Collection of Traditional Musics 32

This band come from Teleorman County in the south of Romania, about 90km west of Clejani, home of Taraf de Haidouks. The two groups have a similar sound of fiddles, accordion, cimbalom (țambal) and double bass. The former, however, also employ the cobza (lute), which Taraf never used. It's the latest (number 32) in the series organised by the late Speranța Rădulescu at the Museum of the Romanian Peasant. The ten song and dance tunes are superb examples of traditional Wallachian music with Gică Diricel, who had a Gypsy father and Romanian mother, singing most of the vocals and playing a viola with violin strings (giving a kind of alto sound). Rădulescu clearly knew what she was doing.

The recordings were made in 1991 and 1994 and the 28-page booklet also gives a (sad) history of Diricel's life and a retrospective of the Ethnophonie discs and Rădulescu's career. It made me wonder if it marked the end of the series, but apparently not. Work on number 33 is already in progress.