[citation needed] Béla Bartók discovered the doina in Northern Transylvania in 1912 and he believed it to be uniquely Romanian.
Until the first half of the 20th century, both lăutari[5] and klezmer musicians[6] were recorded using a taksim as an introduction to a tune.
[8] The improvisation is done on a more or less fixed pattern (usually a descending one), by stretching the notes in a rubato-like manner, according to the performer's mood and imagination.
The peasant doina is a non-ceremonial type of song and is generally sung in solitude, having an important psychological action: to "ease one's soul" (de stâmpărare in Romanian).
Doinas are lyrical in aspect and their common themes are melancholy, longing (dor), erotic feelings, love for nature, complaints about the bitterness of life or invocations to God to help ease pain, etc.
In 1976 the BBC religious television programme The Light of Experience took Gheorge Zamfir’s recording of "Doina De Jale" as its theme tune.