DEATH IS THE REAPER OVER THE WORLD: HUNGARIAN FUNERAL MUSIC
**** 5 stars

PAN 2106/07 

The world-music racks in CD stores tell a pretty depressing tale these days: the message is that, if it doesn't sell fast, the shops won't stock it. So out goes anything remotely serious or arcane: those labels - mostly from France, Germany and Holland - which specialise in field recordings don't get a look-in. Which is all the more reason to celebrate when they do. 

This week's double-CD from the Dutch company Pan Records is a remarkable thing. Hungarian Funeral Music doesn't sound like a barrel of laughs, nor is it: 74 tracks of mostly a capella singing is not to be devoured at a single sitting. But the instrumental tracks are a delight - you can almost hear what Bartok did with such music when he found it on his travels in Transylvania - with violins to the fore. And there are surprises, most notably the parody-songs, and the laments-for-the-dead which accompanied young brides from their parental home to the church. 

In traditional Hungary, death was very much a part of life, and was celebrated as such. Some of these recordings were made on wax cylinders in 1916, and most no later than the 1960s. This music has now all but died out, and is all the more treasurable as a result.

reviewed by Michael Church
The Scotsman
www.scotsman.com/music/CD-reviews.3587820.jp
Published Date: 07 December 2007.