Remember Dido

REMEMBER DIDO

così facciamo
music about and from Africa performed on European period instruments

With works by Nofinishi Dywili, Bongani Ndodana, Feti Totoyi,
Justinian Tamusua, Hans Huyssen and Henry Purcell,
this album reframes an alternative, utopian outcome of Dido and Aneas' saga:
What if Aeneas had stayed on in Africa...?

Dido's famous last line in Purcell's opera:
'Remember me, but - ah! - forget my fate'
is altered to:
'Remember me, and don't forget the fate of Africa'

Remember Dido
© mucavi records, 2006

R 150,- / € 18,- order here!

This compilation explores the borders and common ground of selected forms of African and European music, as well as instances of idioms, which thrive in between the specifically denoted cultural realms.
Performed on European Baroque period instruments, it presents a style of playing, which clearly articulates and lucidly distinguishes the various textures in question. These instruments proved to be most suitable for this task: to the contemporary pieces they lend a certain air of tenderness, removing them altogether from the often harsh and relentless sounds of contemporary music. They naturally give voice to the African pieces, possibly because they are, in an essential way, remarkably closely akin to traditional African instruments, utilizing only organic materials: wood, gut and horsehair.
A similarly common feature of the early instruments is their rendering of very characteristic sounds guaranteed by their unassuming construction, which does without sophisticated gadgets such as keys, levers, valves, fine tuners, end pins or the likes. In their simplicity they have remained a means to humbly express a human music (as opposed to the many qualifiers, such as commercial, classical, light, modern, serious etc., which pretend to define and worse to claim music). Being ancient, the instruments have retained their slight imperfections, making them all the more suited to ring a true chord, be it of African or European origin.

così facciamo | mucavi records