I have listened Christmas carols a lot these days due to winter holidays. Some of them were international songs, like White Christmas, or Silent night, songs that you all know and others were Romanian songs. Because I am Romanian, I find a special joy in listening old Romanian Christmas carols, songs that throw a special feeling on Christmas each and every year and remembers me those wonderful times of childhood.

I know that you, my readers here, are located all over the world and you probably don’t understand Romanian language and you don’t know much about Romanian culture. That’s all right, I won’t even try to teach you, that’s not the purpose of this article. But I just couldn’t help not sharing with you a piece of our Romanian Christmas culture.

While listening Romanian Christmas carols, I have realized that they are a bit different from the international, widely known songs in the way that most of our traditional carols are based on popular, folkloric songs, thus borrow a lot from the folkloric melodic structure. If you are going to listen (at least) a few seconds of the songs listed below, you will see that most of these songs have some repetitive parts that come immediately one after an other (even if you don’t understand the language, listen carefully and you will see what I mean - focus on the first artist which is a mark here). Also there are some common themes that a lot of our winter songs share, words, melodic structures and lyrics that a lot of Christmas carols share (such as “leru-i ler” (untranslatable, at least for me), “flori de mar” (apple’s flowers), etc). Some songs are based on these structures, others just use them.

Also there are a lot of artists singing such songs around Christmas, of course, it is a tradition, I guess it is a good source of revenue and nobody could blame you for recording a carols album 1 month after releasing your “normal” one, Christmas won’t count here, right? Or if you don’t have inspiration for an album, Christmas should give you the reason to record well known songs that everybody sing and know. Whatever…

However, we have here in Romania some great artists that sing (carols) very well. I will point out a few of them and I invite you to listen to them.

Taste the sound as you would do in a Chinese, Italian or why not, in a traditional Romanian restaurant. So, here we go…

Stefan Hrusca

Stefan Hrusca is just about THE MOST FAMOUS Christmas carols singer in Romania. He is a tradition here and for Romanians all over the world. I just know about 2-3 songs of him, others than carols, but I do know a lot of his carols. And trust me, here in Romania everybody knows him and his music. He is just a man with an acoustic guitar on a stage, enchanting the audience every year. I just don’t know how he lives for the rest of the year, but during Christmas time, you just need to have him. The music is simple, direct and based on traditional themes(see the part above about repetitive folkloric themes, he’s the one using this a lot). Hrusca is a traditional folk singer that found his niche: Christmas carols. By the way, he’s the one in the picture of this article.

Fuego (Paul Surugiu)

Fuego is not a traditional Christmas artist, but he does a good job, in my opinion singing carols on winter time. His voice is suited for this style and he has some beautiful carols. He is a pop singer, with folkloric experiences. I could not put my finger on his exact musical style and I don’t even bother to, I just listen…

Andra
Well, Andra is an other story. She is just about the best women voice of her generation(22-23 years old?) and this “of her generation” is a matter of discussion. She can cover almost anything, she usually sings pop but also has a folkloric album that has a nationwide hit on this totally different style. As far as I know, her musical background includes traditional folkloric studies so she sings folkloric music better than other artists specialized on that area. Due to her natural way of being and due to the fact she is so true to music she is very loved and appreciated here, which is not something I can say about many artists in Romania.

This first song I listed below is a traditional Christmas carol here, I think that Stefan Hrusca made it famous, but I won’t bet my life on it. However, she sings it beautifully.

Also see here Silent night in a half Romanian, half English version, that may give you a better image of her voice.

Bogdan Curta
Well, let me tell you that I just don’t know who this guy is, I haven’t seen him anywhere but on this site I post songs from, a Romanian version of YouTube. He has a wonderful voice made for carols and he just puts his voice to work here and I felt that for creating a complete image of what Christmas means in Romania, I should include him here.

Ducu Bertzi

Again, a traditional folk singer, our parents music, not a traditional Christmas carols singer, he usually has some folkloric inspired songs, very popular here. He is very loved, old school music, again a man with an acoustic guitar, nothing more, but he is one of those artists able to make a whole stadium stand singing his songs while he only plays his guitar.

Cargo

I left this band at the end of my article for the following reasons: I am kind of a fan of this band, Cargo, a very famous rock band in Romania. They play hard rock, over 20 years of experience and stage life, usual stuff: 2 electric guitars, uniques screaming voice, one of the best voices in Romania (at one time, now the lead singer is not in Romania anymore but in Australia, however the band goes on with an other lead singer and still kicks ass,even if the glory period was with Kempes as lead singer). One of my personal reflection about Cargo’s ex-lead singer(Kempes): he sings be cause HE CAN! Cargo made a band tradition to come with a carol at the end of the year, composed by them. They don’t play traditional carols, only their own stuff. But I love them every time I see them on TV with this kind of stuff. When you see that Eddie like look of the lead singer(again, ex-lead singer, I still have that image in my head) and hear his scratching voice, you know Cargo is here. By the way, see more about them here.

Well, I don’t know if I managed to give you a correct image of what Christmas music means in Romania because I only listed here one traditional Christmas singer. However this is the way I see it, this small list is based on my current feeling and on what I could find on Trilulilu site.

Anyway, how is on your country? Are we different in Romania or not?

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