European Folk Music

Music of Eastern Europe

During the Communist era national folk dancing was actively promoted by the state. Dance troupes from Russia and Poland toured Western Europe many times from about 1937 to 1990, and less frequently thereafter. The best known were the Red Army Choir and dancers. They recorded many albums.

From Bulgaria, an all-female choir from Bulgarian State Radio sold albums around Europe. The first and most famous was "Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares" which even gained a certain chic after being promoted by British DJ John Peel.

In Hungary, the group Muzsikás and the singer Márta Sebestyén became known throughout the world due to their numerous American tours and their participation in the Hollywood movie The English Patient and Sebestyén's work with the Deep Forest band.

Another example is the Hungarian model, the táncház movement. This model involves strong cooperation between musicology experts and enthusiastic amateurs, resulting in a strong vocational foundation and a very high professional level. They also had the advantage that rich, living traditions of Hungarian folk music and folk culture still survived in rural areas, but also in Romania (especially Transylvania).

The involvement of experts meant an effort to understand and revive folk traditions in their full complexity. Music, dance, and costumes remained together as they once had been in the rural communities: rather than merely reviving folk music, the movement revived broader folk traditions.

Started in the 1970s, tanchaz soon became a massive movement creating an alternative leisure activity for youths apart from discos and music clubs—or one could say that it created a new kind of music club. The tanchaz movement spread to ethnic Hungarian communities around the world.

Today, almost every major city in the U.S. and Australia has its own Hungarian folk music and folk dance group; there are also groups in Japan, Hong Kong, Argentina and Western Europe.

Balkan music: Tanec, Republic of Macedonia

The Balkan folk music is a type of folk music distinct from others in Europe. This is mainly because it was influenced by traditional music of the Balkan ethnic groups and mutual music influences of this ethnic groups in the period of Ottoman Empire. The music is sometimes characterised by complex rhythm.

It comprises the music of: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, Serbia, Republic of Macedonia, Albania, Turkey and other countries including the historical states such as the Ottoman Empire, Yugoslavia or the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro and the geographical regions such as Thrace. An important part of the whole Balkan folk music is the music of the local Romani ethnic minority.

In Germany Ougenweide is a well-known folk band.

History of Folk Music 1980 - 2000