27 - The world according to the Roma

Summary

A recent recording by Ensemble Caprice insists that the entire collection is largely music played by Roma, or what they call 'Gypsy Music'. The only literal trace of Roma in the collection is the word 'Czigany'. Writing about the ways in which African American music came to be considered exquisitely expressive to white audiences, sociologist Jon Cruz has coined the term 'ethnosympathy' to describe what happens when progressive attitudes regarding a particular group are combined with romantic ideas about them, especially their suffering. With a small Romani population, the Roma played a series of familiar roles in Czech society that can be articulated by comparing Červený and Hertán's "Cigán" with a more famous piece written around the same time, Janáček's Diary of One Who Vanished. The most famous appearance of the Auschwitz song occurs in the film LatchoDrom, a staged documentary telling the musical story of the Romani journey from India to Spain.