Sound Portraits from Bulgaria: A Journey to a Vanished World 1966-1979

The arrival of this selection of recordings made in, mostly, Bulgaria in the 60s and 70s by US folk dance specialist Martin Koenig is not so much a release as an event. The two CDs themselves are tucked away at the back of a mammoth booklet featuring English and Bulgarian texts. Detailed notes and learned but accessible essays by specialists from the US and Bulgaria are supplemented by scores of atmospheric photographs of musicians, dancers, and scenes from daily life. Each track is set in context by ethnomusicologists Ventsislav Dimov and Lozanka Peycheva, while Koenig contributes his personal reminiscences of the performers and the recording, often movingly nostalgic, demonstrating that this music is part of communal life.

So much for the lavish framework; what about the music? Firstly, it's all of outstanding quality, and most tracks are long enough for the musicians to really get stuck in. The instrumental recordings are of solo performers or small groups, and all recorded in an informal or local context. The songs are also by soloists, small groups, or a singer accompanied by a single instrument, lending an intimacy that can be lost in the performances of larger ensembles, and which lays bare the complex delicacy of phrasing and ornamentation. Lesser-known styles are given unusually rich representation: the earthy exuberance of dances from Dobrudzha, the tender ballads and instrumentals of the transnational Vlach minority, and the stirring zurla and tapan (shawm and drum) music of Pirin Macedonia among them. An indispensable collection.