LANGUAGE
The Romanian is a Romance language formed on the territory of Dacia. Chronologically, it was configured as a novel idiom between the 6th and 10th centuries. The settlement of the Slavic populations in the North Danube region starting from the 6th century. it did not substantially alter the Romance structure, but the influence of the Slavic background had repercussions on the lexicon, which was enriched with numerous borrowings. Starting from the 10th century. the separation began in the four North- and South-Danubian dialects: Dacoroman, a continuation of the Latin spoken in Roman Dacia and became the national language of Romania and, in the Moldavian dialect variant, of the Republic of Moldavia ; the aromeno or macedoromeno, widespread mainly in northern Greece and Macedonia; the meglenoromeno, spread in an area north-east of Thessaloniki, and the ‘ istroromeno, spoken in Istria. ● Dacoromeno presents itself as a substantially unitary language in its fundamental features and dialectal differences are noticeable only at the phonetic-lexical level. Its main morphological peculiarities are: the conservation, albeit partial, of the declension in cases typical of Latin (vocative, masculine and feminine, and genitive-dative feminine); the postposition of the definite article; the presence of periphrastic, future and conditional verbal forms. The lexical background is made up of Latin elements, to which Slavic elements are superimposed and, inlesser extent, Turks and Neo-Greeks. Since the 18th century, the vocabulary has been enriched with numerous neological loanwords of French and Italian origin.
MUSIC
Popular music
Romanian folk music is a mixture of Arabic, Slavic and Hungarian music which is naturally accompanied by the identifiable tradition in the ethnic core of Latin culture. The musical manifestations through which Romanian folklore is expressed are the ballads, epic songs of ancient origin linked to the oriental tradition and Byzantine influences, performed on fantastic and mythological texts, and the doina, the most authentic and characteristic form, spontaneous song in form free based on the improvisation of the performer. For the feasts of the winter solstice, the colindat are sung, greeting songs accompanied by instruments or exclusively instrumental on legendary texts, while in spring and summer the paparuda is performed, a mixture of song and dance to invoke the rain, the scaloian, to propitiate the fertility of the fields, and the calus, a ritual dance to celebrate the return of summer. National dance is the hora, a round dance perhaps of Greek-Roman origin, while among the popular instruments there are various types of harp (drimba), the bocium horn, similar to the Alphorn, the muscal (pan flute) and the psalter tambal.
The cultured music
The activity in the field of cultured music in Romania began only in the 19th century; until then the music practiced was liturgical (in particular Byzantine chant), and above all that of the popular tradition, whose first written documents date back to the 17th century, when the Benedictine monk J. Cajoni (1634-1671), transcribed for virginal and enriched popular songs and dances with the basso continuo, bringing them together in the Codex Cajoni. In the 18th century. Dimitrie Cantemir, prince of Moldavia, collected documents in the Descriptio Moldaviae (1716) and the Valachische Täntze und Lieder (1781) of the Austrian J. Sulzer appeared. A collection and codification of liturgical songs was carried out, starting from the 19th century, by Macarius the Geromonk, Anton Pann and ID Petrescu, who also contributed to creating real schools, which later merged into the conservatories of music and dramatic art, supported by the state, promoter, moreover, of numerous philharmonic societies, choral associations, ballet companies, schools and centers of folk music.
● The work of contemporary Romanian composers has tended to extensively enhance popular material, translating it into the forms of European cultured music. Among the most famous composers of the twentieth century, in addition to G. Enescu, there are A. Alessandrescu (1893-1959), D. Cuclin (1885-1978), F. Lazar (1894-1936), Mihail Andricu (1894-1974), S. Dragoi (1894-1968), P. Constantinescu (1909-1963), A. Mendelssohn (1910-1966), A. Vieru (b.1926), P. Bentoiu (b.1927), T. Olah (b. 1928), W. Berger (b. 1929), D. Popovici (b. 1932), C. Taranu (b. 1934).
