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'Outlaws of Yore (II)'
Various Artists
(ETHCD004)
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'The
lăutari of Clejani are perhaps the most inspired and fervent of all
folk musicians in Romania. The exuberant, musical style of their
native southern region has certainly stimulated them in this
respect.'
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IOAN 'Popicu' POP
Folk musician
by
Speranţa Rădulescu
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Dumitru Hirb and Ioan Pop
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The
following article is reproduced from the Ethnophonie CD release ETHCD006 'Romanian,
Ukrainian and Jewish Music from Maramures', which features Ioan Pop and
others. Included in the CD booklet are notes in French and English, as
well as explanatory notes and translations of each track. For more details
click
here. Special thanks to all at
Ethnophonie for permission to reproduce these notes.
ROMANIAN, UKRAINIAN AND JEWISH MUSIC FROM
MARAMURES
The Museum-House of the Pop Family
The village of Hoteni is flanked, on the side of Hărnicesti village, by an old wood house, delicate and neat, located in the middle of a courtyard that extends into an orchard and a vegetable garden. In the same yard, rather out of sight, there is a new brick house with a traditional look, on the side of which a wooden kiosk was erected. The warmth, beauty and stylistic coherence of the whole compound take one’s breath away. It is the dream come true of Ioan and Anuţa Pop, the dream they worked for, shoulder to shoulder, for twelve years. But who are Ion and Anuţa Pop?
Ioan Pop, nicknamed Popicu by his wife and close relatives and friends, was born to a family of peasants in the Maramures village of Poienile Izei, where Béla Bartók himself stopped once for his ethnomusicological research (1913). As a child Popicu learned to play the instruments in fashion then: tilincă (shepherd’s pipe), ceteră (fiddle), contră (viola), zongoră (guitar) and dobă (drum). He began to play as a zongoras at parties and village Sunday dances, for his own pleasure but also to save money to finish high school. Later he was hired as an instrument player with the folk ensemble in Baia Mare, while continuing to sing and play on Sundays at village dances, weddings and other parties in the village and region.
Popicu met Anuţa; they married and settled for a while in the house of the bride’s father, ‘Ionu’ Diacului’ of Hoteni. They decided to build there a house of their own, made of carved wood and with a verandah on both sides, a type which villagers do not build anymore these days. Thus, they bought the structure of an inn that had been closed down for decades and with help from young people they laid its foundation on their land. (Relocating wood houses was current practice in traditional Maramures.) Next, the Pops added to the house the facilities of the century: running water, heating system, telephone, computer, film projector and audio systems.
The Pops’ bizarre idea puzzled the villagers: What’s with them? They are educated, prosperous people and they could afford a brick house like the well-to-do… But Ioan and Ana did not listen to the villagers’ gossip, as they had many, unexpected things to worry about: the fatigued wood of the inn had to be treated, the mainstays replaced, the roof shingles patched, the window frames repaired… Before turning into the architectural masterpiece it is today, the house gave the Pops many headaches. When it was finished, the villagers called it a museum. That is what they still call it now, because they perceive it as coming from ancient times, although there are people living in it and on summer nights it echoes with music and the buzz of guests from far and wide.
The two Pops’ determination in making their nest in a weakened tradition they refuse to give up is fully consonant with their musical preferences.
(2) Ioan Covaci - fiddle; Ioan Pop - viola; Nicolae Pitis - flute
Popicu against Folklorization and Globalization
The folk ensemble in Baia Mare he worked with in the last years of communism did not bring him any satisfaction. The music which he was forced to produce together with others – corrected, orchestrated, predictable and performed under the command of a conductor – seemed to him unnatural, different from the one he heard in Maramures and played on weekends, but he had not the authority to contest it. In 1988, while on a tour in the West, Popicu found out with relief and surprise that village music is not inferior, artistically speaking, to the official folk music, as he had been driven to believe – quite on the contrary.
Therefore, the December 1989 events found him prepared for a change he deemed necessary. He quit the folk ensemble and took a job at a cultural center in Baia Mare, hoping to organize there artistic events and enable his fellow natives to sing and play like they did at home, not on city stages. He soon learned he had to fight against a host of culture apparatchiks determined to defend communist folk music to the bitter end. Meanwhile, a new enemy emerged: world music – an incongruent music, coming from everywhere and nowhere, with violent, unfamiliar electric timbres which rural youngsters seemed to embrace enthusiastically. Popicu decided to face up to both competitors. He set up a traditional music group, Iza, with the best musicians and dancers, peasants and shepherds from Maramures. The group is meant to persuade the Maramures people that their music and dances are worth preserving and that they can go on stage without always changing into triumphalist operettas. On the other hand, Popicu and his wife are trying by all available means to convince the people around them to keep their beliefs, customs and rituals of their traditional life. Both are involved in all the holy days in Hoteni; and on Sunday mornings they receive children in the kiosk in their garden and teach them how to properly sing, dance and shout witty couplets during dances. The two Pops strive to make their lives, home and deeds exemplary not only to keep up the right course of tradition, but also to make them appear as embodiments of their economic and social success.
Indeed, Popicu is an achiever. He is one of the best-known folk music interpreters in Romania, and the most unconventional too. He only performs with his group Iza and constantly turns down collaboration with any of the official folk orchestras. If TV producers ask him to do things he considers silly, such as do playbacks against cardboard settings or profess his ‘love of ancestral traditions,’ Popicu takes his people and leaves the set. However, before building a reputation in his country, Popicu had to be successful in the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Switzerland and Germany, where he performed on stage and made records. Meanwhile, he continued to play at weddings, because he enjoyed it, because he needed money for the ‘museum,’ and because he had to keep up with the latest party music of the villages.
(3) Group Iza (Ioan Pop & Co.) in a recording session in Ioan's
house.
Landmarks of Local Tradition
In Maramures, occasions for parties are numerous and people always take advantage. Almost weekly, a villager will organize a băută – that is, he throws a party among neighbors, relatives and friends at which young people dance, and the middle aged sing to the music played by a violinist
(ceteras), a guitarist (zongoras) and a percussionist (dobas). Weddings take place in spring and autumn and represent good opportunities to build up social cohesion. At the beginning of May, an agrarian fertility ritual (tânjaua) ending in a party is held to mark the completion of spring plowing. Also in spring, before the sheep are driven to the mountains, the flock owners and their families gather in the hills to measure the milk turnout of their sheep and to party. Each church celebrates its patron saint on a holy day (hram) and people from many villages participate. Any clacă – gathering of villagers working to help one of theirs – winds up with music and dance. On Sundays, young boys and girls go to the discotheque and dance to various kinds of music, old and new. Five-ten years ago, they would still go to the barn
(sopru) dance; around them would flock all the villagers, dressed up as on a feast day, to see the best dancers of the moment, find out about the latest engagement announcements, watch the young people’s flirting and speculate on prospective weddings.
The categories of Maramures party music are few, but each of them is rich in distinct tunes.
The hori (sing.: hore) are occasional, widely accessible lyrical songs sung individually or in groups, with or without instrument accompaniment, at almost any age and on any occasion.
The zîcăli (sing.: zîcală, instrumental piece sometimes accompanied by lyrics and/or dances) are performed by
ceterasi on fiddles, guitars and drums. Each peasant house accommodates at least one of these instruments, ever since ancient simple and twin pipes have been given up except by a few solitary shepherds.
The zîcăli de băut (for drinking) are instrumental pieces during which people scan out loud lyrics appropriate to their age and gender. The scanned lyrics are ironical, funny, very dynamic. They are usually in the form of a dialogue between the girls who confront the boys, or the women in friendly contest with the men.
The most common zîcăli de jucat (for dancing) are
Bărbătescul (for men) and Învârtita (for swirling).
Bărbătescul is a men’s dance in a circle, with a syncopated rhythm, during which the dancers shout dance commands or humorous lyrics.
Învârtita (or De învârtit) is a mixed, couple dance; it is very quick, and its tunes are frequently improvised by
ceterasi starting from pre-existent melodic-rhythmic formulae. The hollers of the men (women are never allowed to holler during the dance) roll freely, apparently without any connection to the percussive, rhythmic beat of the tunes.
However, apart from Romanians, Maramures is inhabited by Ukrainians, grouped in a few villages in the north of the region. Their party music is not too different, yet distinct from the Romanians’. The
ceterasi know this music; it is only natural, as they are often hired for their weddings. A few decades ago, before Popicu was born, there were also many Jews in Maramures – innkeepers, publicans and cattle traders scattered around the villages or living in the town of Sighet. Most Jews were deported at beginning of the 1940s and disappeared from the region. Those who survived left the country after World War II. A curious nature, Popicu studied their music, with help from older
ceterasi who made efforts to remember it as they used to perform it at weddings. (One of them is Ionu’ lu’ Grigore, recorded on this CD, one of Popicu’s frequent collaborators.) Thus, little by little, Popicu’s shows have come to incorporate the music of ‘others.’
What Ioan Pop wants
What does Ioan Pop want, in fact? He wants the Maramures peasants’ music to withstand the disintegrating pressure exerted by folklorism, on the one hand, and world music, on the other. He also wants this music to go on stage with dignity.
The former endeavor is problematic. Life in Maramures is undergoing a modernization process involving dynamic changes, including the musical domain. But Popicu believes that the peasants can find ways to blend the old and the new, just as he found solutions to renew his museum-house, especially if they were convinced that rural tourism would only profit from such a blend.
The latter endeavor is also facing dangers. Indeed, Popicu creates extremely natural shows. Isn’t he about to contrive a new brand of folklorism – far more relaxed, imaginative and convincing, and yet folklorism? Hard to say. Obviously, with every new project Popicu tries to keep to old local customs and capitalize on the spontaneity of the musicians and dancers from Maramures. But, from a certain point on, spontaneity, considerably diluted in the artificial context of the stage, may come to be mimicked by the musicians and a new convention may be born.
Isn’t Popicu’s music going to sound strange in the ears of the villagers, just like his museum-house looks? Perhaps later. Right now, this is out of the question. Whatever the risks, Popicu sees no other way of acting in support of the traditions of the Maramures village, and I wonder who could teach him to act better.
Popicu is an atypical peasant, because the expression of his understanding of tradition is conscious and militant. Without rejecting modernity, he strives to harmonize all the segments of his life around the hard core of the local beliefs and practices, the value of which he strongly esteems. His goals and beliefs may be discussed at length from one theoretical perspective or other; but those who listen to his recordings feel transported in the middle of a real village party the gaiety and verve of which is exhilarating.
After all, the musician attains his goal, without giving too much heed to what others say.
End
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