Moroloja

This piece is inspired by one of the funeral dirges collected by Brizio Montinaro in the late 1970s in the strip of land known as Grecìa salentina [i.e. the small area in the South of the Apulian region where griko, a hellenic dialect, is still spoken]. The term “Moroloja” indicates funeral laments, to be sung by a professional mourner. The exercise of this function, which is almost completely extinct nowadays, was part of an age-old tradition pertaining to funeral ritual, such as it used to be practised not only in the Grecìa area, but in the whole of Salento [Southern Apulia] and in much of the region referred to during Classical Antiquity as Magna Graecia. Professional mourners (reputae in Latin) were usually women from the deceased person’s neighbourhood (ghetonìa in Greek) whose task it was to sing dirges during funeral wakes, sometimes enacting the conflict between the departed soul and Charon, ferryman of the dead. The words of their traditional chants, which were accompanied by distinctive gestures, bear no relationship to Christian ideas of death and resurrection: after earthly life the only perspective envisioned for the soul is to fade away into a kingdom of “dark night”. Death (Tanato) is often personified and another frequently mentioned character is the “fairy” Fate, who shapes mortal destinies and thus seems akin to the Moirae of Classical mythology. In its traditional cultural context, the Moroloja was the “controlled form of lamentation” which “made it easier for the deceased to depart”, which best “honoured the mourned person’s memory” and which at the same time “prevented the soul from returning” to haunt the living. The work presented here seeks to be understood as an ideal continuation in contemporary, electroacoustic terms of this ancient ritual, from which all of the materials used for composition are derived. An original monodic song (in griko dialect) has been entrusted to a woman’s voice, but in some moments a male counterpart has been added to act as mirror and support. Percussion instruments typical of Salento and more generally of the Mediterranean area can also be heard. The sounds of these instruments, played both in traditional styles (i.e. traditional rhythmic patterns) and in a freer and more unusual fashion, form an underlying soundscape that interacts with the vocal part, at times entering into a dialogue (formed by mutually opposing “blocks”) and at times intertwining with the singing. Gradually, this leads to a process of mutual fragmentation which contributes strongly and effectively to the dramatic expression of the ritual. The formal structure of this piece was partly suggested by the sound objects deriving from the performances recorded with the two musicians, and partly drawn from the simple, archaic structure of the original dirge, focusing especially on its dramatic ritual function, of which this composition seeks, by evocation, to offer an intact, authentic rendering.