RECORDS IN RUMANIA By WILLIAM MANN

During February of this year I spent a fortnight in Rumania making first acquaintance with the country and its music. It was fascinating to come upon a whole school of twentieth-century composers previously unknown to me, and to discover the distinctive qualities of Rumanian folk-music. But as a confirmed discophile I was especially interested in the records that they make there. Rumania has been isolated from the rest of Europe, to a great extent, since the advent of LP, partly by her geographical and political place behind the (now flimsy) Iron Curtain, and partly by her overpowering desire for independence from Russia, Hungary, Greece, from all the neighbouring countries with which her past history has been unhappily connected. The result is that the Rumanian record industry has evolved along slightly different lines from those in Western Europe, and the differences may interest other readers of THE GRAMOPHONE.

As you would expect in a Socialist People's Republic there is only one record company, Electrecord, state-supported and unhampered (you might say also unstimulated) by competition. Before the coup d'itat of 1947 Electrecord functioned as a local clearing-house for what we now call EMI and for a German firm (Polydor, to judge from the pre-war titles I traced). Nowadays they make all their own records (I saw some MK and Supraphon in the shops, nothing from Western Europe). The format is interesting. As well as 12-inch 33i rpm, and 7-inch 45 rpm EPs (no singles!), they market 7-inch and 10-inch 33-k rpms (very sensible, I could never understand why British record-buyers despised them) and 12-inch 16 rpm discs for plays and spoken word in general—though some spoken discs are on 7-inch and 10-inch at 331 rpm. Stereo recording has been going for two or three years: one would expect that such a firm would have profited by the lessons of stereo development in the West, but the stereo Electrecord discs which I have, and the newer ones which I heard in their playback room, still suffer from bad balance—voices too near the mike, orchestra too distant—and from unawareness, in opera recording, of the vivid effects to be obtained from physical movement of actors between the extremes, and careful placing between these boundaries. Playing-time is short too. Mr Nestor Gheorghiu, the director of Electrecord, who showed me round the factory and plied me with information, affirmed that 28 minutes was an absolute maximum playingtime for one 12-inch side—for stereo it would have to be less. He was almost incredulous when I told him that British record companies can accommodate more than half an hour's music on a 12-inch stereo side without distortion at the centre. Electrecord use EMI recording machines and BASF tape, and the tapes sound well: I was impressed by the sound-quality of a Cavalleria Rusticana (in Italian with Rumanian singers), and a Mozart Requiem recorded clearly in an obviously resonant church at Timisoara, and by a Britten Serenade (sung in careful, sometimes comic, English by a pleasantly sour-sweet tenor, Vladimir Teodorian, with a superb even though tremulous horn obbligato by Ion Badanoiu). Yet the discs carry a high surface noise, by our standards, and there is some distortion. I would have thought that Rumanian record-collectors, even without close knowledge of the best EMI, Decca, Philips, DGG and other companies' modern discs, would have protested vocally about the superiority of, say, the most recent Supraphon discs. But Rumania has no record magazine at all; radio, TV, and the weekend newspapers all review records, and it is on these features that collectors rely.

The catalogue is rich, but limited in scope. The standard Beethoven-Tchaikovsky is quite neatly covered by Rumanian artists (e.g., Beethoven Symphonies conducted by the late George Georgescu), though by no means in full. Rumania has her fair share of outstanding soloists, and these are well represented on disc. Among instrumentalists there are the pianist Valentin Gheorghiu, the violinists Ion Voicu and Stefan Ruha, the 'cellist Aldo Radulescu—all of international calibre. In opera Verdi and Puccini have a clear lead over Wagner: there are decent complete sets (in Italian) of Rigoletto, Trovatore, Barb iere, and many highlights or solo operatic discs. The most sought-after operatic recording is of Enesco's grandiose opera Oedip, written in France to a French text, but firmly claimed by Enesco's compatriots as a Rumanian work. It is an intriguing opera, decently performed, worth listening to, if not a masterpiece of international appeal. By English standards the catalogue is rich in contemporary music, and this is valuable to foreigners, at least, because modern Rumanian music is not at all well-known here. I was very struck by Anatol Vieru's 'Cello Concerto, a lively inventive, faintly folk-based piece (ECD1062) ; by Aurel Stroe's Arcades, voluptuous in sonority, hypnotic in thought-progression (ECE0159) ; and by Tiberio Olah's Endless Column (ECE0211), inspired by a celebrated sculpture of Brancusi. Of special interest to many British collectors are records of Enesco's Second and Third Violin Sonatas made by the composer as violinist with Dinu Lipatti as pianist (No. 2, ECD61; No. 3, ECD95) ; these are old, and sound it; but they are reissued on LP at the same price as new recordings—the idea of reissues at cheaper prices has not yet hit Rumania. Record prices are quite high, by British standards, though the British tourist, who is granted an unrealistically favourable rate of exchange, will find all Rumanian discs absurdly cheap. The top-price, a I2-inch LP, costs 36 Lei: for a Rumanian this represents 45s.; but a tourist could reckon 36 Lei the equivalent of about 14s.

As in other countries, the classical records are paid for by those of light music. Our set of pop isn't actually discouraged : one hears some, now and then, on the radio and there are a few pop records in the catalogue (EDC505, sung by Patricia Mills, includes two twist numbers by a certain John Lennon, one being entitled Al my lovin), and I even heard a band vocalist sing Strangers in the night, a very faithful copy of the Sinatra record. But most of the light music records are of fox-trots and rumbas and so on (I particularly liked M. Popovici's To the Cosmos, medium-fox, as a title), about half by Rumanian composers, half by such as Ellington and Charlie Parker, and Paul Anka. The major output, on record as on radio, is of Rumanian folk-music, both sung and played. This is a cornerstone of national culture, universally beloved and familiar to everybody. Authority has been at pains to encourage it as a distraction from the capitalistic lure of western pop ; but I doubt if they had to try hard, so real is folk-music to every Rumanian, and so beautiful even to you and me from abroad. Each of the various regions of the country has its characteristic varieties, and Electrecord caters for these local needs, as well as for records of wider, more generally national appeal.

Cultural traffic between Britain and Rumania is beginning to move, and trade will surely become easier, especially in cultural commodities. Electrecord have a British agent, Vistula Press Ltd., 164 Old Brompton Road, London, SW5. At present the supply of Rumanian records is not coming through, though titles were announced. Some British collectors would be glad to get John Ogdon's disc of Beethoven sonatas, or Barbirolli's Rumanian recording of Schubert's UnfinishedSymphony, or the Khachaturian 'Cello Concerto conducted by Goossens (soloist Vladimir Orlov). There is an extensive repertory of Enesco's works. Vocal collectors can be directed to Lieder records (including Dichterliebe in Rumanian, ECD1023) by Dan Tordachescu, and an interesting song recital by Zara Dolukhanova (ECE0128). And for students of contemporary music there is a great deal to explore, much of it really worth listening to. Among the folkmusic records I strongly recommend EPE0219, an anthology of assorted music showing off the various national instruments. This is excellent for a party, or for relaxation; serious students of folk instruments will prefer EPD78, which makes no claims to entertainment. And I was stunned by the voluptuous, not to say erotic, sound of the pan-pipes as played by Gheorghe Zamfir on EPD1143.

Some ideas, anyhow, for enlarging your collection. Now all we need is for the records to be available here. And for EMI and Decca group winners to get into Rumanian shops, and give the fidelity standard a little shake-up.