Music Transfer and Cultural Contact: Romanian Popular Songs in the Repertoire of the Saxons From the Secașe Valley

Abstract

"The Secașe Valley is an ethnographic area populated by different ethnic groups, the most numerous being the Romanians, Saxons, Hungarians, and Roma. Starting from field recordings of Romanian music performed by Saxon peasants from this region, we aim to contribute to the topic of inter-ethnic musical exchange in Transylvania. The songs borrowed by the Saxons from their Romanian neighbors are diverse, ranging from ritual songs, ballads, lyric songs representative for the area, to dance songs, romances, and other modern creations. We concluded that the Saxons thoroughly absorbed the style of traditional Romanian music not only from their own villages, but also from a wider area that goes past the Secașe Valley and into the neighboring regions. This allows us to claim that, as an ethnic minority, the Saxons were involved in a process of acculturation. The cultural strategy adopted by the Saxon community was the integration within the dominant culture, but without abandoning its own musical patrimony. Keywords: Transylvanian Saxons, Secașe Valley, cultural exchange, inter-ethnic relations, acculturation, Romanian folk songs, Southern Transylvania "