Canzuni (Songs) - The Art of Storytelling from Southern Italy.
Guitar and voice. A perfect, primary synthesis, that links great Southern Italian storytellers with the most significant singer-songwriters of the last century. As a contemporary troubadour, the voice of Massimo comes from afar and takes us far away; as forged by a skilled craftsman of music, masterfully sifting through genres and styles of the Folk Song that shines in Southern Italy, in its most diversified and typical regional varieties.
Massimo Ferrante "Canzuni" (Songs - The Art of Storytelling from Southern Italy), Felmay Records, 2022This collection of songs arranged for guitar and voice by MASSIMO FERRANTE was born by a clear thread that connects the ancient tradition of storytellers in South of Italy, being Massimo a member at full title. His voice and his long experience as singer, songwriter and Mediterranean troubador take us to an interesting way crossing the different genres of folk song, among the various regions in South of Italy. From the up-beat rhythm of tarantella to the darker tone of the social songs, pub songs, immigrant songs, protest hymns, political ballads, but also sweet love songs or timeless nursery rhymes, sung from generation to generation. And serenate (love songs) that in ancient times were sung at the loved one window mostly in the evening or night time.
An ancestral, yet present, passion still pulsating in the very heart of the Mediterranean, for Italian Sicily’s historical deeds and misdeeds: from Bronte slaughter to the assassination of Salvatore Carnevale and the massacre of Melissa. And that reaches up to dramatic, vibrantly contemporary events, such as Pagella di scolaro in fondo al mare (A school report card into the depths of the sea), a poem written by Aldo Masullo on the death of a little boy from Mali, together with a thousand more shipwrecked victims, in the Strait of Sicily on April 18, 2015. To bear witness to philosopher’s both pietas and condemnation, in the face of the most serious civil shipwreck in Mare Nostrum since the beginning of post-war era.
A balance between intensity and limpidity in a chant that touches the deepest chords of our inmost depths, with neither forcing nor conceding to virtuosity for its own sake. In its absolute simplicity, the result is an interpenetration of guitar and voice, where guitar is always in the service of a timeless voice, because of its powerful and light texture, and unmistakable timbre: the most beautiful voice of contemporary Calabria.
Photo Credits:
(1)-(2) Massimo Ferrante
(unknown/website).
