Songs & Dances From Slovakia [Import]

Urpin Folklore Ensemble | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 9, 1999)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Arc Music
• ASIN: B0000296WO
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #758,082 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #68 in Music > World Music > Europe > Eastern Europe > Czech Republic

Track Listings

1. Zasela Sem Bazalicku

2. Povedajú Ludé

3. Od Lucenca

4. Tam Pozdola Mlyna

5. Jore, Jore Ses Voló [Instrumental]

6. Melódie Z Podpolania [Instrumental]

7. Fujardôcka Moja

8. Dobry Vecer, Milá Moja

9. Melódie Z Kysuc

10. Doliny, Doliny

11. Spomienky Na Samka [Instrumental]

12. Dobre Mi Je, Dobre

13. Vrchárske, Z Hrinovej [Instrumental]

14. Dravecké Melódie [Instrumental]

15. Piesne Z Balogy

16. Cigánsey Tanec [Instrumental]

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It will have you dancing!, July 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Songs & Dances From Slovakia (Audio CD)

I really enjoyed this CD of Slovak music. It has a good variety of songs;they don't all sound the same. You can hear the performers enthusiasm and love for the music in their work. You might even find yourself tapping your feet and starting to polka! A good find in a very limited market in the US (Slovak music).

5.0 out of 5 stars A Rich, Living Folk Tradition, October 23, 2011

By 

John Gough "John Gough - Deakin University" (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Songs & Dances from Slovakia (Audio CD)

I visited Slovakia briefly early this year: a few days in Bratislava, with its fascinating old city, and a long weekend in Dubnica nad Vahom. I was attending a wedding between a Slovak girl and an Australian man. I am Australian, and my son was the Best Man for the wedding.
I am not an expert on Classical, or Folk music. But I had been familiar with Listz's "Hungarian Rhapsodies", Brahm's "Hungarian Dances", Dvorak's "Slavonic Dances", Kodaly's "Hary Janos Suite", much of the music of Bartok, some of Janacek, and Enesco's "Romanian Rhapsody No. 1", to mention the major kinds of music from this area that I already knew.
While exploring inner Bratislava, I found several cheap CDs of folk music, and chose one. I have no knowledge of Slovakian, and could not read the notes on the cover. But I hoped I could buy some authentic instrumental folk dances. The shop assistant, who spoke little English, assured me this was what I was looking for, but was unable to play the CD for me.
At the wedding, the night before the ceremony, the Slovak and Australian guests had a barbecue.
To the surprise and delight of the Australians (and some British wedding guests), the Slovak men and women, of all ages, suddenly began singing, with no accompaniment.
They all knew the words and the tune. Verse after verse. Song after song. Often in harmony.
(To my embarrassment, none of the Australians could sing a complete Australian song, to return the complement. No one confidently knew all the words of even the Australian national anthem, and no one knew all the notes. This was the same for the great Australian folk song "Waltzing Matilda". But those Slovaks could really sing!)
One of the young Slovak girls spoke good English. She explained that these songs were NOT taught in school. But all Slovak children learned them naturally at Slovak family occasions, and learned the songs from their parents and grandparents -- who would happily drink slivovitz and sing folk songs until the sun came up.
Then, at the wedding celebration, there were many more songs.
And there was a FOLK GROUP, in traditional costume (which looked Hungarian, to me), with violin, double bass, clarinet, and (naturally) a small cembalom (hammer-dulcimer -- like a harp, laid flat, and played by striking the strings with beaters).
Wow!
This sounded to my naďve ears like a blend of Listz or Brahms Hungarian (which is often, actually, gypsy), and Bartok or Kodaly Hungarian (which is closer to the non-gypsy folk music of Hungary). There were clearly verses, and choruses.
The men's voices sounded like ordinary classical or popular singing.
But the women had a raw nasal sound that is a bit like a clarinet, or like the famous Bulgarian women's singing voices.
And lively, when it isn't plaintive. Occasionally the fiddler would race away into rhapsodic cadenzas, and the cembalom would clatter and jangle up and down, while the bass plucked and strode around the low beats.
The young Slovak girl who spoke good English explained that these were often songs of young men who had to join the army and go away, and the young women who waited for them.
Later, back in Australia, to my delight, that pig-in-a-poke CD I had bought, hopefully, was exactly like that wedding music: and just as lively, rich, and evocative.
And so is this CD, here, in Amazon.
Probably all folk culture has its own unique sounds, and appeal. Not all of it is to my taste. But this Slovak music is great, I think.
(And, having read a little of the history of the Slovak people, I realise that their traditional music OUGHT to blend gypsy, Hungarian, and more, to make a unique synthesis.)
If only I knew what the words were.

John Gough -- Deakin University -- [e-mail]