Reuters

Playful Eastern Euro mashup at heart of "Masquerade"
Sun Sep 9, 2007 11:10PM EDT

Featured Broker sponsored linkBy Anastasia Tsioulcas

NEW YORK (Billboard) – Since time immemorial, "classical" composers
have frequently borrowed material from popular tradition — just think
of the myriad settings of the secular French song "L’homme Arme" in
Masses written from the 15th century onward, or of Percy Grainger’s
arrangements of the songs he recorded in the Australian countryside in
the earliest years of the phonographic era.

In a fascinating new recording called "Maskarada" (Crammed, September
27), Romanian Romani (Gypsy) group Taraf de Haidouks has a lot of fun
with the folk-goes-classical equation. The group has inspired some of
the hippest classical performers and composers around today, including
the Kronos Quartet and Osvaldo Golijov, and has found a good friend
and colleague in actor Johnny Depp .

As the album’s translated title ("Masquerade") suggests, there’s a bit
of playful disguise going on, and the Taraf players blend genres to an
often dizzying degree. At one point, the band teasingly pulls out
British composer Albert Ketelbey’s Orientalist fantasy "In a Persian
Market," which itself mimics Balkan music. Thus, it’s tough to discern
who’s borrowing from whom — and how tongue-in-cheek that sinuous
ballad portion is at heart.

The inclusion of six tunes from Taraf de Haidouks’ own repertoire
provides plenty of the group’s signature fun and virtuosity. But it
also gives great context to what a composer like Bela Bartok was
hearing when he ventured into the rural depths of his native Hungary
as well as Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Croatia and elsewhere to hear
and collect folk music.

INTERPRETING BARTOK

These kinds of music and playing styles then found their way into
Bartok’s pieces like the Ostinato or the Romanian Folk Dances, all of
which are given the Taraf de Haidouks special treatment on
"Maskarada."

Cornerstones of Spanish music also get revisited. Spanish sounds,
including flamenco, are in part the legacy of the country’s Romani
population. ("Gypsy" is a word that mistakenly links these peoples to
Egypt; as scholars have well documented, the Romani migrated during
the course of centuries from India westward. Flamenco’s rhythms and
sounds are rooted in that legacy.) In homage, the group includes two
Spanish selections: Manuel de Falla’s "Ritual Fire Dance" and Isaac
Albeniz’s "Asturias."

As ever, cross-cultural meldings go two ways: According to the album’s
liner notes, no Romanian wedding is complete without Armenian composer
Aram Khachaturian’s "Sabre Dance" (a piece that’s also known to every
"pops" orchestra in existence). The Romani musicians give Khachaturian
a nod by including his Lezghinka from the 1933 Dance Suite for
Orchestra, as well as the waltz from Khachaturian’s "Masquerade"
theatrical music written for a Lermontov drama of the same name. They
also return composer Joseph Kosma to his Hungarian roots via a new
version of his cabaret classic "Autumn Leaves."

Longtime Taraf fans will greet "Maskarada" with a knowing grin. Some
of them who aren’t already familiar with the "classical" repertoire
might get to know a bit of Bartok or Albeniz through the group’s
re-envisionings. And certainly classical aficionados who think that
they know Bartok, de Falla or any of the other "art" composers
included on "Maskarada" will become reacquainted with them filtered
through a very different light.

Reuters/Billboard

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