Mauro Palmas & Giacomo Vardeu
He has made a string of solo albums, but this is the first with 19-year-old Sardinian diatonic accordionist Giacomo Vardeu. Not only does Vardeu bring very fine playing, with noticeable and avowed influence from the skipping staccato of Basque trikitixa style, but his remarkable vocal on one track, “Paghe,” is a standout. There are also two tracks where they’re joined by the glorious grainy vocals of traditional Sardinian vocal ensemble Cuncordu e Tenore di Orosei. This album is a mix of originals and arrangements of traditional material. For this album Palmas uses just liuto cantabile, a ten-string mandocello originally designed as a low-pitched member of a Neapolitan mandolin ensemble. It’s the instrument I’ve seen him play during the concerts of the Premio Andrea Parodi in his hometown, Sardinia’s capital Cagliari. Vardeu plays a 3-row Castagnari diatonic accordion with, unusually but usefully, eighteen bass buttons, which expand its harmonic and key possibilities.
After the short opening “Preludy,” “Adelasia” shows the fluent intricacy of Palmas’s playing and the shapeliness of the melodies he writes. After a solo opening, Vardeu’s accordion slides in, gradually increasing its part until the pair are fully duetting in the tune and a series of variations. The title track “Sighida” (the Sardinian word means ‘continuation’, hinting at the passing-on of tradition) is a gently rolling piece in which Vardeu takes the melody line over liuto cantabile arpeggios before both extemporize on it.
Liuto, with what sounds like repeat-echo, and chugging accordion make a tense prelude and underpinning to the dramatic entry and exciting key-changing build-up of the edgy lead and grinding, drone-pulsing bass vocals of the Cuncurdu e Tenore di Orosei, in “Nanneddu Meu,” a Sardinian song with lyrics by Peppino Mereu and tune by Nicolò Rubanu of the Coro di Orgosolo.
“La Valse A Pierre” was composed by Italian accordionist Riccardo Tesi, who apparently hadn’t considered it of much worth but Palmas told him he thought it was very fine, and indeed it has become one of Tesi’s best-known tunes. I suspect “Paghe” (‘Peace’) could well become a live hit at the duo’s concerts. It’s a text by Maria Gabriela Ledda they’ve set to a traditional dance tune, with the idea of conveying the seeming unattainability of peace and our immunization to the violence and suffering on the news. Deep liuto cantabile and accordion speed up to dance tempo before Vardeu’s voice - not what one might expect from a 19-year-old - enters, in the style of the tenores singers (whose music he’s grown up with, and one of the Orosei tenores is his godfather), moving between the 3/4-time of the verses to a remarkable guttural, rapid ‘nimininimini’ for the refrains.
“Goccius” and “Danza Maggiore” are the duo’s developments of traditional tunes, the first elegantly anthemic, the second a nervy, insistent fast dance. The Cuncurdu e Tenore return, accompanied by rippling waves of frets and accordion, for the splendid slow-surging, soaring “Libera me Domine.” The closer, “Torre,” is another dance tune, in the style of the Su Passu Torrau line-dance tradition, with swirling, fast staccato note-reiterating accordion and string-picking. It offers a jubilant end to a very fine album.
Further listening:
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