La ciapa rusa
Antologia

La Ciapa rusa, or traditional music from Piedmont.

Three little flashes.

(One)

Imagine something halfway between a Boccaccian tale and a tavern song. Imagine a little friar who, while out seeking alms, knocks on a door and soon finds himself in bed with a beautiful maiden.

The voice of the singer is somewhat amused and even a bit mocking, just like the music that accompanies it. Once everything is over, a small mazurka begins, one of those things that seem insignificant and just barely flutter about. But it is not a Barber's organetto and there is no little child crying. It is just popular grace.

And that grace makes the music seem like the same miracle that it must have seemed in the good old days, when opportunities to listen to it were very rare.

(Two)

King Gilardin, injured, knocks at the door of his palace, coming from war with only enough time left to die. Then in the streets, music and songs can be heard everywhere, as ordered by the queen mother. The king's wife, who has just given birth to a child, must know nothing. Oh, all is well, the plan proceeds, but one day a reckless cleric reveals everything to the unsuspecting young widow.

Sung in multiple voices, like a true piece of popular theater, this splendid ballad was once performed by several characters during the vigils in barns.

Sweeter than tragic, and this is typical of the Ciapa, it resembles a lullaby just barely touched by a gentle epicness. When Maurizio Martinotti (King Gilardin) sings "Oh tun, tun, tun, knocks the door / oh my dear mother that I have died" he sounds like a child...and I can't tell you how sweet that "tun tun tun" is. And anyway "your mouth tastes of roses, while mine tastes of earth"

(Three)

A handsome young man meets a young nun and invites her under the little shade to smell the violet's fragrance. The young nun says that before doing so, she needs to return to the convent to give back her habit. "Oh, sure, sure, that's fine." And the handsome young man waits, waits for three days and three nights. Then he goes to the convent and pulls the bell cord. The abbess appears at the window: "what do you want, handsome young man?" "I'm looking for the blonde young nun."

And here's the fantastic part: the abbess answers him as they would at an inn "oh you little fool, you had the quail under your feet and let it fly away." And then, while the abbess's words are still in the air, a magical and airy folk melody begins, which at one point even becomes a little martial. And, to the sound of that strange enchanted march, all the characters and all the enchantments that this album has narrated parade by. And lullabies, nursery rhymes, ritual songs, dances, love ballads fly away....

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Honor to Ciapa rusa, a group made of researchers even before musicians, people who have strived and went searching for these songs in montanis et alpestribus loci, among fera gens sine religione, meeting the last fabulous players of the hurdy-gurdy, flute, and accordion.

So, my dear friend Edgar, an enlightened folk mentor, and I even saw Ciapa live...fantastic experience, needless to say...fantastic and the producer of two CDs that we happily bought, I this one I am poorly talking about (an anthology of the first four albums), he the last one the group made, the wonderful "Aji e safran".

When Edgar made me the cassette of "Aji e safran", he drew a view of Moscow's Red Square on it.

"But excuse me Edgar, Ciapa rusa means red patch and not Red Square!!!"

And, to explain, I quote from the CD booklet:

"La ciapa rusa means, in the Monferrato dialect, the red patch. In Bozzole, a small town in the Alessandria area, there was a family whose members seemed to excel in singing. The head of the family, a wage laborer and cobbler, would have torn his trousers while working and these would have been patched with the only piece of cloth, of red color, that was in the house: hence the nickname by which the whole family was known in the village."

And here's Edgar's answer: "the meaning of that square is precisely that patch"

Au revoir...

Ps: if someone adds the mention of people's artist I wouldn't mind...