I Cantimbanchi

Letizia Fiorenza and David Sautter.

The North-South Connection of Southern Italian Folk Music

The two artists dispel any preconceptions that folk music may have. Letizia Fiorenza, who spent her childhood in southern Italy, selects the songs and strips them of any saccharine kitsch. What remains is a variety of lyrics that do not only sing of carefree southern cheerfulness. There is biting satirical humour, sadness, melancholy, and easily ignited anger in abundance.

David Sautter absorbs the archaic nature of this music and combines it with his own background as a classically trained musician who spent his childhood in northern latitudes. This combination of skill and spontaneity, feeling and knowledge leads away from sentimentality, nostalgia and ethnology, placing the power and expressiveness of this music at the forefront. Sautter accompanies the singer with stylistic confidence and sensitivity, but his virtuosity elevates him far above the role of an ordinary accompanist.