Romanian

Recorded in Bucharest and regional centres, 1900s–1940s

These sides hold Romanian dance and song cut across 1926, 1927, 1928, 1937 and the later run from 1945 through 1956. Hora and doina titles keep returning, and the labels lean heavily on bands: the words orch or orchestra appear on many of the sides.

Frank Richko and his Romanian Gypsy Orchestra stand at the center, often with Larisa Lucaci. Their sides include Brâul lui Zbârcea (Belt Dance), Ca la usa cortului (Like at the Gypsy Tent), Tarancuta (Little Peasant Girl), Ciocarlanul (The Lark), Jianu (Legendary Hero) and Dura (Gliding). Under the Romanian Gypsy Orchestra name the same pairing yields the 1950 couplings Hora de la Balti with Zdroboleanca and Alunelul (Little Hazelnut) with Marioara.

Dinicu’s Hora Staccato travels through several hands—Arno’s Gypsy Caravan in 1945, Al Sack and his Orchestra in 1946, then the Continental Five, Jerry Murad’s Harmonicats and Alex Shandor. Musica Batalion 2 Pioneri offers Doina si sârbă and Hora Garofita; Ioana Radu sings The Peace Hora with the Rumanian Radio Committee Folk Orchestra; Constantin Brailoiu is credited on Danse Shantee (Sirba); Georges Boulanger plays a Hora. Earlier discs reach Andrej Gellert in 1926 and the 1927 sides of Sotii I. Ardeal and Ionescu-Ardeal.

The rights mix is uneven and largely unresolved: the majority remain unclassified, some fall in the 1947-and-later risky band, and only a handful sit in the 1923–46 gray range. No year before 1926 is stamped on the discs themselves.