Italian Treasury / Lomax Collection - The Trallaleri of Genoa - $16.98
(cdRoots# roun-1802)
The longshoremen of Genoa perform in the exciting, full-throated, improvised style known as trallalero, a five-voiced male polyphony found only along the coast of Liguria. The parts (from high to low) being: falsetto, tenor, chitarra ("guitar"), baritone, and bass. Alan Lomax considered the trallalero singers '. . . the most perfect choristers in western Europe.'

Italian Treasury / Lomax Collection - Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany - $16.98
(cdRoots# roun-1804)
Alan Lomax's historic 1954 recordings from the mountains of Emilia-Romagna. Songs of farming, ballads of partisan struggle in World War II, songs of the women rice workers, dance music, age-old new year's songs, and excerpts from unique May rituals redolent of the poetry of the Italian Renaissance, recorded just as industrialization was forever changing the fabric of Northern Italian rural life.

Italian Treasury / Lomax Collection - Sicily - $16.99
(cdRoots# roun-1808)
The voices and instruments of peasants, fishermen, shepherds, salt and sulfur miners, cart drivers, storytellers, and strolling players bring us murder ballads, dance music, lullabies, and a tale of battling knights: songs of love, work, and devotion connected to the yearly round. Recorded in the field in the 1950s, this historic document restores to us the colorful and dramatic universe of sound of the Sicilian past.

Italian Treasury / Lomax Collection - Abruzzo - $17.99
(cdRoots# roun-1811)
Love begins with fine singing, says a line from a song from Abruzzo, a mountainous region of independent people in south-central Italy. Choral songs, a shepherd's leave-taking, holiday and alms-seeking rites, songs for work and courtship, lullabies, a nonsense incantation, funeral laments, narrative ballads, and dance music vividly evoke a vanishing rural life when everyday activity was accompanied by song.

Italian Treasury / Lomax Collection - Liguria: Baiardo and Imperia - $17.99
(cdRoots# roun-1816)
Historic recordings featuring the spectacular vocal polyphony of western Liguria, a region of ports and hill towns, rich in folkloric traditions. This CD includes sung narratives, including selections from the remarkable A barca ceremonial ballad cycle of Baiardo, as well as instrumental dances from the port city of Imperia. Italian Treasury In 1954, Alan Lomax and Diego Carpitella set out on a yearlong voyage of discovery that resulted in an exhaustive documentation of Italian folk music.

Italian Treasury / Lomax Collection - Liguria: Polyphony of Ceriana - $16.99
(cdRoots# roun-1817)
Historic 1954 recordings from Alan Lomax's journey to Liguria's western Riviera, featuring performances by the Compagnia Sacco from the village of Ceriana: a unique and splendid vocal polyphony distinct from, and yet as exciting as, the Genoese trallalero. Italian Treasury In 1954, Alan Lomax and Diego Carpitella set out on a yearlong voyage of discovery that resulted in an exhaustive documentation of Italian folk music.

Lomax Collection - Italian Treasury: Lombardia - $16.99
(cdRoots# roun-1871)
Lomax and Diego Carpitella's 1954 recordings from Lombardy cover a lot of territory, folk styles and traditions - from wedding and carnival songs to Italian chorals of Child ballads, the calls of songbird hunters, and a panpipe orchestra playing marches, waltzes, and Verdi.

Lomax Recordings - Italian Treasury: Piemonte and Valle D'Aosta, - $16.99
(cdRoots# roun-1807)
Songs of love and war, marriage and jail, emigration and alms seeking, ballads and sung debates, dances performed by accordions, tambourine, and brass band: this CD includes a generous selection of historic and sometimes astonishing original field recordings from Piedmont and Valle d'Aosta in northeastern Italy, recorded in 1954.