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106Ex. 43. Romania (Marcu, 1977:127-128)Ex. 44. Romania (Marcu, 1977:206)BulgariaBulgarian traditional polyphony is one of the best known in the world, reachingthe commercial music market in the 1980s and involving popular mega-star artists andproducers (like George Harrison). Of course, it was mostly the superb arrangements ofBulgarian composers that became extremely popular (and not the original unarrangedtraditional songs), but the Bulgarian traditional singing style with dissonant seconds andthe cutting open style of singing was the crucial element and the real star in the greatsuccess of Bulgarian traditional polyphony in the 1980s.Bulgarian polyphony is one of the best studied in the world by several generationsof Bulgarian ethnomusicologists. Starting from the end of the 19 th century, when thetraditions of vocal polyphony were brought to the attention by Angel Bukoreshtliev, andthen in 1925, when Vasil Stoin wrote about the possible Bulgarian origins of two-partsinging in Europe (at that time almost none of the other Balkan polyphonic traditionswere known) Bulgarian ethnomusicology went a long way and rightfully boasts an arrayof important works on Bulgarian traditional polyphony (Kaufman, 1963, 1968;Katzarova-Kukudova, 1962; Kaufman, Todorov, 1967, Stoin, E., 1970. Earlier part ofBulgarian scholarship was reviewed by Barbara Krader (1969).Heavily supported during the Communist regime in Bulgaria, the polyphonicsinging style with dissonant seconds became a symbol of national music in Bulgaria,although in recent “post-communist” years the popularity of other genres (for example,wedding instrumental ensembles) has increased and the popularity of choral polyphonicsinging, devoid of state support, somehow dropped (Rice, 1994). One of the possiblereasons for this could be the fact, that despite the international success and the status of anational musical symbol, the tradition of vocal polyphony is spread through only arelatively small part of Bulgaria – in the Southwesternquarter of the country. Therefore