Historical Slovenian Popular Music

tellurian — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:34:41 -0800

Slovenian compositions, mainly performed by solo singers (with piano or orchestra accompaniment) and by different orchestras and smaller vocal groups. The tracks are listed here. Might I suggest you start with Vinko Vodopivec and see if this the sort of thing you like?

Sing, Mr. Ambassador, sing!

flapjax at midnite — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 06:29:37 -0800

Now that's what I call diplomacy! The US ambassador to Paraguay has become a music sensation in the country after recording an album of folk songs in the indigenous Guarani language. This same James Cason was a conservative darling for, among other things, hanging Christmas lights in Havana a few years back... this article lauds him for "getting under the skin" of the Castro regime. Here's his Wikipedia page.

Streaming audio from former Soviet Georgia.

nebulawindphone — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 11:09:07 -0800

Streaming audio of traditional music from the former Soviet republic of Georgia. This is some of the strangest, most haunting and blissed-out singing you can hear on this planet. (And check out those swell outfits, fellas!) The front page tracks are:

Orira, sung by the Georgian Voices. That yodeling you hear is called krimanchuli.
Chona, sung by the Mamuli folk ensemble.
Lechkhumuri Makruli, sung by the Rustavi Choir, who are probably the best-known in America of all these groups thanks to a few albums that came out here in the 90s.
The youtube link is a Georgian pop group called Orera. Apparently several of the members went on to get famous in the Soviet Union, but I'm having trouble finding information on them in English.

There's a lot of good stuff elsewhere on the site, although there's also a lot of broken links, missing files and badly ripped audio; browsing through it can be frustrating. Some of my current favorites:

Kheuro, by the Mamuli ensemble: slow and powerful.
Orovela, by the Rustavi Choir: no harmony to speak of on this one, but the melody's worth it. The penultimate phrase gives me shivers — it's like he just tosses his voice into the air and waits for it to come down.
Khasanbegura is one of the classics of the Georgian repertoire. It's sung here by the Georgian Voices; if you're into yodeling, though, be sure to check out this snippet of it on youtube, which really showcases the awesome krimanchuli part.
This set of recordings from the 30s by Varlam Simonishvili. Some really intense performances; sadly, the sound quality's not great. More brilliant yodeling if you're into that sort of thing.
Mravaljamier, by Quintet Urmuli. ("Mravaljamier" isn't a title so much as a genre of songs — they're toasts wishing someone long life. You can find more examples on the Georgian Voices page.)

So far I've been linking to folk choirs, but there's a whole parallel tradition of sacred polyphony in the Orthodox church:

Try a few chorales from the Church of St. Pantelmion the Healer: Tsmindao Chmerto, Romelni Kerubinta.
The Sioni cathedral choir sound to me like they're more influenced by Western church music. The Alilo (means "alleluia" — a whole genre again rather than a title) sounds like something you'd hear in a European cathedral, but it sure is beautifully done. Or try Christ is Risen from the Dead for a more Georgian sound — and a floor-shaking bass voice on the first line.

MetaFilter posts tagged with folksong

Historical Slovenian Popular Music

Sing, Mr. Ambassador, sing!

Streaming audio from former Soviet Georgia.