Lament from Epirus: An Odyssey into Europe's Oldest Surviving Folk Music

A Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2018

In the tradition of Patrick Leigh Fermor and Geoff Dyer, a Grammy-winning producer discovers a powerful and ancient folk music tradition.

In a gramophone shop in Istanbul, renowned record collector Christopher C. King uncovered some of the strangest—and most hypnotic—sounds he had ever heard. The 78s were immensely moving, seeming to tap into a primal well of emotion inaccessible through contemporary music. The songs, King learned, were from Epirus, an area straddling southern Albania and northwestern Greece and boasting a folk tradition extending back to the pre-Homeric era. To hear this music is to hear the past.

Lament from Epirus is an unforgettable journey into a musical obsession, which traces a unique genre back to the roots of song itself. As King hunts for two long-lost virtuosos—one of whom may have committed a murder—he also tells the story of the Roma people who pioneered Epirotic folk music and their descendants who continue the tradition today.

King discovers clues to his most profound questions about the function of music in the history of humanity: What is the relationship between music and language? Why do we organize sound as music? Is music superfluous, a mere form of entertainment, or could it be a tool for survival? King’s journey becomes an investigation into song and dance’s role as a means of spiritual healing—and what that may reveal about music’s evolutionary origins.

1127196039
Lament from Epirus: An Odyssey into Europe's Oldest Surviving Folk Music

A Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2018

In the tradition of Patrick Leigh Fermor and Geoff Dyer, a Grammy-winning producer discovers a powerful and ancient folk music tradition.

In a gramophone shop in Istanbul, renowned record collector Christopher C. King uncovered some of the strangest—and most hypnotic—sounds he had ever heard. The 78s were immensely moving, seeming to tap into a primal well of emotion inaccessible through contemporary music. The songs, King learned, were from Epirus, an area straddling southern Albania and northwestern Greece and boasting a folk tradition extending back to the pre-Homeric era. To hear this music is to hear the past.

Lament from Epirus is an unforgettable journey into a musical obsession, which traces a unique genre back to the roots of song itself. As King hunts for two long-lost virtuosos—one of whom may have committed a murder—he also tells the story of the Roma people who pioneered Epirotic folk music and their descendants who continue the tradition today.

King discovers clues to his most profound questions about the function of music in the history of humanity: What is the relationship between music and language? Why do we organize sound as music? Is music superfluous, a mere form of entertainment, or could it be a tool for survival? King’s journey becomes an investigation into song and dance’s role as a means of spiritual healing—and what that may reveal about music’s evolutionary origins.

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Lament from Epirus: An Odyssey into Europe's Oldest Surviving Folk Music

Lament from Epirus: An Odyssey into Europe's Oldest Surviving Folk Music

by Christopher C. King
Lament from Epirus: An Odyssey into Europe's Oldest Surviving Folk Music

Lament from Epirus: An Odyssey into Europe's Oldest Surviving Folk Music

by Christopher C. King

eBook

$28.45 

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Overview

A Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2018

In the tradition of Patrick Leigh Fermor and Geoff Dyer, a Grammy-winning producer discovers a powerful and ancient folk music tradition.

In a gramophone shop in Istanbul, renowned record collector Christopher C. King uncovered some of the strangest—and most hypnotic—sounds he had ever heard. The 78s were immensely moving, seeming to tap into a primal well of emotion inaccessible through contemporary music. The songs, King learned, were from Epirus, an area straddling southern Albania and northwestern Greece and boasting a folk tradition extending back to the pre-Homeric era. To hear this music is to hear the past.

Lament from Epirus is an unforgettable journey into a musical obsession, which traces a unique genre back to the roots of song itself. As King hunts for two long-lost virtuosos—one of whom may have committed a murder—he also tells the story of the Roma people who pioneered Epirotic folk music and their descendants who continue the tradition today.

King discovers clues to his most profound questions about the function of music in the history of humanity: What is the relationship between music and language? Why do we organize sound as music? Is music superfluous, a mere form of entertainment, or could it be a tool for survival? King’s journey becomes an investigation into song and dance’s role as a means of spiritual healing—and what that may reveal about music’s evolutionary origins.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780393249002
Publisher: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date: 05/29/2018
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 272
File size: 14 MB
Note: This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Christopher C. King, a Grammy-winning producer, musicologist, and prominent 78 RPM record-collector, has written for The Paris Review and the Oxford American. Profiles of him have appeared in the New York Times Magazine and Washington Post. He lives in Virginia.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations 11

Prologue: Curious Black Discs and Dead Ends 15

1 A Street of Gramophones 31

2 The Black Earth of Epirus 61

3 "You Know, Greeks Don't Even Like This Music" 91

4 That's Going to Leave a Mark 121

5 Zoumbas's Lament 153

6 Kitsos's Shepherd Song 187

7 Satyr Dance 221

8 Some Kind of a Tool 249

Epilogue: On Fossils, Memory 269

Acknowledgments 273

Notes 279

Bibliography 285

Discography 291

Illustration Credits 293

Index 295

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