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Alan Lomax's Italian Treasury
A series of recordings made in Italy in the 1950s and 1960s that explores the surviving folk music of many of the countries richest musical traditions

"This is anything but the commercial clichés of "Amore" and "O Sole Mio." Indeed, what Lomax and ethnomusicologist Diego Carpitella documented astounded folklorists back in Rome, and helped to forge a more comprehensive understanding of Italian folk music... Recorded in 1954-55, the Treasury is sweeping in range and conception..." - Michael Stone, RootsWorld

cd cover Italian Treasury: the recordings of Lomax and Carpitella
Liguria: Baiardo and Imperia
$16.99

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.


cd cover Italian Treasury: the recordings of Lomax and Carpitella
Liguria: Polyphony of Ceriana
$16.99

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.


cd cover Italian Treasury: The Trallaleri of Genoa
$16.98

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."

Listen: "Il cacciatore" (excerpt)


cd cover Italian Treasury: Emilia-Romagna
$16.98

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.


cd cover Italian Treasury: Sicily
$16.98

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.

Listen!


cd cover Italian Treasury: Calabria
$16.98

The work chants of tuna fishermen of Vibo Valentia, the cries of the swordfishermen of Scilla; women, men, and children singing songs of work and celebration, of love and scorn; tarantellas; and lullabies; music for bagpipe, tambourine, and drums. This album returns us to a fascinating and unimaginable universe of sounds, noises, atmosphere, and feeling, tied to work and daily and ceremonial activity, recorded in Calabria in 1954 by Alan Lomax and Diego Carpitella.

Listen!


cd cover Italian Treasury: Abruzzo
$16.98

"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.

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