This is the first piece of a fisel dance, which normally consists of three (one dañs ‘dro, one ball, another dañs ‘dro). Here, it is a piece known as Ton Duro, in reference to Christian Duro’s uncles and fathers, who personalised this tune and made it famous. The third piece of this dance, in fact a suite of two melodies: “Ton Jean Henry ha ton Marcel Duro”, will also be studied.
These two pieces are taken from the album “Christian Duro. Sonneur Fisel” (Coop Breizh /Paotred an Dreujenn-Gaol, 1997).
To present these melodies, Christian Duro answers Erik Marchand’s question: “what are these two tunes?”. To do this, he describes how he experiences and sounds “this music that we make here”.
Tradition: transmit and feel, not reproduce.
“When you become a sonneur by chance, you only expect from music the pleasure of practicing it with your friends. When you receive it as an inheritance, it marks your memory. When it gives rise to unexpected – or unhoped-for – encounters, it reaffirms its existence. If I give back to it what it gives me, then it is worth sharing.”
Christian Duro, lyrics for the album “Christian Duro. Sonneur fisel”, CoopBreizgh/Paotred an Dreujenn-Gaol, 1997.
NB: When we talk about the “first piece”, we are talking about Ton Duro, and when we talk about the “last”, we are referring to “Ton Jean Henry ha ton Marcel Duro”.
Expressing musical personality in a couple of sonneurs
What is musical personality, how is musical individuality expressed, according to Christian Duro?
He shares his experience and evokes two very well-known sonneurs from Central Brittany: Iwan Thomas and Lucien Riou.
NB: Note that the terms kaner and diskaner refer to the singers of kan ha diskan, a duet song which is organized according to a song (performed by the leader, called kaner) and a response (performed by the diskaner) which repeats the phrase.
