Italy: Folk Music of Sicily

Traditional Sicilian culture, from its language to various coded systems of myth and ritual, from its techniques of expression to their practiced forms, is the result of a stratification of elements attributable to each of the diverse ethnic stocks which in turn dominated this great island, located in the centre of the Mediterranean (Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans, Byzantines, Islamic Berbers, Normans, Swabians, Frenchmen, Spaniards). The forms and styles of its traditional music, affected by these processes of hybrid growth, were also in one way or another marked by the archetypes of Sicily’s successive civilisations, as “People listened to Greek nomos, the Byzantine hymn, the Arab maqam, the courtly troubadour ballad and the lied of the Minnesänger down to the opulent polyphony of the 16th-17th century!” (Ottavio Tiby, Studio introduttivo to the Corpus di musiche popolari siciliane by Alberto Favara, Palermo 1957).

This CD presents an anthology of the most remarkable vocal and instrumental typologies of traditional Sicilian music.

Tracklist:
1. Tammurinata
2. Quatrìgghia
3. A figghia svinturata
4. Jolla
5. A liggenna dû friscalettu
6. Marranzanata
7. Bbaccillunisa
8. Carrittera
9. Tarantella
10. Mazurka
11. Sunata
12. Si Ddiu pisci finu mi facissi
13. Spagnola
14. Ciuminisana
15. Tarantella
16. Carrittera
17. Tarantella
18. Carrittera
19. Ciaramiddata
20. Bballittu
21. Santaluciota
22. Bballittu
23. Stanotti cci passai malanuttata
24. Valzer
25. Carrittera - Sturnellu
26. Tarantella
27. Sturnelli
28. Pasturali
29. Tataratà