Moldavia: Peasant Tunes from the Old Land of Hârlău

Hârlău is a town in the Romanian region of Moldavia, about 70km from Iaşi. And this record is a deliberate attempt to recreate a style of local music that has pretty much died out, featuring violin, cobza lute and shepherd's flute. It is Neculai Florea who plays the cobza which belonged to his father and was locally made in the village of Deleni just a few kilometres from Hârlău. He is joined by Nicolae Amarandei on violin and Valentin Bălăşanu on flute. The recording was made by Bucharest-based multi-instrumentalist Sașa-Liviu Stoianovici of the Balkan Taksim duo.

The 25 tracks are mostly dance tunes interspersed with a few songs, most of them lasting no more than a couple of minutes. ‘Ţâca Din Deleni Solo’ and a couple of other tracks, just feature Florea playing cobza and singing nonsense syllables. ‘Doina Ciobanului’ is a slow shepherd's lament with the violin and flute echoing each other over a strummed drone, ‘Vino, Mândro, Vino’ is clearly a spirited drinking song, but the wildest and most foot-tapping moment is ‘Pe Săltate, Ca La Deleni’ in which Florea's fingers really flick the notes from the strings of the cobza while the violin dives up and down with some lovely swoops and swerves. A shame it's so short.