Canto italiano

Tonight was (and is) the fête de la musique. The seismic technobeat is attacking our walls like the battering rams of medieval sieges. You can actually feel the pulse through your Sitzfleisch, as pianists call the foundations of their ar(se)t.

This evening, after quite a long stroll to the Salis, to find shards of pottery to act as wedges for plantpots on our slightly sloping balcony ledges, and after a wonderful swim in a piss warm sea at the Salis beach, we attended the slightly less raucous version of the fête. First call was the magical Place des Safraniers, part of the Commune libre du Safranier, home of the great Greek novelist Kazantzakis.

In the Safranier square, we listened to Provençal songs sung by the local community association, all dressed in the 'saffron' orange of the commune. Musically very approximate but culturally all there. After their slightly long set was over, we tore ourselves away from the utterly seductive charms of the square and headed for the Lavoir, near the ramparts. There we saw some splendid spectacles: two choirs, one ethnic and one academic. The ethnic one, La Chourmo, specialised in the close links between Provençal culture and Piedmont: they sang equally well in French, Niçois, Piemontese and Italian. There was one, generously proportioned lady who had real star quality: her belting version of "Benché noi siamo donne", in the throaty Italian of the rice-fields, was fantastic and had everybody joining in, even the (male) Moroccans who have lodgings around the lavoir. I think they admired her almost Maghreban ululations as she sang "o li o li o la".

The academic choir, the "Menéstrels d'Antibes", sang mostly Monteverdi madrigals. Musically, it was an uplifting, sublime experience: as they sang like angels, the water tinkled through the lavoir and the refined voices rebounded off the stucco walls. They were attempting quite difficult pieces, but the problem was they didn't know anything about the texts. It was linguistic porridge. For somebody who understood Renaissance Italian, it was quite incomprehensible. Still, better to have Monteverdi badly pronounced than Monteverdi poorly sung.