Otherlands Collaboration #30
Date: May 12, 2022 • Location: Cegni, Italy
I started heading north as soon as my ferry from Sardinia landed in Genoa, Italy. Driving through the Italian countryside into the Quattro Province area, I was off to find two masters of piffero music, Stefano Valla and Daniele Scurati.
[To learn more about their music, please visit their website or Instagram.]
The Quattro Province is an ancient cultural crossroads of four northern Italian regions — Liguria, Piedmont, Lombardy, and Emilia-Romagna — joined by the Apennine Mountains. Although consisting of different provinces, the people have shared similar ways of life for centuries, growing cereals, potatoes and chestnuts, raising sheep and cows, building typical villages, and even married across the upper valleys more than between these and the accompanying lowlands. This cultural unity is also well represented in the traditional music of the region.
“Part of a vital musical heritage in northern Italy and a cultural emblem of the [Quattro Province], the piffero is conically bored with a double-reed (musotto) inserted in a brass tube, itself contained in a wooden mushroom-shaped support (bocchetta), whose cylindrical stem fits tightly into the main body of the instrument. There are eight holes, including one on the back that is closed with the thumb. The end of the pipe has a bell traditionally decorated with a rooster’s tail feather, a tool used to clean and dry the reed.” (Songlines, May 11, 2021)
I threaded myself through narrow streets of towns and villages, past colorful buildings deceiving my eye with their trompe l’oeil style, towering steeples and forts, pergolas and fields bursting with color. Up I went, via steep switchbacks, wooded hillsides broken up by vineyards, until finally arriving to the small hamlet of Cegni (pop. 43). My final destination was the home of master pifferaio Stefano Valla, where we would be joined by accordionist Daniele Scurati for a quintessential duo of the region’s traditional dance music. I didn’t find this location on my own though, I was following Daniele, whom I had spent the morning with, performing for young children at the local schools.
Like seemingly all the homes in Cegni, Stefano’s was made of stone, and quite old. If I understood correctly, an inscription on a wall dated a renovation back to the 1870’s. We set up in his cozy dining room in a tight triangle and their powerful instruments (with volumes designed to play dances unamplified) filled the room. Over the course of the afternoon I got a sampling of four different types of dance tunes—a monferrina, waltz, polka, and a piana—all traditional—often “named” simply by the type of tune because the specific title has been lost. We also played a ballad composed by Stefano and Daniele, leading into the polka, and I taught them a Bill Monroe bluegrass waltz, Lonesome Moonlight Waltz.
Even though this collaboration was mostly tunes from the Quattro Province (which I loved learning), we really worked to create arrangements for our three instruments in contrast to me just playing along. I focused on learning forms, chords, and rhythms from Daniele’s harmony and bass lines, along with the occasional melody from Stefano. They really enjoyed my approach to rhythm and created spots in a couple different tunes where one would lay out, and I would accompany the other with chopping as a duo.
Musically, it was a very rich and rewarding day, and there was something really lovely about our synergy. I had some of my usual musical struggles, of course, like remembering forms and chords of multiple new tunes and trying to lock in with new rhythmic and melodic nuances. The most challenging for me was the piana, which had a way of changing between rhythms that I’d never experienced before. They were very patient and it was important to all of us to make the best music we could. In fact, a couple of these pieces will even be included in their upcoming album!
We finished our time at Stefano’s home with a bit of wine and headed off a nearby village to share a meal at an amazing restaurant. When communicating, if we reached our limit with english, we would fall back on a fun combination of their Italian or French while I would speak Spanish.
I learned that Stefano and Daniele still play long nights of dances locally. Once the dance is “over” after a few hours, everyone will retire to the priest’s house (which is currently empty because the church is without a priest) and the party will continue for hours more. By the end Daniele can’t feel his fingers and Stefano’s tongue may bleed.
I learned that the current standard instrumentation for piffero music is as a duo with accordion. However, it used to be with bagpipes. The transition to accordion allowed for more complex accompaniment while still retaining the feel of the dances.
I also learned that Ernesto Sala, one of the great piffero masters, was himself from Cegni and was Stefano’s teacher.
The next morning, Stefano invited me back to his home for a personal tour of Cegni. With my mind no longer singularly focused on learning and capturing music, I was able to notice and admire a special collection of black and white photos on his walls. My favorite was the image of young Stefano playing for a dance with an older accordionist, his parents one of the couples on the floor, and an even younger Daniele listening intently from the side, leaning forward to absorb the music and possibly manifesting his current musical partnership.
Among others, Stefano pointed out photos of family gatherings and processions of musicians, the first accordionist in piffero music, and his respected teacher Ernesto—the two of them together and Ernesto alone with his piffero, sitting on the bench of his front porch. It’s this bench that Stefano remembers watching Ernesto teach and play from, and being frightened of him as a boy, only to later become the one who would carry forward his tradition.
I asked Stefano to open his case so I could see his instrument, and when I was done admiring, he invited me downstairs. Beautifully displayed on a mantle were at least thirty pifferos, and hanging in a corner was their original musical partner, the bagpipe.
For the final stop of our stroll around Cegni, Stefano led me to the home of his teacher. It was undergoing some renovation so we couldn’t enter, but there was now a commemorative plaque with Ernesto’s name next to the door, and the bench from the picture in Stefano’s dining room had seemingly not moved, now empty as if to invite the next generation of pifferaios.
CREDITS
Songs: Monferrina (Traditional) / Alberi Neri (Stefano Valla, Daniele Scurati) / Polca (Traditional)
Arranged by: Stefano Valla, Daniele Scurati, Casey Driessen
Piffero: Stefano Valla
Accordion: Daniele Scurati
Fiddle/Audio/Filming: Casey Driessen
Video Editing: Lauren Balthrop
Additional Music: Valzer in Gennaio (intro) / Piana (outro)
SPECIAL THANKS
Beppe Gambetta
Federica Calvina Prino
Filippo Gambetta