Oh. I only now learnt that Stella Chiweshe has passed away on January 20th, 2023. She was a masterful Mbira player, fusing classical Zimbabwean music and western style beats.
One of my favourite songs of this Madegassy super band. It's taken from a life concert in Paris, 2007, and the audience is so in sync with the musicians. Wonderful. Great that there are subtitles now, I never knew what the song was about :-)
Beautiful! Rubio's sparkling voice, in duet with the second voice of Laudenbach's articulate guitar play. Both lend light-heartedness as well as depth to the song.
"The story of three friends, of sweet freedom,
if they became anarchists, it was not by pure chance.
Buenaventura Durruti, Ascaso and García Oliver,
called Los solidarios who despise power
Wanted and persecuted, by the countryside and the city,
if they ended up in jail, it was not by mere chance.
Buenaventura Durruti, Ascaso and García Oliver,
three leaves of black clover, against the wind of power.
Continuing with their habit of flouting authority
if they crossed the border, it was not by chance.
Buenaventura Durruti, Ascaso and García Oliver,
the black shadow of the people against the brightness of power.
After a while they returned here,
if the bourgeois trembled, it was not by chance.
Buenaventura Durruti, Ascaso and García Oliver,
three black bullets of lead, aimed at power."
First, the sound of the piece by this miraculous guitar.
Second, the slow pacing that gives the piece significantly more subtlety and depth. Its fraility shines in a way I didn't hear before.
Originally composed for strings, this upbeat and faster version feels more "floating by precision". Perhaps it's the recording location, a colliery next to the town I lived in my youth.
From the debut album of 1977. This famous rendition is actually a blend of "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" by John Lee Hooker (1966) – who adapted it from the 1950s version by Rudy Toombs and Amos Milburn – and another John Lee Hooker song, "House Rent Boogie", from 1951.
Ilva Eigus' violin almost sounds like flute. In the Allegro energico she plays as forceful and precise as if she has been a pupil of Leonid Kogan. Wonderful!
Interestingly developing soundscape, its crescendo and increasing instrumentation fill the 01:16 min perfectly – and then stop. The violin theme echoes Arvo Pärt's "Fratres".
A song by Chech composer Leoš Janáček in rendition of 2004 by the wonderful Iva Bittová and the Skampa Quartet. I only knew snippets of the concert, I'm happy to finally have found the longer concert recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZ1gZ2z1u0A