With the start of the Great Lent, songs, and especially the village traditional dancing have come to an end. From now on and until the Sunday of the Holy Easter, the customs that mark a new cicle of life will dominate the traditional Romanian world, called the 'New Year of Spring' by the ethnologists. The customs of this period represent the shift from one season to another, the purification through fasting, the renewal of the all natural things and the beginning of agricultural activities. Less rich in musical expression ( not of broad circulation nowadays), the folkloric Spring customs convey, through the sensitity and the spirituality of the Romanian people, the joy for regenerating nature, for their relationship with nature, for love and affection.

At times, the Shrovetide and the arrival of Spring were announced, in some areas, through bonfires with protective role; in other cases, the sounds of traditional musical instruments, like, the alpenhorn or of the bagpipes, called 'bucium' and 'tulnic', were those that cast winter away and greeted the new season. During the 1^st March edition we will imagine these sonorous events by listening to the sounds of the alpenhorns and recalling the unmistakable tunes of the doinas played on the leaf, but also to some pieces from the pastoral repertoire, because the beginning of spring overlaps with the preparations for the departure of the shepherds with the herds of sheeps into the mountains, event which will take place a bit later, around the feast of Sângeorz. But until then, the shepherds take care of the lambs delivered in Winter, prepare their specific tools and instruments and... give their flutes a try, while thinking about the summer to come.

The theme of the seasons is also related to the repertoire of the songs about the brigands. In Autumn, when the forest sheds its leaves, the outlaws used to hide in the villages, and once Spring arrived and the forest put leaves on again, they would gather, renew their vows, clean their weapons and return to the protective thicket of the woods. Many of the songs and doinas of the outcasts are constructed on these epic motifs. Their are completed, from a thematic point of view, by those of love, for Spring also brings the beginning of the Great Lent, after the Dragobete Day (lovers' day in the Romanian folk tradition) for the expression of nostagia and of longing for the loved one.

I invite you, therefore, on the occasion of the Mărţişor, to listen to some pieces from the traditional repertoire dedicated to the arrival of Spring and to rediscover, together with us, the fascinating Universe of the Romanian orally transmitted culture, on Sunday, 1^st March, 2015, starting at 19:00, on the Traditional Styles of Music programme.