Russian Folk Music

Russian folk music comprises the traditional song and instrumental repertories of ethnic Russians, documented across an immense territory: ritual calendar songs, wedding laments, epic ballads (byliny), work songs, lyrical "drawn-out" songs and dance tunes, performed solo or in heterophonic choral polyphony. Village singing favors open-throated, ornamented delivery in close, dissonant part-writing, while instrumental practice centers on the balalaika, gusli, accordion-family bayans and garmonikas, and folk orchestras of plucked strings. The repertory was systematically collected from the nineteenth century, staged by state folk choirs in the Soviet period, and revived by ensembles such as the *Dmitri Pokrovsky Ensemble*, which reconstructed regional village styles from field research.