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.