cântece [Songs] (Kishinev, 1950)
G.S. Ceaikovski: Doine, cântece, jocuri (Kishinev, 1964)
L.S. Berov: Moldavskiye muzďkal’nďye instrumentď [Moldovian musical instruments] (Kishinev, 1964)
V. Galit and F. Zgureanu: Cântece populare moldoveneşti (Kishinev, 1964)
E. Junghietu and P.F. Stoyanov: Cântece şi melodii de jocuri populare moldoveneşti [Songs and melodies of the popular Moldavian joc] (Kishinev, 1975)
G.I. Spataru: Drama populară moldovenească (Antologie) (Kishinev, 1976)
P.F. Stoyanov: Ritmika moldavskoy doynď [Rhythms of the Moldavian doina] (Kishinev, 1980)
E.P. Florea: Busuioc, floare cătată: culegere de cântece lirice din zona codrilor (Kishinev, 1982)
A.E. Tamazlâcaru: Trandafir bătut la poartă: Folclor memorizat de Elena Anastasiu [The battered rose at the gate] (Kishinev, 1982)
V.M. Gaţac: Eposul eroic [Heroic epic poetry] (Kishinev, 1983)
G.G. Botezatu and N.M. Băieşu: Folclor din nordul Moldovei (Kishinev, 1983)
E.P. Florya: Muzďka narodnďkh tantsev Moldavii [The music of Moldavian folkdances] (Kishinev, 1983)
P.F. Stoyanov: Moldavskiy melos i problemď muzďkal'nogo ritma [Moldavian melodies and the problems of musical rhythm] (Kishinev, 1983)
G.S. Ceaikovski-Mereşanu: Lerui ler [A traditional song refrain] (Kishinev, 1986)
A.E. Tamazlâcaru: Tăpuşele, tăpuşele [Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake] (Kishinev, 1986)
Y.P. Mironenko: Şi cânt codrului cu drag: Folclor moldovenesc din sate nord-caucaziene (Kishinev, 1987)
Y.P. Mironenko: Moldavsko–ukrainskiye svyazi v muzďkal'nom fol'klore: istoriya i sovremennost' [Moldavian–Ukrainian links in musical folklore: history and the present day] (Kishinev, 1988)
C.V. Rusnac: Cucuşor cu pană sură: cântec’e din batrâni (Kishinev, 1988)
E.P. Florya: Moldavskiy muzďkal’nďy epos [Moldavian musical epic poetry] (Kishinev, 1989)
B.Y. Kotlyarov: Moldavskiye leutarď i ikh iskusstvo [The Moldavian lăutari and their art] (Moscow, 1989)
P.F. Stoyanov: Voprosď formirovaniya lada i melodiki v moldavskoy narodnoy pesne [Questions of modal and melody formation in the Moldavian folksong] (Kishinev, 1990)
V. Chiseliţă: Melodii tradiţionale la fluer din nordul Bucovinei (Chişinău, 1994)
C.A. Ionescu: Colinde din Transnistria, (Chişinău, 1994)
C.F. Popovici and others: Satul Petrunea la cântec şi la joc [Songs and dances of the village of Petrunea] (Chişinău, 1995)
Poyot Nicolaie Sulac [Nicolaie Sulak sings], perf. N. Sulak, Melodiya C30- 09449-50 (1978) [incl. disc notes by Gh. Vodâ]
Cântă Tamara Cheban [Tamara Cheban sings], Melodiya M30-42455-6 (1980)
Muzďka gagauzov (tyurkoyazďchnaya narodnost', zhivushchaya s XVIII veka v yuzhnďkh rayonakh respubliki Moldova) [The music of the Gagauz (a Turkish-speaking nationality living in the southern districts of the Republic of Moldova from the 18th century onwards)], various pfmrs, Melodiya C30 14791/94 (1980) [incl. disc notes by L. Pokrovskaya]
Narodnďye pesni gagauzov (prilozhenie k sborniku) [The folk songs of the Gagauz, supplement to the collection], perf. L. Pokrovskaya and M. Chernďsheva, Sovetskiy kompozitor M92 488777 002 (1989)