Folk music is an oral collective creation as well as art, by excellence.
According to the performing manner it can be divided into two categories:
vocal and instrumental. They can be interpreted by individuals or by groups.
The musical folklore kno ws three genres: lyrical, epic and dramatic.
The lyrical genre includes: doina, lament, lullabies, songs of wedding
and work, the epic genre: old age songs, the ballads, nuptial songs, the
burial songs, disenchantments, wedding songs. The dramatic genre: the
puppeteers, the evening sittings of the village women, the rainmakers.
The folklore of the winter season, occasioned by Christmas and The New
Year, is represented by carols, wish making and mask games.
The carol is one of the ancestral musical genres, partly practiced by
the church. Through the carol, wishes of thriving and happiness are addressed
especially by groups of children or young people, sometimes accompanied
by instruments. The mask games are preserved now only as musical rituals.
The following games are known: the goat, turca and the deer in Transylvania,
brezaia (a man masked as an animal dancing in front of the peasants' houses)
in Wallachia, the old man, the goat and thee bear in Moldavia. The goat
and the bear games involve the masked man (as a goat or bear) and the
train of musicians. The folk practice of mask games seems to descend from
the ancient Dionysiac festivals. The folk theatre is performed both in
a laic manner - in the Jienii, the New Year and the Old Year - and in
a religious one, in Herodes. The Crown Song, one of the most spread genres
in Transylvania, is related to the end of the wheat harvest. Calusarii
is a dance with a magic load. Young men perform it and it is related to
fecundity and to initiation in the ancient cult of the Sun. Numerous songs
are addressed to family life. The folklore genres related to no special
occasion are: the ballad and the doina.
The ballad, also called the old-age song, is sung on the occasion of gatherings,
before an audience; it has a wide theme range - over 300 themes are known.
The masterpiece of this genre is the pastoral ballad "Miorita".
Doina is so widely spread that it is often mistaken for the folk song
proper. Doina features a musical style of a lyrical nature, which conveys
feelings of sadness, longing, nostalgia.
Gabriela Tones, "Grigore Moisil" High School, Romania
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