Folk Music on Records: The Alan Lomax Collection. Italian Treasury: Italian Sampler; The Trallaleri of Genoa; Calabria

Some years ago at a folk music festival in Italy, my friend Marco Miconi, a professor of English, said to me that about two in three Italians speak a local language or dialect most of the time. These are quite at odds with standard Italian, and it is a feature reflected in their folk music. Many of Italy’s regions are hemmed in by chains of mountains with largely autonomous (certainly culturally autonomous) communities. These communities present ideal conditions for traditions to flourish in, and the result is a number of vigorous but distinct local survivals. These are reflected in Alan...