The voice of Ti Frère rises up, alone in the silence. A voice with an edge and a hiss, grinning and derisive, shouting, rasping and groaning, it threatens and then becomes very sweet and tender, and with it now come all the manifold voices of the Mauritian people: matrons and young girls begin to sway their hips, a magic wave running through their bodies, as their feet beat time and as the fire on the beach is smelt in the warmth of a night thronged with insects and spirits (.). -Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio. Wherever she came into contact with the outside world, Africa's influence was profound. Slaves left empty-handed with nothing but their memories, voices, bodies, and therefore their songs, rhythms and dances. And these traces grew, despite their new masters' prohibitions, into the unique musical expression of many a people throughout the world. This was how the séga, the music of exile, evolved into the traditional song and dance of the people of Mauritius and Rodrigues, and of other Indian Ocean islands too, like the Seychelles and Réunion.

The Pernambuco Quartet owes it's creation to luck, chance and passion, when four musicians emblematic of their culture came together around the rich traditions of the Pernambuco region - a unique alchemy of poetry, rhythms and music. Outside Brazil, the carnivals of Bahia and Rio are the best known, but the carnival of Recife (one of Brazil's oldest cities, founded in 1537), capital of the state of Pernambuco (Nordeste region), emanates a very special charm, characterised by a generous musical and artistic variety: frevo (carnival music and dance), maracatu (music, dance and procession against a backdrop of Afro-Brazilian worship), caboclinhos (dramatic music and dance linked to indigenous traditions), and so on. This first album by the Pernambuco Quartet is a magnificent journey through the music of Pernambuco, from the quays of Recife to the sertão, from the city to the arid hinterland, carried by the voice of Antonio Marinho, the flute of Cesar Michiles, the guitar of Breno Lira, the percussion of Lucas dos Prazeres and their shared inspiration.

Rigodon Sauvage, with a repertoire (Southern Alps, Dauphine) drawn from folklorists' compilations and field recordings, has created an innovative style, giving a contemporary echo to a long musical history. The dominant image of the traditional music and dance of the Southern Alps and, more broadly, the Dauphine, commonly associates the music with the violin and the dance with the rigodon. This image is the culmination of a rich musical history that has been traced through archives, folklorists' works and fieldwork. This history, with it's mechanisms common to all the French provinces, has exacerbated certain salient features of popular musical practices, giving them an unprecedented representative value and place. These practices and the repertoires that have emerged have their own particularities -melodic-rhythmic forms, types of learning, functions, relationship to dance, etc.- These practices and repertoires are very different from "learned" music, even though they are geographically and sometimes culturally close.

This recording is a witness to the last passage of a rich musical heritage that fascinated figures such as Bela Bartok and Zoltan Kodaly: the last masters and the first disciples are reunited, who will be the reference for subsequent generations in a completely different social context. Numerous styles of dance and song - often accompanied by the recorder, bagpipes, reed, hurdy-gurdy, zither, tambura lute, violin, cymbalum, gardon viol (with struck strings) or spoons- form the basis of traditional Hungarian music: songs of the old style linked to weddings, traditional quests, winter and summer solstice bonfires...; and the new style nourished by contributions from Serbian, Swabian and Slovakian neighbouring cultures...; As for the Gypsies, dance and a cappella songs play a predominant role, in a style that is often spectacular and whose vocabulary, sometimes very bold, is that of everyday life, mixed with the most delicate poetry.

In this unique recording, Lee Jae-Hwa -a geomungo zither virtuoso- performs the suites Geomungo Hoesang and Geomungo Sanjo in the respective styles of the South and North of the Korean peninsula: distinct forms, techniques and rhythms, but with a shared subtlety, sensitivity and emotion. The geomungo, a 6-string zither, features 16 frets over a resonating board made of paulownia wood. It's origins trace back to the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo (37 BCE to 668 CE), which dominated the territory of present-day North Korea and a large part of Manchuria. It's rich history spans some 1600 years. The geomungo makes dramatic sounds, through the friction created by the plectrum striking the strings, or the rustling created by the subtle movements of the left hand over the strings. Due to it's dignified and stately nature, the geomungo was considered "the greatest of all instruments" throughout the Korean peninsula.

The vocal power of Mohammed Aman, sensitive to the finest melisma, transporting us back, through courtly poetry and chamber music to former glories of the Hejaz, cradle of Arabian civilization. In 1925, Hejaz became part of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which was born after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, but the history of Hejaz goes back much further. Since pre-Islamic times, Hejaz has been a hotbed of poetry and music; it was the annual 'Ukaz fair, where tribes from all over Arabia came to compete in poetic jousts. With the advent of Islam, the Umayyad dynasty settled in Damascus, but the cities of the Hejaz retained their importance, and while Mecca and Medina attracted pilgrims from all over the world, they also flourished in the arts and letters. Musicians formed a class of their own, many of whom were freed former slaves of African, Persian or Byzantine origin. Protected by patrons of the arts, they were also very popular, and this prestige extended to female singers, some of whom were of free status and were veritable divas.

Crystal-clear tones and rich resonances from the langeleik zither, a tradition unbroken since the 15th century: melodies to listen to (lydarlatter) and numerous dances (springar, gangar, halling, etc.) form the core of an ancient and still lively repertoire. The langeleik belongs to the family of box zithers which is present throughout Northern and Central Europe (Hungry, Flanders and the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden). All of these instruments have a fretted fingerboard under one or several of the strings on which the melody is played, whilst the remaining strings, or drones, are used for accompaniment. Traditionally, the langeleik is played by the fingers of the left hand, and with a long horn plectrum held in the right hand, moving with regular, rhythmical backward and forward strokes. The preformers demonstrate their skills using ornamentation and rhythmical stresses. This unique way of playing actually gives langeleik music a nearly hypnotic flow.

Traditional Sicilian culture, from its language to various coded systems of myth and ritual, from its techniques of expression to their practiced forms, is the result of a stratification of elements attributable to each of the diverse ethnic stocks which in turn dominated this great island, located in the center of the Mediterranean (Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans, Byzantines, Islamic Berbers, Normans, Swabians, Frenchmen, Spaniards). The forms and styles of its traditional music, affected by these processes of hybrid growth, were also in one way or another marked by the archetypes of Sicily’s successive civilizations. As Ottavio Tiby stated, 'People listened to Greek nomos, the Byzantine hymn, the Arab maqam, the courtly troubadour ballad and the lied of the Minnesänger down to the opulent polyphony of the 16th-17th century!' (Studio introduttivo to the Corpus di musiche popolari siciliane by Alberto Favara, Palermo 1957).

This CD presents an anthology of the most remarkable vocal and instrumental typologies of traditional Sicilian music.

Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023), featured in 2017 at Radio France's Festival Presences of contemporary music, was a central figure in a generation of internationally renowned Finnish composers and performers.

Kaija Saariaho developed computer-assisted composition techniques and mastered working with tape and live electronics, but she also encountered French composers of so-called spectral music, whose techniques are based on computer analysis of the sound spectrum of individual notes on different instruments.
In the profusion of works that Saariaho has produced in recent years, two features have marked her entire career. One is the close collaboration with other artists –writers, directors, musicians, etc.– in the creation of new works. The other is the concern to make her music, not the treatment of an abstract process, but an urgent sharing of ideas, images and emotions from the composer to the listener.

This collection is the recording echo of the Festival Presences (created in 1991) and its commissioning and creation activities, supported by Radio France's musical ensembles.

The members of the Ensemble Hougaku Shijyuusoudan explore the art of sankyoku: a refined repertoire of instrumental chamber music, to which singing often adds a poetic touch. The practice of this trio music was established as early as the end of the Edo era (late 19th c.), and underwent a major growth with the secularization of shakuhachi flute playing (formerly reserved for itinerant Zen monks of the Fuke sect).

Ancient music and magnificent performers of today, all graduates of the Tokyo National Conservatory and winners of prestigious competitions: while perpetuating the traditional repertoire, they are multiplying collaborations and are also committed to animating the future of their instruments by commissioning works from contemporary composers.

Since 1991, Radio France has been organising the Presences festival of contemporary music: several hundred new scores have been heard (a third of them world premieres), and the festival is also characterised by a series of portraits of composers from the late 20th century.
This CD, along with another volume devoted to Kaija Saariaho, marks a new stage of the Presences festival, which is extending its activities to include discs.
Tonal versus atonal, consonant versus dissonant, neo-classical versus serial, reactionary versus avant-garde, those who mourn a dreamed-of golden age versus those who claim to embody the meaning of history, Landowski versus Boulez, the list goes on and on. These binary and caricatured oppositions have fuelled a debate that has dominated the 20th century, and which is still sometimes in turmoil today.
In this context, we are struck by the emergence of spectral music, of which Tristan Murail is one of the initiators and most brilliant exponents. Spectral music proved that history could emerge from this sterile debate, that new territories of sound and harmony existed, that consonances were possible without being part of a backward-looking approach ¬–in short, that composers could move forward, continuing to invent, without having to resort to historically exhausted systems, such as those of tonal music or serial music.
The advent of spectral music was a major turning point in the great history of music, and its scope is such that its concepts, vocabulary (spectrum, fusion, partials, transients, inharmonics, etc.), writing principles and approach to sound and time have spread throughout the world and over several generations.
Few composers today have not been influenced in one way or another by spectral music. From George Benjamin to Kaija Saariaho, from Jonathan Harvey to Fausto Romitelli, via Philippe Hurel, Marc-Andre Dalbavie and Magnus Lindberg, spectral music and its concepts are everywhere.

Unanimously praised for his mastery of the sitar – the king instrument of North Indian classical music – Kushal Das is particularly renowned among aficionados (the rasika) for his art of the surbahar: this 'bass-sitar' with its long sustain, ideally suited to subtle alap, is here at the service of the raga Darbari Kanada performed in concert in the setting of the Radio France Auditorium. The adjective darbari comes from a Persian term meaning "royal court", and this was indeed a "majestic" concert lasting almost two hours. What a wonderful harmony between the acoustics of the venue, the choice of raga, the instrument and the artist, for this first concert of Indian classical music in the Auditorium! Although Kushal Das went on to perform other raga with tabla accompaniment, it is only the raga Darbari Kanada that is the subject of this disc: an alap –an improvised prelude, exposition and development of the raga; these terms reflect only an approximation of the real meaning, for when a complete alap is presented in this way by a master, it is much more a world in itself, in which the artist expresses alone, without accompaniment, the extreme of his musical thought in the service of the raga. Darbari Kanada is a deep night raga, and undoubtedly one of the most difficult to master. It requires a great deal of musical maturity to, through its melodic rules, unleash the full extent of its emotional impact imbued with breadth, dignity and depth. A fundamental raga, Darbari Kanada is also a perfect illustration of the fact that in a raga, the note (swara) must be considered as a "note in context", as are so essential the choice of ornaments, proportions, dynamics, angle and direction of the attack –everything that constitutes the "approach to the note".

The Ari people of South-West Ethiopia treat the human voice as a veritable instrument: exploring it's entire acoustic range by varying registers, timbres and vowel resonance; their grand-scale polyphonies are highly sophisticated, yet not without elements of spontaneity and surprise. The period of great collective ceremonies begins at the end of the rainy season - marriages (wochmi), the end of harvesting (buk), funerals (efi) and the lifting of periods of mourning (chi: chi). Participants abandon their habitual activities to devote themselves to the celebration of a decisive life cycle event, amid omnipresent singing and dancing. A strong contrast exists in Ari music between the complexity of the collective polyphonic structure and the sobriety of individual voices. A successful ensemble depends on good combinations of simple elements. Moreover, any apparently rigid polyphonic organization is counterbalanced by a certain flexibility in performance, evident in unpredictable entries of freely moving voices and in a wealth of variations. In Ari polyphonies, a variation is an open proposition, addressed to other musicians, provoking reaction and thereby developing the performance.

In this recording, one of the very first in the santur master's extensive discography, Shivkumar Sharma already shows the full extent of his talent: a remarkable inspiration made up of melodic subtlety and rhythmic liveliness. Shivkumar Sharma [1938-2022] is largely responsible for introducing the santur -a musical instrument for folk music widely used in Kashmir- into classical music. He received dual musical training in tabla and santur from his father, and his development as a virtuoso was extraordinarily fast. This new edition of a disc released over half a century ago is a tribute to this musician, who recently passed away and who, following in the footsteps of a generation of artists such as Vilayat Khan, Ali Akbar Khan and Ravi Shankar, brilliantly exposed another facet of North Indian classical music. The tabla accompaniment is provided by Kashinath Mishra [1937], a pupil of the late Pandit Anokhelal Mishra from Benares.

This music for string quartet offers a selection of melodically refined chamber pieces brimming with highly subtle ornamentation, creating a fine blend of different instrumental timbres and sonorities. It is performed with great poetry by musicians of the previous generation.

Traditional Vietnamese music, shaped by numerous cultural influences linked to its geography, is characterized by movement and abundant variation. It is an art form where dynamism appears to be a permanent feature. Each composition is played from memory, and improvisation is a primary form of musical creation. Once the melodic canvas is fixed in memory, performers can execute extremely complex and daring variations.

The ensemble features:
Nguyên Vinh Bao on dàn tranh (zither with 25 strings)
Ba Tu on dàn nguyêt (moon-shaped lute)
Ut Ti on dàn nhi and dàn gao (2-stringed spike fiddle)
Hoàng Cò Thuy on dàn ty bà (4-stringed pear-shaped lute)

Derived mostly from pansori singing and originally largely improvised, sanjo became (especially in the stylistic school of Master Choi Ok-sam) a structured instrumental suite: On the 12 silk strings of the gayageum zither, Kim Hae-sook paints with virtuosic serenity, a musical landscape of exaltation and restrained emotion. In the 14th and 15th centuries, most genres of the royal court music of the Joseon dynasty (ancestral rituals, banquets, military ceremonies etc.) were performed to realise the ideals of Confucianism. Emphasis was placed more on ideologies than on acoustic aesthetics. Consequently, rather than appreciating free expression, it was a common practice to moderate melodic progress, tempi and ranges. But a change in the musical climate encouraged emotional expression, calling for virtuosic professional performers. This led to the rise of the vocal genre of pansori as the kind of music that made the audience laugh and cry, which eventually resulted in the emergence of sanjo as solo instrumental music. This new genre overtly adopted the musical language of pansori, so much so that it has often been dubbed “pansori without voice”. The sanjo was originally created on the gayageum zither, the most representative of Korean string instruments. Initially an improvised musical form, the sanjo was diversified as various schools were formed according to teachers’ traditions and performing styles, exploiting the full technical potential of the instrument.

A self-taught master of the dutar and tanbur lutes, Turgun Alimatov stands out on the delicate and rare sato (bowed tanbur) with its hazy yet precise timbre. “I first heard Turgun Alimatov's music in 1977. I had come to Tashkent, Uzbekistan to study Central Asian music at the Tashkent Conservatory, and of all the music I heard that year, Turgun's elegant and laconic performances on the tanbur (long-necked lute with raised frets), dutar (two-stringed lute), and sato (…) made much the strongest impression. This man is a master, I thought, after listening to Turgun's recordings on the Soviet Melodiya label, and I must meet him. Thirteen years later, I did, and thus began a much-cherished friendship with a startlingly original musical creator whom I have come to regard as one of the great musicians of our time.” -- Theodore Levin.

Turgun Alimatov (1922-2008) was a master performer on the tanbur, dutar and sato which he was instrumental in reviving. He began his musical career playing the violin in Tashkent's Muqimi Theater of Musical Drama. In 1948, Turgun Alimatov joined the Tashkent radio station, where he performed in a succession of ensembles, until 1982. For his innovations, Turgun Alimatov earned scepticism from older musicians. In any event, Alimatov's achievement has won him a large following, and his neo-classical performance versions have become classics in themselves for a younger generation of musicians.

Two major facets of traditional Norwegian music: the beguiling richness of ancient melodies in ballads, love songs, wedding marches, dance-tunes, nursery rhymes, lullabies, coupled with the singular charm of hardingfele music, a singular violin considered the king of Norwegian instruments. The hardingfele (fiddle from Hardanger), richly decorated with bone and mother-of-pearl-inlay, and “rose painting”, and has four or five sympathetic strings, is a prominent member of the fiddle family, due to its make, tunings, and the particular richness and diversity of its regional styles and repertoire. The playing of hardingfele music has been a lasting tradition for nearly three centuries. Even today, airs and musical style are passed on orally. Several terms are frequently employed for vocal repertoire in Norway. In the first category, the words stev (sung poem), vise (popular song) and kveding (recitation) are often used. Depending on the type, a stev or vise can be recited or sung; the term vise stresses the importance given to the text. Songs for shepherds and herdsmen, dance, and cradle songs represent other forms of vocal tradition. Laling and lokking are used to call in the animals, or to re-unite people separated by great distances. As well as the wordless tralling, tulling or hulling, there is the slåttestev, whose rhythm is more important than the words or the meaning.

The tradition of qawwali, originally limited to mausoleums and brotherhoods, has now spread everywhere, carried by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan –an exceptional performer: Sufi poems and incandescent lyricism. While the Mongols conquered by the sword and oppression, the Sufis attracted peoples through the richness of their culture. During their gatherings, these Sufis listened to the poems of their masters, sung by musicians known as qawwal. Their music, enriched with new literary and musical elements, ultimately became the most widespread musical genre in Hindustani music. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s group is the leading proponent of this secular tradition. “As each verse was sung, the emotion-filled audience uttered cries of joy that encouraged the musicians. Their gestures marked the syncopations and they swayed from one foot to the other. Deep silence fell when the singer embarked upon one of his subtle vocal variations...”

The music of Satyajit Ray's cinematic masterpiece (Jalsaghar, 1958), by Ustad Vilayat Khan (sitar) with the participation of Imrat Khan (sitar, surbahar), Bismillah Khan (shehnai), Akhtari Bai [aka Begum Akhtar] –thumri singing, Salamat Ali Khan –khyal singing etc. 'After the box office failure of my second film Aparajito (“The Unvanquished”), I was a little unsure as to what kind of film I should make next. After some deliberation, I decided on a film featuring singing and dancing –a formula which usually worked with the Indian audience. I chose a popular short story –Jalsaghar– about the last days of a music loving feudal baron. I was fortunate to be able to use some of the leading singers and instrumentalists for the film. As composer, I chose the great sitar virtuoso Vilayat Khan who was most ably assisted by his younger brother Imrat Khan, also a sitar virtuoso. The two of them provided superb solos and duets for the background music for which –with the exception of violins– only Indian instruments were used. All the background score is raga-based.' (Satyajit Ray)

Petrona Martínez, an emblematic figure of bullerengue (a rare exclusively female “sung dance” in Colombia) shows here all her talent as a folklorist: improvisation, a universe of superstitions and legends, a chronicle of local life –and always Africa in the background. During the religious festivals of St John and St Peter (24th and 29th of June), the pregnant women, concubines and unmarried mothers, who could not take part in the fandangos (popular dances), used to gather on a patio to “clap hands and beat drums”. One of them would sing, improvising verses, whilst the others would respond in chorus. Between the songs, the women would tell each other riddles and saucy jokes. During these evening parties, or bullerengue, ñeque (home-made sugar cane alcohol) would be drunk. The dates and places for these meetings were communicated discreetly between the bullerengueras belonging to the same “sistership”. Such were the origins of the bullerengue tradition. Throughout her artistic career Petrona Martínez has been nominated three times for the Latin Grammy Awards for the best folk album, winning in 2021 with Ancestras.

The 1960's... The Royal Palace, the seat of the Khmer monarchy since the end of the preceding century, then sheltered many musicians and dancers who were the base for the prestige of which these venerable walls were so proud. Every morning as one walked down the boulevard in front of the entrance façade, one could hear fireworks of limpid sonorities: for four hours the pinpeat orchestra with it's crystalline gongs joined in the training of the royal dancers or by itself rehearsed music for a coming ceremony. At that time, there was hardly a month when court rituals did not require the presence -or rather the participation- of palace musicians and almost as often ballerinas whose fame was world-wide in spite of their rare public appearances.

Music of Kabul with Indian influence and music of Herat by two masters displaying a wonderful cohesiveness: a perfect combination of the deep sound of Ustad Rahim Khushnawaz's rubâb (with its characteristic “skin sound”, with deep resonance from the sympathetic strings) and the brilliance of Gada Mohammad's dutâr, an octave higher. The two lutenists on this album represent two contrasting facets of Afghan musicianship: Rahim Khushnawaz is the “superior” musician in terms of technical expertise, range of expression, breadth of knowledge, and ability to improvise. Gada Mohammad's playing is more intuitive, following and accompanying the rubâb; yet, he can hold his own as a soloist, as these recordings show.

This ceremony, which was recorded in 1975 and was performed by the first generation of Tibetan monks in exile in India with the current Dalai Lama, reproduces most faithfully the impressive vocal technique, fervour, and mystery of this very low-pitch Buddhist chant, with it's harmonics and accompaniment of horns, drums, and large cymbals. Thanks to the sound recording technique, the listener is immersed in the very heart of the event. As in all monasteries of the various schools, an important place is reserved for the memorisation and recitation of a large number of ritual texts. The liturgical practice of Gyütö is characterised by the use of a specific mode of singing, "the voice of the tantras"; this process consists of simultaneously emitting a very low sound and, by modifying the volume of the oral cavity, distinctly bringing out one of the harmonics of this sound. In Gyütö, the harmonic emphasised is the 10th harmonic, which is three octaves and one third above the fundamental. There are many examples of this on the various tracks selected for these CDs, particularly when the chant master gives the cue for a passage to begin.

KURDISTAN: CHANTS D'EXIL DU PE