"Those who do not like music and women, they need to have their house burned down!!"

I’ve heard about him since long time, and when I mentioned his name to some friulian musician their reaction was moving the head up criyng “ahhhh! Lisooo, "as if they knew him since long time”. In fact Andrea del Favero (see post "Music of Friuli") repeatedly told me "he is the master of all of us." Liso Lussa is 85 years old but he has the verve of a twenty years old guy. He is one of the major representative of today’s traditional Friulian music. He plays the organetto, here they call it "diatonic harmonic" (see picture) one of the most typical instruments of the area along with Liron and guitar. Together with Andrea, Dario Marušiæ,an Istrian violinist and Angelico Piva (see "Music of Friuli") I go to visit him. We cross the Tagliamento river and reach the left side leaving behind Cividale del Friuli and entering the land strip known as Slavia. This is a place of historical and political episodes that, over the time, have built interesting cultural and musical syncretisms. In this area they speak Friulian language as well as a Slovenian dialect.

We arrive at his house and his wife welcomes us. I can perceive the typical smell of mountain old houses. Liso is waiting for us near the warm kitchen fireplace. He knows that there is a person from Veneto region who wants to record him and then he tries to speak Italian. I would have preferred that he did not. His piano organ is next to him out of its custody waiting to be "worn". It is personalized with his name. After a few moments Liso is already playing and between a song and another he tells some jokes or anecdotes of his youth speaking half Italian and half Friulian. Everybody knows his main saying: “Those who do not like music and women, they need to have their house burned down”.

When Liso plays, everibody demonstrate devotion and respect. While Andrea is listening he assumes the same expression as when he is playing. He tells me that "rather than playing Liso makes a Swing." All of them are betting that “they would be able to recognize Liso’s way to play among dozens of piano organs." Angelico hums a song over his notes and occasionally even Liso sings with him. They have played together for a long time "One day by chance I heard him to play and I proposed him to form a group, he agreed immediately saying he knew a friend who was playing bass (Roberto Tonutti)” Straight after they made a recording in a restaurant near his house, where they served only pasta. This is how the musical work of the "Bintars" started. Liso is considered the link between Slovenia and Italy. Together with Angelico went to Slovenia to bring spare parts to harmonics manufacturers in order to accelerate the delivery times with the risk of having many problems with customs. He was the first to colour the bellows of the harmonic. "Before it was just gray, I did not like, so I painted it with the colours of the Italian flag and I created a fashion." When we were about to leave he confessed me that he would like to play every day, but his hands are not the ones they used to be.

It was beautiful and important to have this opportunity, I think people like Liso are rare “safes” of traditional music from which to draw valuable information and old emotions.

Thanks to: Andrea del Favero, Angelico Piva and his wife, Dario Marusic, Liso Lussa and his wife, all the musicians present at the tavern “La torre antica” of Spilimbergo.

Colourful tradition

The first step of the journey is Spilimbergo (Friuli) with the Friulian music. (Spilimberc in Friulian, has 12.000 inhabitants and it is located on the right side of the Tagliamento river). Andrea Del Favero was waiting for me, he is a great instrumentalist of the group "La sedon Salvadie" pioneers of the regional folk revival and director of Folkest, one of the most famous international festival of folk music. Besides having these artistic skills,   Andrea has one characteristics that is really useful for me at the moment: he is a camper driver! This detail gives me a lot of comfort and security considering the fact that I put for the first time my inexperienced hands on the wheel of a camper only one day before the departure. Another great coincidence: at the very centre of Spilimbergo there is an equipped parking area that supplies to me the power to write this article.

I arrive in Spilimbergo when it is getting dark. I park the camper in the main square against any rule and in a short time I reach Andrea. From time to time he has the nice habit of gathering talented musicians and friends at the tavern “La Torre Orientale" in the center of Spilimbergo, to spend all night long playing together. This time "The Way of Music" will also be present.

The location is still empty and we take the opportunity to enjoy the culinary delights of the place. In the meantime musicians of all ages and from different parts of Friuli and Istria arrive and join our table. They start telling a series of jokes in friulian dialect that I don’t understand. I have driven for only 120 km and I don’t understand the language of the place I reached, It's fantastic, I fell far from home, already underway.

When the “dose” of musicians reaches the appropriate level, we move into the tavern and the music begins with an incredible immediacy.

They will play until late in the night in this atmosphere of old days and different musical worlds like Pizziche Salentine,song writer's songs or music  with  Irish influences.There are also some "infiltrated" instruments that don’t belong to the musical tradition of Friuli. Among all these colours, the Friulian tradition is present in the texts of the songs and the melodies, then what this musicians create and play is the result of personal interpretations, shared, accepted and re-interpreted. Tonight no one performs, there is not an audience, there are no musicians but people feeling and living the music, there are no genres nor categories. In the tavern everybody is playing for everybody, including themselves. The instruments are handled as exchange objects and passed from hand to hand.  Tired to shoot I also start playing the guitar and then change to a darbuka (Egyptian percussion).

At a certain moment of the evening a white-haired gentleman grabs me. His name is Angelico Piva, leader of the "Bintars," a dance group like oberkrainer the first in Friuli. He invites  other two musicians playing accordion and guitar to reach him in another room and tells me to follow them. They want me to listen the real music of Friuli. Unfortunately the sounds clash because the two rooms are too close but,  in the next days, they will give me the opportunity to enjoy the oldschool of Friuli musical tradition.

Notes: the term "Oberkrainer" literally means "Above Kranj" which is a city in the ex Yugoslavia. At the beginning this musicl genre used to be plaid in the area of this city and in the north. Then after the war, especially thanks to the musician Slavko Avsenik, it has been spreaded into other areas including the north of Italy. This music became a “market” phenomenon by consolidating the formation of accordion, guitar, trumpet, clarinet and small trombone. This repertoire, reach in traditional melodies, cannot be considered an authentic tradition repertoire of Friuli.

13th February 2009 The Cammino della Musica starts

The Camper final preparations with Livio Andreuzza (see Team) and drinks with friends in Burchiellati square in Treviso.

Finally, after more than a year of work and difficulties, but not giving up, the dream becomes true