All songs and scores are recorded in 7 languages and the publication includes a specially prepared map of the cultural regions of the Carpathians. It also contains photographs from this year's Carpathian Parade - a historical journey on the trail of the shepherds of the Polish and Romanian Vlachs.
Carpathian folk music is dense and has a distinctive, melodic and unique sound. This is due to the use of instruments such as the violin, the dulcimer and the double bass, which are essential to Carpathian musicians.
The songbook is divided into 12 chapters. It contains tunes from Hungary, Transylvania, Romania, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Moravia, and Wallachia, songs of Ruthenian (Rusyn) highlanders, Poles, Lachs, Pogórzanie, Dolinians of the Beskid Mountains, as well as songs from Team Trebunie Tutki, Andrew Dziubka and band De Press.
As one of the most interesting Carpathian features covered in the book, Rusyn – or more specifically Carpatho-Rusyn, also known in English as Ruthene (sometimes Ruthenian), which is an East Slavic language variety spoken by the Rusyns of Eastern Europe, based mainly in Poland, Croatia and Serbia. The book also covers the Boyko or Boiko, a distinctive group of Ukrainian highlanders or mountain-dwellers of the Carpathian highlands. Along with the Lemkos and Hutsuls, they are a continuum of Carpathian nationalities also known as the Gorals. All these ethnic minorities continue to survive in their original culture and language throughout the Polish Besdkids as well.
The editor of Śpiewnik Karpacki, Władysław Motyka, comes from Milówki in the Żywiec area of the Beskid Mountains in Poland. He is a historian, a graduate of the Jagiellonian University and an honorary member of the Highlanders in Poland. His work on the songbook has helped him collaborate with a large group of professionals including musicians, translators and experts on Carpathian culture.
Source: PAP
Edited by E.M. 17/01/2014