Songbirds: Albanian Music from 78s 1924-1948

The great dreamer of European unity, Stefan Zweig, speaking of poetics and spiritual power, once wrote that ‘The Skipetares (Albanians) of the Balkans, warring for centuries and in a permanent state of insurrection, take a leading role in the history of our world culture, for they know how best to present the poetic element in their own deeds.' Zweig was no doubt thinking of the epic tradition of North Albania, unrepresented on this recording, but the spiritual and poetic strength inherent in the country's music as a whole is borne witness to the 84 astonishing tracks on this set of four CDs, 78rpm recordings painstakingly collected, cleaned up and remastered by specialist Christopher King.

The vast majority of the music here is from the south-east of the country, notably the towns of Leskovik and Korçë with some excursions to Përmet and Vlorë. The style of intertwining polyphony above a drone, with clarinet and violin and lute sharing and complementing the roles of the voices, seems to have sprung forth fully formed, mere decades after the violin and clarinet came to the area. Its roots may be found in the unaccompanied singing of the region, and in the glides and trills of the flyer shepherd's flute, heard here in the intricate strains of a ‘Valle Devolliçe’, performed by Pando Opingari. The elegant and restrained yet devastatingly emotional instrumental laments now known as kaba (deep), but then as e qare (weeping) are prominent in the collection, with the prolific Asllani family in the forefront, but Riza Bylbyli's passionate ‘Taksim Myzeqarçe’ the standout example. There are also fascinating variants of songs that have now acquired a more standard shape – for example multiple versions of ‘Viktori t-u Bëftë Nëna’, and the gem-like ‘Gjetheza’, then named ‘Këngë e Gjethës’ or ‘Kur Jeçe Vetum’. The presentation is, however, less sumptuous than the music, with little discographical documentation and few attempts to decode the sometimes cryptic labels of the originals, while the notes, although generally accurate, are somewhat unfocused. These small blemishes do not, fortunately, detract from the extraordinary value of this magical collection.