Competences in Italo-Albanian Multipart Song during the last 60 Years

Oliver GerlachJune 2016

1. Introduction: Between monophony and simple strategies of multipart singing Scholars concerned about the structural analysis of the particular form of Arbëresh polyphony agree that it has not only interferential diaphony as we know it from certain regions of Bulgaria (like Shopen or Pirin), but also other forms of interaction which are basically between two voices, even in three-part songs. Often common intervals like thirds and sixths are intoned in a rather dissonant way, so that they are only resolved in counter motion, either by moving away into octaves, fourths, or fifths, or by moving closer into unisons, fourths, or fifths. The consonances seem to be defined by a rather “Pythagorean” intonation of the intervals.1 Another possible approach would be a comparative study of Albanian and Italo-Albanian forms of multipart singing.2

My strategy here is a third one to understand multipart singing as heterophonic way of singing modal monophony. Sometimes certain recordings seem to document multipart singing, but they can understood as well as a way to sing unison, but some singers create structural units by cutting their voices with an articulation which strikes different registers, by parallel voices or temporary bourdons which emphasise certain modal degrees.

In 1961, the linguist and dialect expert Giuseppe T. Gangale recorded in the village San Nicola dell'Alto (Shën Nikoghi të Llartit, Marchesato di Crotone) which tells us that multipart song starts with modal monody and develops out of it.3

Sound ex. 1: field recording by Giuseppe T. Gangale 1961

Transcription and translation of the text by Gianni Belluscio: Ngë del ill e mos ngë del[ŋgɔː ˌdeliˈxeː moːs ŋgɔˈdeːl̥əә]The star does not rise and, if it does not,

Ngë bën dritë e mos ngë bën[ŋgɔː ˌbɔn dɾiˈteː moːs ŋgɔ ˈbɔːnəә]it does not spend light and, if it does not,

Se na kemi kush na bën[sɛːː ˌna keˈmiː ˌkuːʃt naˈbɔːːɲəә]because we do have those who will do it.

Shtatë krushq e shtatë kunetë[ˈʃtaːtəә ˌkɾuʃˈk eː ˈʃtaːt kuˈnɛːtəә]Seven parents and seven kinsmen

1 In his fundamental study, Innocenzo De Gaudio emphasised that even tripart-songs are rather organised as two two-part interaction with one voice as main reference, while there are fewer interactions between the second and third singer. De Gaudio, I., 1993. Analisi delle tecniche polifoniche in un repertorio polivocale di tradizione orale: i vjersh  delle comunità albanofone della Calabria, Modena Italia: Mucchi.

2 Ahmedaja, A., 2009. Music in the Churches of Arbëreshë in Southern Italy and Sicily I. In I. Moody & T. Takala-Roszczenko, hrsg. Composing and chanting in the Orthodox Church: Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Orthodox Church Music University of Joensuu, Finland 4-10 June 2007. Joensuu, S. 98–114. Pano, P., 2003. Il canto. In D. Guagliardi, hrsg. La diversità arbëresh: La letteratura, il canto, il libro. La diversità arbëresh. Cosenza: Cerbone, 199–236.

3 Belluscio, G.M.G., 1998. Voci e canti degli Albanesi della Calabria Media (Provincie di Catanzaro e Crotone) registrato da Giuseppe Tommaso Gangale 1998. Aufl., Cosenza: SYSCAL; 3 CD ROMs; CD ROM no. 3.

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Të na thonjën me shëndetë[tɔː ˌna θɔɲiˈnɔː ˈmiː ʃɔnˈdeːtəә]who tell us: "Cheers!"

Ex. 1 transcription into neumes and staff

During the third repetion, the short melodic vers is sung in two parts, even if this multipart is mainly defined by the bourdon function. This strategy is basically motivated by the modal structure of the Phrygian melos (or mesos tetartos, only that the microtonal intonation is not as low). The articulation of ornaments are most sufficiently transcribed into neumes.

In my experience multipart singing is often not perceived as such by singers within an oral tradition. They simply perform out of their memory in singing in multipart is usually just one aspect during the performance. As such a multipart performance, even a rather complex one, originally comes out of improvisation, out the musical structure given by a traditional song.

Arbëresh multipart (polivocalità, musica a più parti) as a kind of Balkan polyphony suitable for the Albanian ethnic marker has been regarded by some colleagues as a genre of its own called vjersh or vjesh.4 In fact, there are many genres, where this characteristic form of multipart can be found, especially stornelli (love songs), canti di sdegno (songs of discord), canti nuziali (wedding songs), kalimeret (processional songs during the Holy week), vallja (a kind of patriotic dance which involves two groups of singers crossing each other in one street) and other processional songs etc. and like in Albania, these songs are also performed during informal meetings and feasts, when friends, neighbours or relatives meet each other.

2. The decline of local traditions documented in recordings since the 1950s Since 1950s field recordings made in Arbëresh communities allow a study of competences in multipart singing. A list of collections which were available to me and are the basis of my study.

Table: list with recordings with documents of multipart interaction

1952 Eric Hamp (linguist) Barile (Basilicata, Vulture), Vaccarizzo Albanese, San Giorgio e San Cosmo Albanese (Calabria, Valle del Crati)

4 In fact vjersh means simply verse, in some villages it means a particular form of multipart singing, in Lungro it means songs sung with bagpipe.

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Aprile 1954 Diego Carpitella (technician RAI) Marchesato di Crotone, Valle del Crati (North Calabria), San Costantino Albanese (Basilicata, Parco Pollino)

1959 Giuseppe T. Gangale (linguist) Falconara Albanese, San Martino de Finita (Calabria)

1961-1962 Giuseppe T. Gangale Vena di Maida, Marcedusa, Andali, Caraffa di Catanzaro (Catanzaro), Carfizzi, Pallagorio, San Nicola dell'Alto (Marchesato di Crotone)

August 1965 Rocco Laitano Civita

1971-1972 Antonio Bellusci (Papas) San Costantino Albanese (Basilicata, Parco Pollino)

1971-1974 Giuseppe T. Gangale Additional field research

May 1977 Antonio Belluscio & Vincenzo Bellizzi Kalimeret of San Basile (Calabria, Parco Pollino)

1974-1982 Beniamin Kruta (anthropologist) & Italo Elmo (independent)

Northern Calabria

1983 Antonello Ricci, Roberta Tuzzi Civita

1983-1984 Nino De Gaudio (ethnomusicologist) Civita, Spezzano A, Santa Sofia d'Epiro, San Demetrio Corone

1989 Nino De Gaudio San Giorgio Albanese

1992 Vincenzo la Vena (ethnomusicologist) Kalimeret of Spezzano Albanese

1992 Nicola Scaldaferri (ethnomusicologist) Concert of singers from San Costantino, San Paolo Albanese at Royaumont (France)

1997 Pietro Sassu & studenti (ethnomusicologist)

Concert arbëresh at Maratea (6 September, Basilicata)

2002 Gianni Belluscio (linguist) Rehearsal kalimeret of Maria Laurito's choir (Spezzano Albanese), official CD released by M. Laurito in 2008

2002 Nicola Scaldaferri & students of Potenza

various protagonists of Basilicata (Senise, Tricarico,)

2003 Pirro Pani (musician) kalimeret without specifying place and date of the transcribed recordings

2006 Oliver Gerlach (ethnomusicologist) Meeting of Arbëresh teachers at San Demetrio Corone

2007 Nicola Scaldaferri film project with Rosella Schillaci

August 2007 Vincenzo la Vena Initiative for Arbëresh multipart singing (San Martino di Finita)

2011 Nicola Scaldaferri & Emilia Conforti Kalimeret of San Benedetto Ullano

2012-2016 Emilia Conforti, Gianni Belluscio, Oliver Gerlach

Systematic field research in North Calabria and Basilicata

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In general, there is no linear development, but just a general tendency of decline, which was mainly established under the effect of globalisation and a misled policies at the ministry of education who completely failed during the Berlusconi regime. Since 2007, dialect lessons have been officially suspended from teaching programmes (obviously to save money, but these measures rather caused a loss, because many local communities lost support funds since they do not sufficiently care about ethnic minorities). On the other hand, the year 2007 was also a period of remarkable private initiatives which did react to dramatic changes caused by careless politicians.

With respect to local traditions of one community, every tradition has to go through abrupt changes, especially when the responsibility comes to the next generation of singers.5 With respect to the problematic we can observe, that recordings made of performances do not always prove, that the earlier recording document more competences among the singers, but without any doubt they prove that certain songs disappear and usually the repertoire of songs becomes smaller, like for example a second multipart vallja of Frascineto. It was first recorded by Diego Carpitella in 1954, and later recorded by Italo Elmo.6 Today only another vallja very close to the one of Civita is performed instead, as I could realise doing my own field research.7

Fig. 1: of Vallja at Frascineto (the two groups crossing each other)

5 These conflicts have been described into the very detail for the tradition of San Basile to sing the kalimeret on Maundy Thursday vespers. We also observed that the meter changed with respect to a historical field recording of 1977 and the living tradition, we could document during the last years. Belluscio, G., Conforti, E., Gerlach, O., 2015. Multipart Singing in Paraliturgical Music (Kalimere) in the Calabrian Arbëresh Communities of San Benedetto Ullano and San Basile. In «Multipart Music: Individuals and Educated People in Traditional Multipart Music Practices» Proceedings of the Third Symposium of the ICTM Study Group for Multipart Music, Budapest, 2013. Budapest: Research Center of Humanities, 142–169.

6 An extract of the recording has been only published on my web page with the kind permission by Italo, but the date is obviously later, during the 1970s or 1960s at earliest: http://ensembleison.de/calabria/archivioElmo.html.

7 Ricci, A., 1993. Quelques aspects du chant polyphonique traditionnel en Calabre. Cahiers d’ethnomusicologie. Anciennement Cahiers de musiques traditionnelles, 6, 87–98. Available at: http://ethnomusicologie.revues.org/1402. Antonello Ricci and Roberta Tuzzi documented one vallja of Civita which comes very close to the vallja sung at Frascineto today, without performing the second explicitly dedicated to Skanderbeg. The vallje of Frascineto in 2015 was also documented in a TV documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crf_2ZsdovM.

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3. Reviving a local multipart tradition Arbëresh came quite surprisingly on the the red list of seriously endangered languages. In 2006 I recorded the teachers, after Gianni Belluscio had invited me on a trip to San Demetrio Corone, where he used to meet school teachers to discuss questions of orthography and grammar. I did not understand that this meeting was one of the last, because all these teachers became unemployed the next year. Only years later, when I met dialect experts at the Sapienza in Rome, I realised that the situation had dramatically changed. They proposed projects to study the serious consequences concerning language competences, and only after discussions in my field, academics started to talk frankly about certain problems they obviously did avoid to talk, since it put in question their whole work. Studying now musical competences of multipart singing ten years after my first recording, I realise that there were many different initiatives which also cared about the musical part of this world heritage.

3.1. Maria Laurito's initiative for Spixana One of them started already 2002 in Spezzano Albanese (Spixana).8 Maria Laurito had studied the texts of kalimeret, but certain linguists coming from the field did not trust her redaction of the texts. Nevertheless, listening to one of the kalimera, I understood immediately, that the melody was familiar to me. I already knew it from a field recording made by Vincenzo la Vena in 1992.9

Sound ex. 2:

recording: Vincenzo La Vena, 18 March 1992

singers:

Cosmina & Adelina Spingola

transcription: Gianni Bellusciooj o si t’ e- e bënj oj- oj e mje- era oj!oj o si t’ e- e bënj oj- oj o mjera u oj!

u pa ti bir o si ng’ mënd o rronjoj o gjith kta- a pen oj- penet o- oj’sh ka t’ m’ i shkonjoj o gjith kta- a pen oj- pen e kush ka t’ m’ i shkonj

u pa tij bir o si ng’ mënd o shihemandonjë- a varr oj- varr o ve- ete t’ mbullihemandonjë- a varr oj- varr ve- ete t’ mbullihem

If we study the texture of this multipart song, we could characterise it as a kind of parallel thirds, but the rhythm change the movement between the voices in a way, that the multipart technique is not a parallel movement like in a ghymel.10

Sound ex. 3:

recording: Gianni Belluscio (2002)

8 Laurito, M., 2002. Pasiona e Zotit Krisht-La Passione di Cristo Signore, Corigliano Calabro (CD supplement).9 La Vena, V. & Borsetta, M.P. hrsg., 2001. Organi e organisti in Calabria: Contributi per lo studio dell’organo e delle

tradizioni musicali religiose, Rossano Calabro: Associazione musicale „Il Cerchio“. The CD supplement (track 10) had just one of the kalimeret of Spezzano, documented by an own recording he made in 1992. It came as a surprise that this purely vocal paraliturgical dialect chant was included in a study about the local organs of Calabrian churches.

10 A structure which was often analysed by Nino De Gaudio.

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singers:

Rosa Galizia, Gilda Spingola, Rosina Spingola

Ex. 2 transcription of the multipart kalimera "Oj bir" of Spixana (1992)

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If we listen to the official recording made by Maria Laurito in 2008, we understand that the singers she worked with belonged to the same family than those singers of the earlier recording. Their way of singing the kalimera became, on the one hand, frozen, although it also clearly proves the great vocal talent behind this work. On the other hand, it was applied to more strophes than those documented by La Vena's recording.

We wondered, what became out of this local tradition of Spixana to sing the kalimeret, since they were not performed during the last years, we were a little bit worried. Nonetheless, Gianni Belluscio could finally record a new generation of singers who performed the kalimera in a quite different way, far from the perfection of the Spingola family, but also open to pass the tradition on in the deliberate way it needs.

Sound ex. 4: field recording Gianni Belluscio (Good Friday 2016)

3.2. The tradition of San Costantino Albanese Another very important initiative is a film about San Costantino and San Paolo Albanese by Rossella Schillaci, which was released in 2007.11 In this portrait about these two villages at the Northern periphery of the Parco nazionale di Pollino (Basilicata) Nicola Scaldaferri was involved, an Arbëresh born at San Constantino, who has today one of the few posts of Italian professors of ethnomusicology.12

During the early 1990s he did his own research explicitly dedicated to Arbëresh polyphony and he organised a tournee for two local groups of female singers, and published a concert given at the Abbaye Royaumont (near Paris) in 2005. Thanks to Nicola Scaldaferri, the film also republished one of the most interesting field recordings made by Diego Carpitella in his village, which unfortunately was not published by Tuzzi and Ricci in 200613, just because this village is not located in Calabria.14

The film motivated young ladies of the vilage to dress up as brides according the traditional way, as the old generation remembers it. The moment, when the bride prepares for her wedding, is traditionally the occasion to sing wedding songs. One of them is coming from the off and it is Carpitella's recording, which is so less known, despite it is probably one of the most important documents of Arbëresh multipart singing made during the 1950s.

Sound ex. 5: Bride song (San Costantino Albanese)

recording: Diego Carpitella (23 April 1954)

singers:

Maria Giuseppa Dottore, Teresa Di Domenico, Celestina Cionga

This recording is the only example I know which documents interferential diaphony thanks to the very fast movements and glissandi in certain passages which precede the Phrygian multipart cadences. The basic strategy of the multipart interaction is parallel thirds, but their intonation is of particular interest. Especially major seconds are often intoned, but in this case it is excessively long, and both voices jump from the major second (C—D) into an interval hard to define between a slightly too high intoned D and F:

11 Schillaci, R., Vjesh / Canto, documentary 2007: http://www.azulfilm.com/vjesh-singing/.12 He founded the "Laboratorio di Etnomusicologia e Antropologia Visuale" (LEAV) at the University of Milan:

http://www.leav.unimi.it/direzione.html.13 Ricci, A. & Tuzzi, R. hrsg., 2006. Musica arbëreshe in Calabria: Le registrazioni di Diego Carpitela ed Ernesto de

Martino (1954), Roma: Squilibri.14 The online archive of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome offers an overview of 86 recordings registered as

«raccolta 22», which belong to a journey from Marchesato di Crotone, Valle del Crati, and finally San Costantino Albanese made in just one week 10 days between 15 and 23 April 1954.

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Ex. 3a: transcription of the bride song «Oj se ti mëm e mëma im’»

Ex. 3b: spectogramme of the interferential diaphony

The particular vocal technique of multipart interaction which can be classified as interferential diaphony, is that the voices are less fixed for a precise intonation of these intervals (a sonority which is especially used in Orthodox liturgical chant, when the intervals of a melos are intoned as intervals with the base degree sung by the ison singers). Instead they are constantly moving! I tried to transcribe these movements according to my own perception. The intervals are less represented by a staff, but by a precise horizontal adjustment

Another multipart wedding song which was used belongs to the concert recording made in France.15 It appears while we see one old lady of the village who made a young lady braids in order to dress her hair as a traditional bride—according to the local custom, the hair is bound together in order to decorate it with a richly embroidered cloth. The texts seems to have a direct connection to this preparation:

Se prejme [krehme] kriet prejmeme gjith marrelezpraj moj lulja ime je16

15 It was published by Nicola Scaldaferri in 2005. See the description by the publisher at Udine: http://www.nota.it/libri/geos_cd_book/polifonie_arbereshe_della_basilicata.

16 Transcription by Gianni Belluscio who told me that «prejme» is probably a corruption of «krehme» which would be

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Form/cut [comb] my headwith all this braid.because you are my flower.

Ex. 4: transcription of the bride song "Se prejme kriet" (sound ex. 6)

At the beginning, the modal structure seems ambivalent. The intonation of the foresinger could as well mean the Phrygian (b—E) or Dorian (a—D) pentachord, because it does not touch the characteristic II degree which would tell the listeners. The first voice at the beginning of the choir follows the Byzantine intonation of the diatonic kyrios devteros intonation which is no longer used in the living tradition of psaltic art. It is very interesting to listen, how the particular colours of the voices avoid a modern intonation of parallel thirds, they do follow rather the Pythagorean tuning

more suitable for the genre a certain wedding song sung during the preparation of the hair.

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system and its logic. But this logic hides, what the monodic devteros enechema would usually indicate. The confirmation comes not earlier than with the first cadence.

What is the connection between the very interesting recording dating 1954, with the interferential diaphony, the tournee of two groups coming from San Paolo and San Costantino during 1990 and the present state of their great tradition?

About the time mark 9'15" we listen finally to two choirs, one of San Paolo Albanese which we see here performing outside on the streets of the village:

Fig. 2: screenshot with the choir of San Paolo Albanese (sound ex. 7)

Ex. 5: automatic transcription of the singers of San Paolo Albanese (MELODIA plugin)

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Ex. 6: transcription of the singers of San Costantino Albanese

Both groups sing a melos starting on the IV degree (a) and cadencing on the Phrygian finalis E (I). The group of San Costantino has a rather modern intonation, the thirds are really parallel, but especially during the cadences, the voices do a lot of glissandi which are characteristic for multipart singing based on interferential diaphony.

3.3. The vjersh of Shën Mërtirit and the foundation of Shpirti ArbëreshIn March 2005 a group of villages between San Martino de Finita (Shën Mërtirit), Cerzeto (Qana), and Cavallerizzo (Kajverici) were partly destroyed by a landslide. In 2007 Vincenzo La Vena documented an initiative by Vincenzo Perrellis who taught the language and the music of San Martino since the 1980s, that there is still an amazing potential among Arbëresh singers to handle multipart improvisation together, and this capacity might prove crucial for future initiatives which intend to revive linguistic competences as well. With their book they published a small collection of sixteen songs belonging to the local tradition of the village, the recordings document a group of singers, all of them belonging to the old generation with amazing and unique voices, with the exception of the young singers Vincenzo Perrellis and Jessica Novello.17

The participation of the latter opened a new perspective for the future of this tradition, which I could document with own field recordings.

We already observed within the tradition of San Costantino Albanese a certain melodic ambiguity between the Dorian and Phrygian mode. Within the tradition of Orthodox chant, mele based on E cadences are often used for compositions of Passion, while the D cadences dominate the chant which celebrate resurrection, and often compositions preceding Easter combine both cadences within one melos alluding to the same convention. The following example probably inherited this convention, although it is a very frequently used melos within the presented repertoire (and one which can be also found in the repertoire of other Calabrian Arbëresh villages).

17 La Vena, V. & Perrellis, V., 2009. Tradita muzikore e Shën Mërtirit 1 Vjershe e ajër, Lucca: Libreria Musicale Italiana (CD supplement). Vincenzo Perrellis taught the language Arbëresh at Shën Mërtirit until 2007.

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Photo 3: abandoned house of Cerzeto

Photo 4: singers of Shpirti Arbëresh (right to the left Jessica, Giuseppe Barrale, Ilia and Carmine Stamile, like Vincenzo former teacher of Arbëresh and cultural operator within the living tradition)

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Sound ex. 8: text and transcription of the Vjershi i burrave (verse of the men), track 4

recording: Vincenzo La Vena (7 August 2007)

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singers:

Maurizio Musacchio, G. Linda Nesticò, Jessica Novello, Vincenzo Perrellis, Marietta Gentile gjella m'u josëe shpirti m'u partirëgjella m'u jose shpirti m'u partirë

Life is melting awayand the soul is leavingLife is melting awayand the soul is leaving

In this recording the older generation of singers sing together with the younger singer Vincenzo Perrellis and Jessica Novello. The song somehow gave the name to a new Ensemble founded by Jessica some years later: the “Arbëresh soul” (Shpirti Arbëresh).

Such initiatives, through which younger singers address and win the older generation usually works out for the future of a local tradition. Shpirti Arbëresh continues its work with various musicians, but the founding initiative seems to be very lucky, since the older generation of singers made no concession whatsoever to any kind of professional polishing in order to represent their local tradition. For 2007, the fatal year, when policies failed so completely concerning the responsibilities of those who did decide, that even the pretext to "save money" has showed wrong, it was as well the time to document the importance and the extraordinary quality of a work which was obviously no longer appreciated. One poem is even sung twice with a very similar melody, but the character of both versions is completely different. It is obvious that these qualities resulted in a more deliberate approach to multipart interaction which could be characterised as traditional form of improvisation, and this approach became also characteristic for the later group Shpirti Arbëresh.

The last example uses a vocal technique which is well-known for the tradition of San Benedetto Ullano (Shën Benedhiti) to sing the kalimera over a paraliturgical composition of Alessandro Manzoni. The Italian text was integrated by the Arbëresh way to recite in an improvised polyphony, during which a soloist directs the other parts by the use of communicative ornaments (repetitions of text, even of isolated syllables are characteristic for this vocal style).

I could make this field recording during a manifestation at San Benedetto Ullano in December 2014, the singers belong to the group Shpirti Arbëresh, and the soloist Ilia is of the community of Cerzeto. The poem was composed over the same first line like in the last example.

Gjella m’u jose nj’ ashtë më qëndroie nj’ asht më qëndroi

Life is melting awayand only bones are leftand only bones are left

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Sound ex. 9: text and transcription of Shpirti Arbëresh (own field recording), soloist Ilia

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4. Conclusion It would be irresponsible to dement the serious decline that had been caused by incompetent and fatal decisions in Italian cultural policies. It must be regarded as part of a double effect of current globalisation, the forced exile of numerous refugees who risked their life to live a precarious existence, which will turn the Schengen country into a slaveholder society of a "superior race" which is in fact a very small and very rich minority. It cannot be denied that a majority is expected to sacrifice everything for the sake of these few. Wealth is already reserved to an increasing small minority. On the other hand, local diversity which could be protected over centuries, is expected to be extinguished within a few years.

Concerning the study of musical competences, we must admit that the results are not as negative as I expected with respect to the serious decline of linguistic competences. Concerning the revival of local languages their cultural context and especially traditional music will play a key role. We can only hope, that these revivals will be successful.

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