Ion Petre Stoican was a Romani-Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

n violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

ist, a lăutar

Lautari

The Romanian word Lăutar denotes a class of traditional musicians. Most often, and by tradition, Lăutari are members of a professional clan of Romani musicians , also called Ţigani lăutari. The term is derived from Lăută the name of a string instrument...

(performer of traditional music, especially for weddings).

Life

Originally from Olteniţa

Oltenita

Olteniţa is a city in Romania in the Călăraşi County on the left bank of the Argeş River where its waters reach the Danube through a network of streams and marshes.Oltenita stands just across the Danube from the Bulgarian city of Tutrakan.-History:...

, Stoican was related to celebrated violinist Ion Nomol. Sometime before 1965, during the regime of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej

Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej

Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was the Communist leader of Romania from 1948 until his death in 1965.-Early life:Gheorghe was the son of a poor worker, Tănase Gheorghiu, and his wife Ana. Gheorghiu-Dej joined the Communist Party of Romania in 1930...

, after observing strange behavior by a man in an audience for whom he was performing somewhere on the Black Sea

Black Sea

The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...

 coast, Stoican helped in arresting an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 spy. He was offered a reward of a car or a house, but requested that his reward be to make a record. The result was a 4-song EP

Extended play

An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...

 on Electrecord

Electrecord

Electrecord is a Romanian record label founded in 1932. It served as the only record label in Communist Romania. It was then transformed into the national recording company, following the centralization-oriented socialist doctrine...

, backed by a band put together by the record label for the purpose. However, the record was not a commercial success. After a brief attempt at being a lăutar in Bucharest

Bucharest

Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....

 (where he lacked family connections), he retreated to Constanţa

Constanta

Constanța is the oldest extant city in Romania, founded around 600 BC. The city is located in the Dobruja region of Romania, on the Black Sea coast. It is the capital of Constanța County and the largest city in the region....

, where he was more successful.

Following the death of his wife in the mid-1970s, Stoican decided to try Bucharest again. In 1977, he managed to make another record on Electrecord, this time an LP

Gramophone record

A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...

 with a band of his own choosing. Stoican and trumpeter Costel Vasilescu, taking full advantage of Stoican's prestige as a spy-catcher, if not as a violinist, pulled together an all-star band drawn from the Bucharest music scene of the time. Among others, the album features cimbalom player Toni Iordache

Toni Iordache

Toni Iordache was a Romani-Romanian lăutar and one of the most famous cimbalom players in the world. He was nicknamed the God of the Cimbalom and Paganini of the cimbalom.-Early life:...

, who was responsible for many of the arrangements, and accordionist Ionica Minune

Ionică Minune

Ionică Minune is a Romani-Romanian accordionist. He is one of the most respected accordionists in the world and is widely considered the greatest accordionist by fellow lăutari.-Life and career:...

. Other than Stoican and Iordache, the 14-piece band were credited only as a "People's Orchestra" rather than by name on the original Electrecord release, but a band photo on the album has allowed the line-up to be definitively identified.

Deanne Sole describes it as "the kind of music he would have used to impress people who might hire him for their festivities", featuring hora

Hora

Hora is a type of circle dance originating in the Balkans but also found in other countries. The name is cognate to the Greek χορός : 'dance' which is cognate with the ancient Greek art form of χορεία; see Chorea. The original meaning of the Greek word χορός may have been 'circle'...

dances and other music typical for wedding receptions, more restrained than "the Romani who were recorded more recently, in the post-Ceauşescu

Nicolae Ceausescu

Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...

 era", "indoor" music, "country dances urbanised by streets and walls," but still with "the taut, sweet quality that makes Romanian folk violinists so compelling." Besides horas, the album includes briu, sîrba, and geamparale dance numbers.

The album, recorded when Stoican was already in his late forties, proved to be his belated ticket to prominence among Bucharest lăutari.

German record producer Henry Ernst of Asphalt Tango Records

Asphalt Tango Records

Asphalt Tango Records is a Berlin-based record label specialising in Balkan Gypsy music and East European rock, psych-folk, cabaret and electronic music.-Origins:Asphalt Tango Production was formed by Henry Ernst and Helmut Neumann in 1997...

, who first heard Stoican's 1977 LP in 1986 in a small-town record store in Transylvania

Transylvania

Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...

, began negotiations with Electrecord in 2002 to re-release it. The tapes proved difficult to find, but the album was finally released in 2005 as a CD entitled Ion Petre Stoican: Sounds from a bygone age, Volume. 1.

Discography

• 4 track EP, originally released on Electrecord, c. 1966, name unknown
• album, originally released as an LP on Electrecord, c. 1977, ST-EPE 02166 'Ion Petre Stoican muzică lăutărească', re-released 2005 as a CD on Asphalt Tango Records
  Asphalt Tango Records
  Asphalt Tango Records is a Berlin-based record label specialising in Balkan Gypsy music and East European rock, psych-folk, cabaret and electronic music.-Origins:Asphalt Tango Production was formed by Henry Ernst and Helmut Neumann in 1997...
  
  , as Ion Petre Stoican: Sounds from a bygone age, Volume. 1.

Credits for Ion Petre Stoican: Sounds from a bygone age, Volume. 1

Musicians

Ion Petre Stoican - violin

Nicu Sapteluni - violin

Marian Grigore - violin

Matei Niculescu - violin

Mihai "Rita" Gheorghe - double bass

Fane Negrila - doublebass

Ionica Minune - accordion

Viorel Fundament - accordion

Guta "Toi" Vasile - violin

Toni Iordache - cymbalom

Mieluta Bibescu - clarinet

Grigore Vasile - clarinet

Costel Vasilescu - trumpet

Nicu Manole - violin

Tracks

1. Hora lui Sile 03:33
2. Hora de la Constanţa 02:39
3. Moşule, te-aş întreba 04:36
4. Hora de la Olteniţa 02:37
5. Ia-ia-ţi mireasă, ziua buna 08:33
6. Hora lui Mihalea 02:32
7. Chiar dacă dau de necaz 02:45
8. Melodia lui Sile 02:15
9. Hora lăutareasca 03:11
10. Briu din Olteniţa 01:45
11. Hora de joc de la Olteniţa 01:39
12. Hora 02:40
13. Sîrba de joc din Constanţa 02:35
14. Hora de la Luceni 01:29
15. Sîrba 02:08