''Hora lungă'' (Cîntec lung, Rom., literally 'long song'), is a

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

n regional

folksong Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...

style characterized by the union of a lyrical text and improvisational

melody A melody (from Greek language, Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a Linearity#Music, linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most liter ...

. Also called hora lunga or horea lunga, (hora here is derived from the Romanian word meaning 'oration'). The singing may be accompanied by a combination of the shepherd's flute, a leaf held between the lips and used as a reed, a bagpipe, and non-native instruments.

Characteristics

A variant of the

doina The doina () is a Romanian musical tune style, possibly with Middle Eastern roots, customary in Romanian peasant music, as well as in Lăutărească. It was also adopted into klezmer music. Similar tunes are found throughout Eastern Europe and ...

, the Hora lungă characteristics are: strong instrumental character, very ornamented, and indeterminate content structure. The musician may freely stretch or compress its rhythm, and often will highly ornament each note.

History

Discovered by

Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as H ...

in the Romanian Northern

Transylvania Transylvania ( ro, Ardeal or ; hu, Erdély; german: Siebenbürgen) is a historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and south its natural border is the Carpathian Mountains, and to the west the Ap ...

counties of Maramureş and

Satu-Mare Satu Mare (; hu, Szatmárnémeti ; german: Sathmar; yi, סאטמאר or ) is a city with a population of 102,400 (2011). It is the capital of Satu Mare County, Romania, as well as the centre of the Satu Mare metropolitan area. It lies in th ...

in 1912-1913. Bartók studied evidence of or listened to similar music in central Algeria, Ukraine, and Persia. Subsequent research has revealed similar music found as far west as Albania and Algeria, and as far east as India, Tibet, western China, and Cambodia."Hora Lunga." Baker's Student Encyclopedia of Music. Ed. Laura Kuhn. Schirmer-Thomson Gale, 1999. eNotes.com. 2006. 31 Jan, 2007 url=http://arts.enotes.com/music-encyclopedia/hora-lunga

Characteristics

History

Artists

Samples

References

See also