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Ciocrlia (Romanian folk tune)
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Wikipedia article
'Ciocrlia' (meaning 'the skylark') is a Romanian tune, allegedly composed by the Romani-Romanian pan flute player Anghelu Dinicu in the virtuosic style of the 'urban lutareasc' music from late 19th century.
Anghelu Dinicu first presented the tune in 1889 at the inauguration of the Eiffel Tower. However, the most famous version would become that of his grandson Grigora Dinicu, that adapted the tune for violin. George Enescu also was inspired by 'Ciocrlia' for his composition the Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 for orchestra.
'Ciocrlia' has been covered numerous times, but because it is a piece of 'lutreasc music' and not a piece of 'Romanian peasant music' it cannot be considered representative for the Romanian peasant spirit.
In the case of the 'Ciocrlia', like with other famous tunes of 'lutreasc music', there were attempts to hide the name of the composer in order to make it seem anonymous/traditional.Cosma, Viorel: "Lutari de ieri i de azi", ed. Du Style, 1996.
It is known as eva () and uuliga () in Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian. It has also become highly popular in the Jewish Klezmer repertoire. In Georgia, the tune became widely adopted into traditional folk music repertoire and is known as "Torola" (, the lark)
During the communist-era, the Romanian intelligence service operated a numbers station believed to be used by spies in foreign countries. The station known as "V01" became well known for its use of Ciocrlia as its opening interval, which would be followed by a series of number-coded messages in Romanian and concluded with the words "Terminat." The station fell off the air soon after the 1989 coup and overthrow of Ceausescu.
The song was featured as part of the soundtrack for the 2009 Ubisoft game 'Rabbids Go Home', performed by Moldovan gypsy brass band Fanfare Vagabontu.
See also
* Lutari
* Fanfare Ciocrlia
References
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