CITARELLA Nando & Tamburi del Vesuvio
Magna Mater

AFMCD 147

8032050011066
Alfa Music
Italia

 

Il CD
Many of us sometimes find ourselves thinking, daydreaming and travelling, drifting away from the problems of everyday life and reawakening the hidden Ulysses within us, so that we can start to sing ancient melodies that still rise slowly from the depths, and that have been rooted for generations in the most sensitive areas of our memory. These may be litanies, lullabies, serenades, ballads, romances, a stesa and a fronna (songs of satire and of protest) and thanks to them, as well as through the ritual and therapeutic dances that have been combined and merged with folk customs and ceremonies, we are able to rediscover the sense of mankind’s endless journey in search of harmony and equilibrium with the Universe. And so it is that within our primordial memories we encounter the Greek-Balkan, Arab-Andalusian, Franco-Provençal traditions and cultures of identity and belonging which have affected the traditions and the music of the centre and south of Italy, leaving various traces and nuances. Like Ulysses, we come ashore in distant lands to find the rhythms and accents handed down by travelers in the Mediterranean area from time immemorial, that unite the cultures that have flourished here up to this day. Through song, dance, the word and the gesture we want to guide you in this world of traditions that have belonged to us for centuries and that we often refuse to acknowledge or recognize, abandoning them to the capricious winds of time that blow upon these ancient memories of our identity, with the risk of dispersing them or losing them.
IL DVD
The voices, sounds and rhythms of the sea, travelling from the Arab-Andalusian culture of Seville, which was a "gateway to the East", and drifting to the other side of the Atlantic, where we find the Latin-American resonances of the Spaniards, finally come home and disembark in Naples, "the gateway to the Mediterranean". Many sacred and ritual elements of the folk traditions and cultures that we encounter on this journey across the seas have their common denominator in the drum, which - although its shape and sound may change - still today has a key role in the rite and the celebration. Nando CITARELLA (a scholar and performer of this instrument), together with the musicians and singers of the Tamburi del Vesuvio (Drums of Vesuvius), has decided to realize this musical video-project in order to celebrate his thirty years of work and research in this field. Based on lyrics and music (both traditional and of their own composition) they re-elaborate the encounter between these metrical rhythmic and magical-ritual forms, thereby creating a "pastiche" or a "Divertimento in Music" which unites and combines a wide range of cultures (with all their various differences and similarities).