Hora lunga (doina).

A Romanian vocal or instrumental genre of folk

music, largely improvised. Bartk wrote (1935) The most important result
of [folk music] research in recent years is without doubt the discovery of the
so-called hora lunga. He was referring to a remarkable kind of melody he
had encountered in Maramures, north-west Transylvania. Here hora lunga
is the local peasant name for it, and the one adopted by Bartk, but as this
type of melody is spread over a great of Romania, the more general term
doina subsequently came to be preferred by musicologist.
The hora lunga, or doina, is a lyrical musical genre quite different in style
and structure from the formally balanced song proper. It is a melopoeia
composed of infinite variations on a single, richly ornamented melody, which
the performer constructs on a traditional skeleton according to the fancy of
the moments. The doina may appear in various stages of evolution, both in
the same region and from one zone to another; the common type from
Maramures seems to be the most archaic. It is a rustic bel canto with glottal
effect (described by Bartk as cluckingor sobbing sounds), with a variety
of interjected syllables and lapses into brief parlato. It has been suggested
that this type is a legacy from Thrace, or from the orient via Thrace; indeed,
there is some historical evidence to support the hypothesis that the hora
lunga was established in the Carpathians before the barbarian invasions
early in the Christian era. During the course of its development over wide
areas of Romania the doina has undergone varius changes, slight in some
regions, drastic in others, so that one may speak of classic, intermediate
and modern models, ranging from the vague fluctuating recitative of the
pureexamples to the almost fixed, strophic, songlike doine of recent
appearance.
Bartks summary description of hora lunga (1923) applies roughly to the
whole doina category.
The third and fourth degrees are frequently
fluctuating, neutral sounds, roughly half- flat or half-sharp. The lower fifth
degree appears merely as a faintly uttered anacrusis a whispered upbeat
at the start of a phrase or as a slide down from the final (G) like a bagpipe
4th at the ends of phrases. The sixth degree appears only as an
appoggiatura before the fifth.
Although it has no fixed form, being a free improvisation, the hora lunga can
nonetheless be divided into three sections, which may be performed in turn
or repeated quite irregularly, according to the inspiration of the moment.
The first is an introductory formula (ex.2a) based on a few syllables of, hei,
luiu, etc uttered on one or two prolonged notes, usually on the fifth or
fourth degrees. Then comes the main or middle part (ex.2b), consisting of
strongly varied melodic formulae, syllabic or melismatic, some recto tono
recitative and much alternation or two adjacent degrees (mainly the fourth
and fifth or second and first), with interjected syllables involving glottal
effect in Maramures and Oltenia at the ends of lines or even between the
words of the song. The final part (ex.2c) consists of a recitative, mainly on

the firs degree, sometimes sliding down to the lower fifth, in parlato manner
right at the end.

The improvisatory elements lie in the manner and extent of ornamentation,

the repetition and alternation of melodic formulae and the extension or
restriction of compass. The text is entirely subordinate to the melody. The
doine are extremely varied in content. Besides themes of love, the doina
melody may also carry salutations to springtime, praises of landscape and
nature (specially birds), social criticism, laments for the bitterness of life or
celebrations of forest outlaws. As well as the vocal doine, there are many
instrumental ones, often elaborate, performed on a leaf or fish scale
(inserted between the lips and used as a reed), on the shepherds flute or
bagpipe, or mainly by popular professional musicians on the violin,
panpipes, clarinet, cimbalom etc. In 1913 Bartk found some villages where
the doina was the only melody for lyrical and epic texts, but in many regions
this kind of music is now disappearing or has faded away completely. The
doine of Maramuses and Oltenia are generally the most intact, though
impressive examples are still found in Moldavia, Dobruja, Muntenia and
other regions.
The singular musicological importance of this type of melody lies in its
extraordinary diffusion through history and across continents. Not long after
Bartk first recorded the hora lunga in Maramures, he heard a similar type
of music in central Algeria, on the edge of the Sahara. He wrote ( 1936 ): I
did not dare to think it was more than coincidence. Who could imagine any
causal interdependence between two phenomena more than 2000 km
apart? . But he later realized that the doina covers a territory vaster than he
had imagined. Jews and Christians used it in the Ukraine, and examples
were recorded in Persia. Bartk declared (1936): The idea of coincidence
must be abandoned. These four peoples Romanians, Arabs, Ukrainians and
Persians, cannot have created that kind of melody independently: one of
them must have been the initiator. Bartk favoured Persia as the source,
but he would have been astonished at the results obtained by modern
ethnomusicology, which has traced the doinas extent from the Adriatic
coast of Albania, via the Balkans, turkey, Central Asia and northern India, to
Tibet and western China; examples have been recorded in Kampuchea
which are practically indistinguishable from the hora lunga of Maramures.

THE DOINA

certain melodies are not connected with a specific occasion but are sung in
response to a particular state of mind. These include the doina proper, a
term which Brailoui and succeeding Romanian folklorist used to describe a
specific style of melody, a particularly lyrical melopoeia in free form, based
on improvisation with some more or less invariable melodic elements (see
HORA LUNGA). This sort of song is popularly called lung (long) or prelung
(prolonged) de coasta (of the slopes), de codru (of the forest)de duca (of
departure) etc; ir occurs in Oltenia, Wallachia, Dobruja, Moldavia, Bukovina,
Maramures, Oas, Salaj, Nasaud, on the Somes and Mures and on the two
Tirnava rivers, in the Tara Birsei, the Tara Oltului and in Sibiu; vestiges of the
doina, particularly instrumental forms, have been found in the Banat and
the neighbouring Transylvanian regions. Because of their similar constituent
elements, the doine found throughout the country have a unified and
homogeneous style: there are only a few, relatively similar types which in
places have acquired local colour. Specific introductory and concluding
formulae frame passages of a recitative character, cadences and ample
ornamental
melodic
variations.
Doine are usually in the D mode with a fluctuating 4 th, sometimes natural
and sometimes sharpened (ex.8) While the form is initially freely improvised
it occasionally becomes fixed with a constant number and succession of
melodic lines, irrespective of the amount of repetition involved. This
crystallization is increasingly common in the regions where the doina is in
decline. The doina has an introductory formula consisting of: an interjection
sung on 5 or 4, held for a prolonged time and sometimes with an upward
attack from 5, or from 1, with an appoggiatura, portamento or a roulade; a
recto-tono recitative of eight syllables at the most on one of these two
degrees (5 or 4); the alternation of degrees 6 and 5, 6 acting as an
appoggiatura to 5; sometimes the alternation of degrees may begin the
melody or may follow one of the two introductory formulae mentioned
above.

The introductory formula is followed by an improvised passage

characterized by ornamentation on degrees 5, 4, 3 and 2 (often with an

augmented 2nd between 3 and 4, produced by sharpening the 4 th),

alternating with recitative on degrees 4, 2 and 1. The concluding formula is
usually a recitative on 1, but occasionally the final cadence is reached by a
recitative on 2 or by sliding from 1 to 5 usually in a parlando manner (which
changes the authentic final into a plagal one). Most of these features can be
seen in ex.9 Instrumental doine are usually performed more freely and have
more
ornamentation
than
vocal
ones.
The texts of the doine are particularly varied and include poems of grief,
regret, trouble and alienation, derived from the forms hard life of the
working people. They are not essentially pessimistic but are invigorated by a
strong sense of social injustice, expressed in accents of revolt and
sometimes of blind fury, particularly in texts concerning outlaws. Gentle
poems of love, praise of natural beauty, wedding poems, epic ballads, and
even certain modern poems, echoes of the new social conscience, are also
set to doina melodies. In each case the performer tries to interpret as fully
as possible the content of the poem he is bringing to life; an active process
of creation, facilitated by the improvisatory character of the doina, occurs at
the
very
moment
of
performance.
In the plain of Wallachia and neighbouring areas, there is a local type of
doina, possibly of professional minstrel origin, now called de dragoste (of
love) ; it appears to have evolved from typical doina formulae interspersed
with certain Oriental elements. Its scales are chromatic, sometimes richly so
and with a great mobility of steps; its range exceeds an octave and its
rhythm is fairly regular; its texts deal exclusively with love and are usually
highly erotic.