Inchanto - Città Sottili - CD Home Page | Newest Releases More music from Italy and Tuscany

Search for music Need Help?

InChanto Città Sottili (Radici) The members of InChanto share a common passion for ancient and traditional music, developing a personal repertoire, inspired by their place of origin: Tuscany, a deeply rooted, culture, and also a land receptive to other cultures that have been absorbed and interwoven into the Tuscan sensibility. These songs do not come from formal research or philosophy, but from the desire to offer original music, rooted both in European folk, and in the musical and literary culture of the Italian Renaissance. This 'alchemic sound,' strained through a Mediterranean sensitivity, evokes atmospheres balanced between old and modern, popular and cultured, in which the texts, composed in various languages or inspired by medieval lyrics, are very important. Listen SemblansaBela Planga La Terra DisInchanto

The ensmeble says: It was born in the first half of 1990’s thanks to the common passion of the members for ancient music and for traditional music resonances. Since the very beginning, the aim was to develop a personal repertoire, inspired by the place of origin: the land of Tuscany. Tuscany as the keeper of its own, deeply rooted, culture, and also a land receptive to other cultures, being a land of passage as well as a welcoming land favoured by many, these cultures can be recognized and absorbed, and so be interwoven crossing and compared. The songs the group composes do not come therefore from a strictly philological or formal research, but from the desire to offer original music, rooted both in european folk, and in the musical and literary culture of the Italian Renaissance. This “alchemic sound”, strained through a mediterranean sensitivity, can evoke atmospheres balanced between old and modern, popular and cultured, in which the texts, composed in various languages or inspired by medieval lyrics, are very important. The journey, the ideal and the sky Borders exist in order to be crossed, as we are taught by history: to pass a border is innate to man, probably because the border itself is unnatural. To think that a barrier, chiefly imaginary, can divide “this side” from “that side” is an illusion; the clean-cut is affected; there is always something that reaches out to encompass both sides, and it cannot be divided by that border, because it has a life of its own, a properly defined identity. Then, maybe, in order to underline such a diversity, rather than talk of a border that divides and splits two different things, it would be better to talk of a bridge, of a link, that assures continuity within the difference. But even the bridge itself has its own identity: it is something defined, not pertaining to any of the two banks, since it leans – and is thus supported – by both. If we were to extend our gaze, taking it up to a higher observation-point from which the artificial borders given by men all tend to disappear, then we would never see these realities again as single particles of a mosaic: to our glance there would probably appear a nuance, where everything becomes a continuity, a developement, a blending with what lies beside it. And if “somewhere” is the opposite of “nowhere”, that must be at the end of the journey: but the journey can only exist as a synthesis between space and time, in fact time cannot be a journey without any place to cross over, nor space can – in turn – be a journey without the time it takes for the crossing over. Indeed, sometimes they contaminate each other, they can even confound themselves. The careful traveller, who gets the sense of the places he is visiting, is able to travel in space as well as in time, and his quest can therefore end, regardless, after so many miles or so many years. Or, it can have no end, because the act itself of searching requires labour, will-power and attention, but not always does it yield a reward. And thus man keeps on searching, often with a restless forward motion, turning an anxious eye towards the horizon so as to spot a place, a way of being, an idea, or a condition that he can claim as his own. But the quest for the ideal, for the end of the path, for the place in which to sit and rest, has to pass through the many nuances of this world. You will never understand which is your appointed place, the ideal town which belongs to you only, and to which you always seemed to belong, unless you cross many, many places, sometimes even journeying for the journey’s sake. And to every place for which you set sail, you’ll dedicate the careful sight of your soul, you will prick-up the ear of your heart. You will embrace it, if only for a little while, searching for harmonies, communities, links that will eventually fit in with yours. If you won’t find them, you will keep on the quest, without failing to draw a lesson, because each place can teach you something, even though it may not be your ideal. And us, travellers of a never-ending quest, we keep on wandering between space and time with our poor control instruments, often driven by the wind of chance, sometimes setting out the prow towards shores which could turn out – so they murmur – to be the Promised Land. But if you proceed slowly, if you stop to ask the lands you encouter the true sense of their being in the world, it may verily happen that somebody will sit beside you, will join you along the road and, while still walking, shall unfold his story. If you listen to him, you will journey within the journey: and so you’ll find yourself supporting a Provençal poet longing for the face of his beloved, or you will follow the fourious steps of a Spanish guerrillero whose only weapon is the ideal he nurtures; or you may find yourself comforting a girl, nay a woman who is still a-waiting the return of her lover; or you may suffer the torrential loquacity of an idler who harbours a craze for poetry and a dread for married life. And if at the end of each story, you will raise your eyes on your unexpected travelling companion, then you will discover, not surprisingly, that, after all, he will resemble you, because him, too, like the rest of us, is also travelling the world over seeking its continuously, evolving, nuance. But, worried as we are about our uncertain steps and the ground on which we thread, anxiously observing the ungrateful waters that we are ploughing in our everyday lives, we run the risk of losing sight of the sky. But you must always look up to the sky, you have to listen to it, to perceive it even through the looming clouds, if you wish to proceed without losing your thread. Because it is up there that you can find the unity in the multiple, the whole picture, the synthesis. And hence, the sense of it all ... Moreover, the sky is identical for everyone, everywere..

Other recordings you might like: Bruno Bonhoure Se canta que recante: Chants des moments perdus en Massif Central Tandarandan Epata