★★★★☆
I am not sure if the title of this album is even legal in Britain and the US. These days we refer to a particular ethnicity as “Roma” or “travelling people”. But this recording was made in the Czech Republic, where social tensions run high and the terminology can be a bit behind the times. What we have here is a riveting selection of itinerant melodies set by composers in that part of the world and involving string quartet with occasional cimbalom and double-bass.
The Talich Quartet are world class. The way they play is almost too polished for these earthy tunes but the energy is absolutely kicking. Dvorak’s Gypsy Songs are well known but Janacek’s Moravian folksongs are much less familiar and utterly irresistible. You cannot listen to them sitting down.
Bartok’s Romanian dances are raw material for his string quartets. The remaining pieces are by Georges Boulanger, Grigoras Dinicu and Ivan Vasiliev. The atmosphere they conjure is that of a century ago: before motor cars, mass production, mass slaughter. This is a precious hour out of time — out of our own time — and we should not be bothered by what they choose to call it. Far from the tourist music of Prague and Budapest restaurants, this is the real deal from long, long ago.
