Siân Phillips: Gramundus

"Siân Phillips: Gramundus"

Fflach, 1998
Fflach Tradd ~ CD218H
http://www.fflach.co.uk/

No, it's not the evil Livia from Robert Graves' "I, Claudius", and no, it also isn't the Reverend Mother Mohiam from the SciFi classic "Dune" ~ read on...

" ~ Siân plays an old fiddle that has been handed down through the generations of her family. The fiddle was bought by a chapel to be played in services in he Garnswllt area, in the times when chapels could not afford an organ. Sian says that the songs on this CD have been found through touring and meeting other musicians. Some are from the manuscript of Morris Edwards (c. 1778)."

The Living Tradition Review:
http://www.folkmusic.net/htmfiles/webrevs/cd218h.htm

"The (almost!) French language sub-title of this album "Musique traditionelle Galloise a la violon" describes it perfectly. It is an album of fine Welsh traditional tunes played on the violin, not as the English sub-title suggests, an album of "Traditional Welsh fiddle music". Were that somebody was able to record that! Unfortunately, the formerly widely extant Welsh fiddle tradition suffered much the same fate as that of England, including the demise of the church and chapel bands, and was gentrified out of existence even more completely. ~

On "Gramundus" Sian Phillips and her accompanists, Cass Meuig (fiddle), Paul Hopkins (mandola), Dafydd Saer and Chris Lewis (guitars) play a mixture of original and traditional tunes quite beautifully. It's not dance music and perhaps it lacks a bit of rhythmic drive, but it's very good to listen to." ~ Chris Bartram

# Posted on November 13th 2006 by ceolachan