Editorial Reviews

Laula kultani: European Folk Songs is one disc of two, the result of a canvassing of Europe's choirs for indigenous material, issued in two volumes both as publications and as recordings by Carus-Verlag of Stuttgart. There is a "red" volume and a "blue" volume; this is the blue volume. It contains a range of traditional choral settings sung by choirs ranging geographically from Iceland to Armenia. This single disc contains 37 choruses, and the booklet includes the texts in the original languages only, but apart from that only three paragraphs of text are provided to explain "Laula kultani"'s mission. Nevertheless, the bar is set high in terms of the quality of choruses; the choruses themselves submitted the pieces for inclusion in the collection. In the United States, one often hears about "celebrating diversity;" "Laula kultani" is a very EU-styled project in that it celebrates certain homogeneity in diverse cultures. While the 34 choirs sing in different languages and the music transmits something of the characteristic properties of each culture, there is a kind of marriage of this material to a Central European -- mainly German -- standard of taste. Under such standards, were someone to shift the focus of such a project to another region -- say, Ireland -- then presumably the most Irish-sounding German choruses would be picked for inclusion.

For this reason, the project seems a bit skewed in a purely statistical sense, and as the recordings were made by individual choirs in various places, the quality of the recording is naturally quite variable. However, "Laula kultani" makes for good, peaceful listening and it is quite interesting hearing music sung in all of these various languages; for example, none would have thought, judging from its appearance on street signs and in place names on maps, that the Basque language would sound so fluid and smooth when sung as it does here. Uncle Dave Lewis, All Music Guide

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