Hiromu Handa

 

LE KOTO DE HIROMU HANDA

Prestige de la musique extraeuropéenne  le Japon vol.1 

HIROMU HANDA'S KOTO

Magic of  extraeuropean music  Japan vol. 1

Editions Espérance, 1977, ESP 155 551

H. Handa was born in Osaka in 1934. He started on the shakuhachi at the age of 6 then followed with the koto and shamisen when he was 13. He learned the classical way of playing the koto and the repertoire from different historic koto schools like the Yamada school; but he's known for his own compositions.  He plays 6 of them on this album (tracks A1, A3, A5, A6, B2, B3). He was in France in 1977 at the invitation of the Association française des amis de l'Orient where he performed at the Musée Guimet. In fact that series published by Espérance had other prestigious musicians mostly from India invited to perform and record in Paris.
H. Handa became famous in Japan for his composition called ''night train'' in 1953 and has always worked on new technics for koto playing as well as exploring new styles of composition. There is another LP by him issued in 1979 on the same label. I don't have it but you could check other blogs.
Notes in French only.

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Korean Folk Song 1,2, 3

 

KOREAN FOLK SONG VOL.1, VOL.2, VOL.3

韓國古典民謠 

Han Kook Record Co., 1979, HC 200054/55/37

This series of three tapes features three outstanding female singers : Anbeech, Muk Gye-wol and Lee Eun-joo. They are accompanied by a small traditional band with zither, shawm, percussion, etc...
They sing in solo or together with  fantastic vocal technics. Unfortunately there are no information about the repertoire and regional styles. I suppose they covered different regional traditions. Only the titles are mentionned in Korean for which it is difficult to get accurate translations.
Highly recommanded if you love Korean musical culture.

I think there is a track missing on vol.2 side A or maybe it's a mistake on the cover : track A5 and A6 are the same length of time while there is only one track of that length on my copy.  Maybe those who understand written Korean would know what happened.

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Na Filí

 

NA FILĺ ... A KINDLY WELCOME

Dolphin Records, 1974, DOL.1008

This band recorded several LPs between 1969 and 1978 and as many other Irish groups played an important role in the Irish folk. But Na Filí were quite different from the majority of the others famous bands thanks to the place they gave to non-dance tunes. Almost half of this record are laments or songs including the astonishing Deus Meus a song mixing Latin and Irish languages going back to the 11th century.
The band is a trio with the piper Tomás Ó Canainn, the whistle player Tom Barry, the fiddler Matt Cranitch all from county Cork. While T. Barry has disappeared from the national scene, Cranitch is still on the stage as a soloist or as a member of various formations and Ó Canainn has published books about Irish music.  Ó Canainn is also a singer I find very good in his rendition of old laments in Irish. He learnt that style of singing in the Connemara gaeltacht. He also plays the chromatic accordion on some songs.
All the tracks as well as the musicians are briefly introduced and 2 songs are translated into English.

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Unga Dalaspelmän

 

Folkmusik i Sverige

UNGA DALASPELMÄN

Traditionsinspelningar 5 från Svenskt visarkiv/Dalarnas muséum

Folk music of Sweden

YOUNG MUSICIANS FROM DALARNA

Traditional recordings 5 from the Swedish archiv/Dalarna museum

Caprice Records, 1974, CAP 1096

 Sweden is known for its rich fiddling tradition. This tradition has been handed down over the seventies and the eighties to the younger generation. This is the point of this LP which focuses on 18 young fiddlers all from the region called Dalarna one of the strongholds of Swedish musical tradition.
These fiddlers play mostly in duets, trios and quartets without any backing; so they might be qualified as revivalists but they are as close as possible to the original versions. They were born between 1942 and 1956. Among the names mentionned in tune titles we find great fiddlers like B. Anders or L.Åhs.  Since the eighties this repertoire found its way to folk bands with swedish and european instruments.
Notes in Swedish and English.

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L'alouette/Zamfir

 GHEORGHE ZAMFIR ''L'ALOUETTE''

''THE LARK''

Philips, 1974, 6329 143

This is another very good album by G. Zamfir and a small band. Are playing along : the great fiddler Efta Botocă, Pantelimon Stîngă on cymbalum, Petru Vidrean on double bass for the rhythmic-harmonic section. Other soloists are Dorin Cuibariu on taragot, Ion Mihaescu on clarinet and Marin Chişăr with his great style on fluier. All the tracks have been given French names but the original Rumanian names are mentionned too.  We can listen to Chişăr 's unmistakable way of playing on the last track (B5) with one hora followed by a brîul. There is a good version of ''the Lark'' on B1 between Zamfir and Botocă.

 

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