The magic pipe and the abandoned muse

Stefano believed that I would have stopped in Cegni for half a day, just the time of an interview and some recordings... I have stopped here for two weeks. After all the bright green painted valleys, the atmosphere of peace, the hospitality of friends I met and the unique music of these places, they challenge even the most apathetic person to refuse a prolonged stay

The first opportunity for me to listen this music it is offered by Stefano Valla & Daniele Scurati, inseparable sound companions, who perform for the Cammino della Musica in the big blue kitchen of Stefano’s house. The impact is devastating: a strong, resolute, complete block of sound that pierces the soul.

"We are not and do not want to be the reconstruction of a recovery isolated from the social context in which we grew up," Stefano says: "We have grown in this area, where we have been listening the pipe since we were childs."

The strength of these two musicians and others of this area, is having been able to translate the behavior inherited from the old players for the current times, without temporal swings, but in an uninterrupted way without sacrificing innovation that represents the tradition continuation.

A proof of this thesis is what the old players of the area have done when, at the beginning of'900 they decided to replace the bagpipe (old companion of the pipe) with the accordion, " the new lover of the pipe”, adjusting and reforming the "traditional” repertoire. Thus, what is tradition? Or rather, when it is tradition? These are questions as much absurd as ineffective because it doesn’t make sense to fix space-time standards to a form of art and culture on the move.

Here, the parties are a “serious” matter and I have had, among others, the luck and opportunity to participate in a marriage. The newlywed Stefano and Serena tell me that It doesn’t happen very often to celebrate it like once, but sometimes it happens, and then the players go to pick up the bride at home and dedicate to her a song that tells about the detachment from family to go in the couple world. There are other music dedicated to various moments of the ritual, and it ends, as usual, with the final ball, which is open to the whole community and not only to the wedding attendants.

The stage of the parties is usually a table. It is the party organizer that must be sure it will hold up the weight of the players. The party consists of codes and rules that musicians, dancers and participants generally know and respect since long time. I remember that at a certain point of the dance during the wedding, someone pointed out to a player he has taken too long a mazurka making the dancers loosing the sense of dance. Stefano explains to me that not always where there is a dance there is a party: it depends on player’s skill, his intuition and above all his experience. It is the player that has the role of the priest of the parties, he must be able to satisfy his followers-dancers with the right musical prayers made of alessandrine, monferrine, valtz, mazurkas and polkas.It is not eccesive to declare that in these feasts there is something spiritual. Otherwise how could it be explained a physical resistance that allows musicians to play without stopping for hours and hours? Stefano talks about a kind of beneficial, healthy and pure trance, which gives to the time passing a relative meaning : "Sometimes we play for ten hours without even realizing it."