The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #27474   Message #337825
Posted By: Charlie Baum
10-Nov-00 - 09:40 AM
Thread Name: Help: Lezginka - Translation?
Subject: RE: Help: Lezginka - Translation?
Lezginka refers to a musical piece (or other thing) from the Lezgis or Lezghis (fricative voiced g), a tribe living in the Caucasus Mountains (think Chechenia and you've got the right neighborhood). Lezghis are Islamic (which explains the words in Arabic). Russian choruses (especially the famous Don Cossack Choir) have been singing a tune based on or in the style of Lezghi war-chants.

So it's both a style of tune (or more accurately, a tune in the style of a particular ethnic/geographic region), and the title of specific tunes in that style.

--Charlie Baum