Balkan Folk

[teddytennisfan]

So you don't think everything is sad (White face I kiss)

not at all -- and i never really thoguht that -- i always thought that much of the balkans culture IS about CELEBRATION of life!!

WINE, grapes, harvest, children, family..really what human society does after all...but that the balkans and slavs have a vibrancy in expressing it that is inimitable .

 

[Mastoor]

Teddy, don't hope we ran out of this, we are only beginning. So far I showed you only some of traditional folk music from Serbia and Macedonia. More popular than traditional folk is so called novokomponovana meaning newly composed music. That's music written in recent years by university educated authors who were inspired with traditional music. That music is popular in Balkans and Turkey, but also in Europe where they have large communities from Balkans like in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and so on. Believe it or not, this is Trump's favourite Serbian music and this one in particular is his favourite Serbian song:

 

[Billie]

Here is an American singing one of folk songs, "I touched the bottom of life" by Toma Zdravkovic. This guy, Ron, is great, his Serbian is really good and he works on improving it. Toma is very popular, even though he passed away few years ago, his songs are legendary as they are all love songs, mostly unhappy, such is this one. He fell for a young girl who betrayed him and he is now drowning his sorrow in booze and can't forget about her.

This is Ron's version of this song from a flood relief benefit:



And this is Toma's original song:

 

[Obsi]

 

[Mastoor]

Digression, but probably the most appropriate place to post. @teddytennisfan this is the most famous waltz composed in Serbia (When Johann Strauss lived in a castle near Novi Sad)

 

[Billie]

Queen of Gypsy music in former Yugoslavia, Esma Redzepova died in Skopje, Macedonia yesterday. She had a great voice and was even greater human being, fostering 47 children and providing them all with education. May she rest in peace.

 

[Mastoor]

^ Sasha Baron Cohen had to pay her reimbursement after she sew him for using her songs in some of his films without her permission.

 

[Nekro]

Obsi, Mastoor and Billie you have good tastes in music

This is a classic, there's a Greek version but this is the original