Uccelli [née Pazzini], Carolina Uccellini, Marco

(i) Romanian.

Romanians came to the USA in the late 19th century and early 20th, mainly from villages in the Romanian linguistic and cultural regions of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire: Banat, Bukovina and Transylvania (the provinces of present-day Romania north and west of the Carpathian Mountains). There was little immigration from the old Kingdom of Romania (the provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia), so there is limited influence on Romanian American music from these areas, except through Romani (Gypsy) sources. After World War I, immigration was more restricted and included more educated as well as urban Romanians.

Romanian American communities are based increasingly on formal religious and cultural organizations; the ethnic neighbourhood context of performance that preserved Old World regional styles and repertories in the early decades of the 20th century is rapidly vanishing. After 1930 and especially after World War II, the regional distinctions in Romanian American music declined in favour of tunes and styles shared by groups in various American cities such as Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Gary and East Chicago (Indiana), New York and Philadelphia.

Songs about immigration to the USA were composed by the earliest immigrants (c1890–1910). These followed the formulaic traditions of the doină, a quintessentially Romanian lyric vocal genre that epitomizes profound feelings of longing and melancholy. Adapted to the experience of immigration, these songs were often bitter commentaries on the bleak and lonely conditions in the USA and the delusive promise of riches; a nostalgia for home was central. The best-known such song was Doină din America (‘Lament from America’). Still found in folksong repertories in parts of Transylvania, they were not transmitted beyond the first immigrant generation.

A more enduring tradition is the singing of colinde (Christmas carols). Starting about six weeks before Christmas the congregations of Romanian Orthodox and Byzantine Rite Catholic churches sing colinde at the Sunday service. The churches have groups of colindători (carollers), who, from Christmas Eve, visit the houses of parishioners. In Romanian villages colindători are always young men and boys, but in the USA the groups are not limited by age or sex. The colindători are invited inside to sing and are offered refreshments. The host is expected to make a donation to the carollers, who in turn give the money to the parish; this custom is an American innovation. The songs most commonly sung are colinde that are not limited to local village distribution in Romania. Trei pastori (‘Three Shepherds’), O ce veste (‘Oh, What News’), and Florile dalbe (‘White Flowers’) are the three most popular songs learnt by the American-born. There are regional variations of these songs, but the carollers usually practise in advance to standardize the texts. Although third-generation Romanian Americans learn the words phonetically and often do not know their meaning, many are proud to carry on an ancient tradition that symbolizes their ethnicity. Increasingly song texts have become fixed through the use of song sheets or homemade song booklets.

The most persistent and characteristic traditional genre maintained by Romanian Americans is dance music. Romanian Americans as well as Serbians, Macedonians and other eastern and Balkan groups play Romanian dance music as part of their mixed repertory for weddings and other festive occasions. Romanian dance music has been adapted to the new environment, and manufactured brass and woodwind instruments (e.g. clarinet, taragot) have replaced traditional handmade folk instruments. Other popular instruments include violin, accordion and cimbalom (associated frequently with Romani musicians). Different regional dance styles predominate in different American cities: Romanian folkdancing in Cleveland is identified as Transylvanian; the Banat style is characteristic for Chicago, Detroit, Gary and East Chicago. In the 1920s Romanian and Gypsy orchestras recorded popular dance tunes on the Victor and Columbia labels with titles such as Memorii din Banat (‘Memories from the Banat’) and Învârtita de la Chicago (‘Învârtita from Chicago’) by Joan Hategan’s Orchestra, which reflected ethnic sensitivity to Old World tunes. George Radu was one of the most popular Romanian musicians among Romanian Americans before World War II, recording such favourites as Doină din America (with Nicu Hanzi’s Orchestra) and Doină din Selişte (‘Lament from Selişte’, with Alex Fodor’s Orchestra). Also at this time a number of professional musicians from Romania visited the USA and stayed, carving out significant careers as promoters of Romanian traditional dance and music (e.g. the Ionescu-Ardeal couple) and instrumentalists (e.g. Iancu Cârlig, a cimbalom player who performed at the New York World’s Fair in 1939). In the 1950s and 60s, Larisa Lucaci (from Cleveland) also publicized Romanian folkdance and music widely. Some of the current musicians are more recent émigrés, including a number of professional Romani musicians (e.g. in Chicago and New York).

Although some folkdance groups, such as the Şezătoare group (founded in Cleveland in 1959 by Nicolae Smărăndescu to foster and preserve Romanian folksong and dance), try to maintain an authentic Old World style, most Romanian American dances are acculturated. The accommodation of dance styles originally resulted from the efforts of immigrants from different parts of Romania to adapt to each other. Now most original steps have been forgotten and the dances have been greatly simplified. The dances most frequently performed are the simplest ones, such as the horă (the basic circle dance of Romania and other parts of eastern Europe) and the sîrbă, or snake dance, performed in a long winding line with the arms of each dancer placed on the shoulders of those on either side; both are staples at weddings. The sirbă is sometimes still accompanied by strigături or traditional shouts. The învârtită and haţegană, originally from Transylvania, are more complex couple dances; an American variant of the învârtită – danced in a circle – is common at weddings. Originally a ritual dance of fertility and healing performed exclusively by men, the căluş or căluşer (leaping horse) became, among early 20th-century Romanian Americans, a virtuoso dance of performance, often in competitions. In modern times, it is performed by both men and women.

USA, §II, 1(iii): Traditional music: European American: Eastern