Page 3 - VOLUME1-WORKSONGS

2. REAPING SONG (Fragment)

Among the various songs performed during reaping, we have selected this unique text because of
the interest as a document of a method of transmission and the elaboration of a song for its use in
another context. This simple, example, in fact is referred to as di la issara (issare = to hoist), and
appears to have originally accompanied work relative to the extraction of chalk; from this use it
seems to have been transmitted to groups of farm laborers (who in some cases were also chalk-
workers) who attended to the threshing of wheat. The more remote origins of the song however,
are not to be attributed to the regions of southern Italy; the melody and rhythm, even though
slightly readapted, are, in fact, those of an Alpine choral song.

…/in Naples they make spinning tops/and go to Palermo to sell them/O poor women/they don’t
know to wait for/…

Recorded at Resuttano (Caltanissetta), on March 24, 1972, by Gaetano Pagano and Susi Siino.

3. VARIOUS SONGS a-b-c-d-e-f

Certain songs, depending upon the circumstances, are performed interchangeably during farm
work or rest periods, without serving any specific function. While their melodic line and style of
performance varies from region to region and in part from one village to another, the thematic
variations, on the other hand, are less marked.

a. This is a two-part song accompanied by the marranzanu (jew’s harp). It consists of two
separate octaves of handecaeyzzables that cross each other. Each couplet is called sirbia. One
peasant performs the first sirbia of his song (indicated as A) while the other responds with the
first of another son (B)). Consequently these proceed alternatively: A1 and B1 and A2 and B2,
etc.

A. I have come from afar/and I’m tired of walking/I’ve come to sing in this beautiful
meadow/that you might appear O beautiful coral/don’t consider me an outsider/I’m your
lover, the first one/throw down your tresses that I may climb up/so that I may kiss your
delicate lips.

B. In the middle of two mountains, a bow and a mountain/I saw Rosina washing at the
fountain/she gave me to drink from the palms of her hands/a little that was plenty/and if
the little one doesn’t please me/in paradise the Saints are complaining.

This song was recorded at Resuttano (Caltanissetta), on January 5, 1974, by Elsa Guggino and
Gaetano Pagano.

b-c. The first is a song with alternating voices and a polyvocal refrain. The second is a four-part
polyvocal song performed by one male and three female voices. Polyvocal work songs are found
only in several areas of Sicily; they are frequent in those zones where lamentanza (lamentations)
and ladate (laudatory or religious songs of Good Friday) are still sung or were sung until the
recent past. Polyvocal songs, regardless of the various musical traditions, can still be found in
those areas where farm work requires group participation. The transcription of the text (3) refer to
the first of the two voices which alternatively repeat the same couplet:

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