Banatian Music of the Byzantine Tradition

Although specific to the Banate (the geographical region saddling the Danube and comprising a part of today's South-Western Romania and of North-Eastern Yugoslavia) the oral transmission of musical traditions of the Orthodox Church also characterizes large areas in Transylvania, where ethnic isolation due to historical circumstances played an important part. Wherever used semiography tended to have a mixed character, favouring Western linear notation with Western tonal music exerting and obtaining with the passage of time a deeper influence than was the case with the other regions of Romania. A specific trait of the Banatian music of the Byzantine tradition is also a proven two-way interchange of influences between folk-lore and church music.

Gheorghe Firca