Nemeș-Munteanu, Nicolae

Born and lived in Cornereva [SE of Resita, county Caraș-Severin], Banat; His father was an excellent piper, who also made bagpipes; He taught Nicolae to play the Cimpoi, who started on a Carabă with a pig’s-bladder in a period when the Cimpoi still was the usual instrument for entertainment; In the 1920s the bagpipe slipped slowly into oblivion, because people favoured the clarinet, taragot, and other wind instruments, which Nicoalae started to play, as well; 30 years he led a band of 8 wind players; With the rise of the amateur art movement, however, the demand for old songs, dances and instruments returned; When he participated in 1967, with his Cimpoi, in an artistic competition that was broadcast in television, Nicolae and his pipes gained prestige in his village again; Today [i.e. 1981; ws] Cornereva has a considerable number of able bagpipers, a development that Nicolae summarised as follows: "As a kid I played the Cimpoi, and now, in old age, I have returned to it"; The Carabă of his Cimpoi has 5 fingerholes and a thumbhole; At the end of one of his recordings (➺ video) he states that he was 67 years old ("a cântat Nicolae Munteanu din Cornereva, șaizeci și șapte de ani"), which implies that the recording must have taken place in 1978 or 1979.