Silvia Tarozzi & Deborah Walker "Canti di guerra, di lavoro e d'amore", Notes, Lyrics and Translations
Silvia Tarozzi and Deborah Walker share context and translations for lyrics.
Silvia Tarozzi and Deborah Walker have emerged as one of the most interesting duos in contemporary improvised music. First introduced to Unseen Worlds through their performance on the Philip Corner recording Extreemizms: early & late, Tarozzi and Walker elevated recent recordings, Eliane Radigue Occam Ocean 3, Pascal Criton Infra, and Tarozzi’s own Mi specchio e rifletto to greatness. Their finely tuned sound makes even the most adventurous tones compelling.
With Canti di guerra, di lavoro e d‘amore the duo add folk music to their contemporary classical and improvised music roots, reinterpreting songs from their youth in rural Emilia that originated from the emancipation of working class women and the partisan Resistance in World War II, especially ones sung by choirs of female rice field workers, called Mondine or Mondariso. Their songs tell a story of hard, poorly paid work, love, the hypocrisy of society, protests, war, the challenge of working far from home, the violence of oppression and the need for political awareness. Following years of incorporating, reinventing, and transforming these songs within their practice, Tarozzi and Walker unlock emotional territory where their relationship with Emilia resonates in concert with other sounds and places.
Press
The Sound Projector, April 2023
""The best tracks are those where Tarozzi and Walker themselves sing in combination with their own instruments, in ways that feel so personal and intimate, as if they are telling stories from the past that need to be told because there are lessons within that every new generation of people needs to know."Bandcamp Daily, December 2022 By Peter Margasak
"Tarozzi and Walker offer plenty of fire on their own, complementing their virtuosic string playing—which dissolves the boundaries between folk and experimental music—with stunning vocals, alone and in harmony. There’s a twined beauty and progressive spirits in these arrangements, which underline the continuing validity of the messages within these songs. The album includes some more bracing original material, but it all fits together with organic power. Essential stuff."Sequenza 21
"Tarozzi and Walker incorporate folk songs into the melodies they play, but the duo incorporate their approach to contemporary improvisation, with a plethora of extended techniques, scurrying lines, harmonics, altissimo playing and glissandos." - Cristian CareyThe Quietus, The Best Of 2022 Reviewed By Jennifer Lucy Allan
"Still the most moving moment from any album this year is a few seconds on the second track of this album, 'La Lega'... It's cinematic, perhaps intentionally emotive, but who cares, because it is like the whole choir has been lifted from the lowly earth and is transcending into heaven on a cloud, a Renaissance painting in music; a sacred elevation of this working class women's music. Can't get over it, won't get over it."'The Quietus' Albums of The Year 2022
"This record is full of these moments of reflection, or lament, or the sadness of recognition; the flights of the heart and the toils of the mind."freiStil, Magazin für Musik und Umgebung, November 2022
(Translated from German)
"They are songs about war, about work and about love - "Canti diguerra, di lavoro e d'amore". The two Italians give a voice (again) to the important role of women in this movement and bring their actions to the fore. Packing all this into a musical firework that just sparkles with pride and joy. The arrangements, with a wide range of sounds, which include epic choral singing as well as reduced loneliness. All of this with a tremendous intensity that goes deep under the skin.”
AUDION #71, October 2022
Reviewed by Alan Freeman
“The combinations of the other instruments (violin and cello), and lots of varied vocal elements all add up to make a music that…is more musically developed than its predecessor, although with less use of modern technology…As a relatively new talent just making her mark on the international new music scene…it will be intriguing to hear where Silvia Tarozzi goes next.”
Pitchfork, "34 Great Records You May Have Missed: Spring/Summer" August 2022
"They sing in joyful, dense layers and dive into open spaces; it often sounds like they’re on an infinite feedback loop, each finding thrill and inspiration from the other. Walker and Tarozzi highlight the under-acknowledged creativity and virtuosity of women working together.” - Allison Hussey
Wire Magazine, August 2022
Soundcheck by Julian Cowley
"In their various shared projects cellist Deborah Walker and violinist Silvia Tarozzi have become two of contemporary music's most impressive and rigorous string players, boldly erasing boundaries between notated music and improvisation”
Internationalist, July/August 2022
by Louise Gray
"With both original music from the duo and settings of older songs, this album conjures up the landscape of their region… Canti di guerra is an album about making links between musics, histories and genres, and is nothing short of wonderful.”
The Quietus, July 2022
"Rum Music For July" reviewed by Jennifer Lucy Allan
"There is a moment in proletarian struggle song 'La Lega' where, as the choir (the Coro delle Mondine di Bentivoglio) sing firm and in full voice like muscles flexed, strings pour in like mist under and around the women's voices, lifting them upwards as if they were all on a cloud transcending into the heavens.”
Bandcamp Daily, "The Best Contemporary Classical on Bandcamp: June 2022"
By Peter Margarsak
"There’s a twined beauty and progressive spirits in these arrangements, which underline the continuing validity of the messages within these songs. The album includes some more bracing original material, but it all fits together with organic power. Essential stuff."
Wire Magazine, June 2022
“Field of Dreams”, Full Page Feature by Peter Margasak
“In their various shared projects cellist Deborah Walker and violinist Silvia Tarozzi have become two of contemporary music's most impressive and rigorous string players, boldly erasing boundaries between notated music and improvisation”
Track List
DIGITAL TRACK LIST
- Country cloud (3:33)
- La lega (Featuring Coro delle Mondine di Bentivoglio) (2:29)
- Pietà l‘è morta (5:02)
- Parziale (2:29)
- Il bersagliere ha cento penne (3:19)
- Il bersagliere ha cento penne (Featuring Ola Obasi Nnanna) (4:29)
- Meccanica primitiva (4:19)
- Dondina (6:03)
- La campéna ed San Simòn - Ignoranti senza scuole (8:33)
- Fa la nana (4:34)
- Tita (3:12)
- Sentite buona gente (5:05)
Credits