Vikár László: Chuvash folksongs (Budapest, 1979)
L. VIKÁR and О. BERECZKI CHUVASH FOLKSONGS Relying on their twenty years’ investigations into the folk-music and related text material of the Finno-Ugrian and Turkic nations living in the Volga-Kama region, the authors have started a serial publication of their ample results, whose surprising freshness and authenticity are guaranteed not only by their scholarly accomplishment in the fields of musicology and linguistics but also by their extensive field work in the Mari, Chuvash, Tatar, and Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics. The present volume — second after the highly successful “Cheremis Folksongs” — deals with the folk-music of Viryal and Antari Chuvash ethnic groups. The song texts, also translated into English and Hungarian, offer an approach to a uniquely beautiful folk-poesy, while the essays in English contain interesting information on the history, language and folk-traditions of the Chuvash people. The tune publication is complemented by abundant notes and various indexes to facilitate orientation in the styles and types of an ancient musical heritage. Linguists, ethnomusicologists, literary historians, folklorists, as well as those engaged in the more practical concerns of music (performing artists, composers, choir leaders, etc.) can draw profit from studying this musical tradition that has so far been hardly accessible to the reading public. AKADÉMIAI KIADÓ, BUDAPEST ISBN 963 OS 1460 S