Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares

Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares (translated as "The Mystery of Bulgarian Voices") is a compilation album of modern arrangements of Bulgarian folk songs featuring, among others,[1] the Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Vocal Choir, with soloists Yanka Rupkina, Kalinka Valcheva and Stefka Sabotinova; and the Filip Kutev Ensemble.[2]

The album was the result of fifteen years of work by Swiss ethnomusicologist and producer Marcel Cellier and was released in 1975 on his small Disques Cellier label. Some of the recordings he made himself; others were taken from the archives of Radio Sofia.[2]

In the 1980s, Ivo Watts-Russell (founder of 4AD) was introduced to the choir from a third or fourth generation audio cassette lent to him by Peter Murphy, singer from the band Bauhaus. He became thoroughly entranced by the music, and tracked down and licensed the recordings from Cellier.[3] So in 1986, it was re-released on the 4AD label in the UK, in 1987 the Nonesuch label in the US and on the Philips label in other territories.

Subsequent albums were released with similar titles: Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, Volume 2 [1988], which won a Grammy Award in 1989;[4] Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, Volume 3 [1990]; and Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, Volume 4 [1998].