Muzic Popular

In Romania, the phrase muzic popular refers to a peasant music corrected, produced and

disseminated by the Romanian media, in particular those directly or indirectly connected to past

or present-day (post-1989) official culture, for villagers and village-born city dwellers, i.e. for

around 50% of the population of the country. Its usage is therefore different from that of the

English term popular music.

Muzica popular appeared (i.e. was invented) in the late 1940s, soon after the communist

regime came to power and Soviet control of East-European countries was stepped up. Its creation

consisted of a preliminary selection of the traditional rural musics, which were then not only still

extant but vibrant and immensely popular, followed by an adjustment, in order to transform them

into a mirror of socialist society and at the same time an efficient instrument of state propaganda.

The processes of selection and adjustment had a number of aims: to remove and/or replace

politically incorrect lines; to eliminate musical elements considered rough or impredictible,

i.e. harsh vocal and instrumental timbres, imperfect or too regional executions, musical forms

liable to improvisation, chaotic heterophonic executions, etc.; the standardization of the

phrases and overall architectonic forms; and cultural upgrading through prestigious procedures

borrowed from academic music (complicated tonal harmonization, orchestration, conducting the

performance). Thus rendered aseptic and brought under control, but at the same time distanced

from its very essence, what had once been farmers music was now qualified as authentic

muzic popular or folklore and became a triumphant national emblem and a weapon of

political manipulation. Later on, in the stage of nationalist communism (between 1960s and

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1980s), muzic popular was subject to severe ethnic cleansing. In TV and live shows, the

ideological efficiency of muzic popular was enhanced by codified iconography: the musicians

were always outfitted in white garments with purported folk ornaments; the soloists wore

museum regional costumes, but also high heels, modern, elaborate hairdos and heavy makeup;

and the dancers were dressed in identical fake-folk costumes. The musicians performed against

synecdochic cardboard backgrounds showing idyllic landscapes or civilized, thriving villages.

The overall (sound and iconography) image of muzic popular had to express the apparent

exuberant happiness of the people led by the single party and its brilliant leader: the first

secretary of the communist party (i.e.Gheoghe Gheorghiu-Dej or his successor Nicolae

Ceauescu). The main institutions designated to produce and promote muzic popular were

popular orchestras and folkloric ensembles quickly set up in Bucharest and in all county capitals,

all following the model of the famous Moiseyev dance ensemble from the USSR. (Most of these

groups are still performing in the 2010s; however, they are now incomplete, and government

subsidies have been dramatically cut back.) To these should be added all the media and an

immense network of central and local institutions for mass culture: Centers for the Conservation

and Valorization of Folk Tradition and Creation, Popular Schools of Arts, Culture Houses and

Cultural Centers.

The fact that in the 1940s-1980s muzic popular was intensively broadcast, often

alternating with political discourses, news reports and praises to the Leader, engendered

aprofound antipathy on the part of the intellectual classes. Common people from villages and

towns for their part became accustomed to it.

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Muzica Popular After the Fall of Communism

In 1990-1995, the first years after the overthrow of communism, the production and

broadcasting of muzic popular declined abruptly. Through strenuous efforts, the former

cultural activists of the communist party, who were still active under the new regime, succeeded

in restoring and, with the help of politicians, reinstating it in the electronic media, live shows and

the record market. Nevertheless,in the twenty-first century muzic popular. is no longer as

omnipotent as it once was. First of all, it is now in competition with alternatives implicitly

opposed to it: muzica lutareasc, etno-pop, maneaua, and other fusion musics, all of which

officials frown on but cannot prevent. Secondly, muzic popular is broadcast more rarely on

national stations. Finally, although it has renewed itself to a certain extent, becoming more

commercial, at least visually (there is now less solemnity in the performance, more bling on the

soloists costumes, etc.), more permissive (e.g. it includes in its repertoire a category of urban

party songs that were out of the question before 1989), and less obsessed with demonstrating the

priority, antiquity and continuity of the Romanian people , . in other respects, the overall image

offered today by muzic popular has remained as outdated and remote from the real world as it

was in the past.

Musicians of Muzic Popular

Muzic popular musicians are lutari (professional folk musicians) who had, or have,

the chance to become permanent employees of existing popular orchestras: a prestigious, not too

demanding job, modestly but regularly paid. In their free time, however, muzic popular

lutari accept engagements for weddings and other rural and urban parties. As a rule, in

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traditional contexts they feel free to play the rural and urban musics required by the guests in

traditional, always imaginative style. However, in order to display their professional superiority

and cultural level, they sometimes fall back on popular orchestras routines: they equalize phrases,

use dense, academic harmonies, eliminate variability at the melodic-rhythmic and architectonic

levels, etc. Very respectful of their superiors, ordinary musicians imitate them, thus

contributing themselves to the standardization of traditional musics. Among the musicians, the

soloists vocalist or instrumentalists, quite often brilliant virtuosos, always dressed in the

national outfit perform their rigid interpretations of musical pieces, pre-established in the

smallest detail.

The Muzic Popular Industry

In over 40 years of dictatorship, the national radio and TV stations and the only

Romanian record company, Electrecord, produced, stored and broadcast massive amounts of

muzic popular. After 1990, private record (and later DVD) companies flooded the market with

the musics that until then had been propagated through subversive channels or were being born

out of various fusions. Electrecord carried on with its muzic popular production, but now

faced fierce competition. The company became privately owned, but preserved its penchant for

muzic popular. The production is partially or totally supported by ambitious self-styled

musicians. The handful of private TV stations partially dedicated to the genre are financed in the

same way.

Ordinary Romanians follow muzic popular shows and broadcasts with a deal of

indifference, but when they are engrossed in the usual daily tasks, their radio and TV sets are

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often on and they become impregnated with it. This explains why, although its popularity has

obviously declined, muzic popular is an almost unnoticed, but seldom absent, element of the

daily Romanian sound environment.

Bibliography

Rdulescu, Sperana. 1997. Traditional Musics and Ethnomusicology Under

Political Pressure: the Romanian Case. In Anthropology Today, 13 (6), December:

8-12.

Rdulescu, Sperana ___. 2002 . Peisaje muzicale n Romnia secolului XX [Musical

Landscapes in Twentieth-Century Romania]. Bucharest: Editura Muzical

Discography

Most of Electrecord record company productions between 1950-2014 have been devoted to

Muzika Populara.

Sperana Rdulescu, translated by Adrian Solomon