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The musicians of Permet play a special music that rests on an ancient tradition, a musical genre that dates back to Illyria. A kind of Blues, tainted with nostalgia close to lamentation, the vocal polyphony of Permet (three voices, feminine and masculine, which call and answer each other) is quite astonishing.
This chant is accompanied by two clarinets, two violins, a large tambourine, two lutes and an accordion. The Famille Lela de Permet improvise and revive the polyphony, and so create an atmosphere that weaves a subtle and heady sonic tapestry.
Photograph: All rights reserved
Albania’s traditional music, strongly rooted in a culture that dates back to ancient Illyria, still today has an uncommon vigour. It is a living means of popular expression in all the 26 districts that compose today’s Albania. In southern Albania the main form of musical expression is polyphony; notably in Permet, where polyphony is not only vocal but also instrumental.
The originality of Permet’s vocal polyphony is double: the execution and the mode. Indeed, the songs (legends, ballads, …), generally with three voices (1st voice, 2nd voice and drone), are carried out in a polyphonic manner, alternately with imitation: the first two voices follow each other alternately, the second imitating the first. The two soloists create an alternate movement above the drone, the two soloists can just as well be two men, two women or a man and a woman.
In Permet, one group stands out as surprising and original. It is the Famille Lela who will bowl over enthusiasts of improvisation, all those who think that since Sidney Bechet one can’t play the clarinet anymore. These distinguished musicologists are making a big mistake and the Albanian ensemble’s two clarinettists will soon prove them wrong: they have a sound and a way of improvising that will bring this instrument right back to the forefront. As for those who will only listen to Bulgarian voices, or who only like Pygmy polyphonic chants, laments sung in Athenian taverns or the music of les Derviches Tourneurs, well, they are in for a surprise. How come we have waited so long to discover such a group ?
Contacts
Agent
Country: France
Name: Run Productions/Yorrick Benoît
Tel: 0549591010
Fax: 0549542410
E-mail: run@runprod.com
Website: www.runprod.com
Adress: 44, Grand Rue
BP 34
86470 Lavausseau
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