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Citira: the fiddle in Resia Valley

by Giulio Venier

In the Resia Valley (north-east of the Friuli region) lives one of the most interesting ethnic minorities of Italy. Thanks both to its geographical remoteness and its social cohesion it maintains very particular cultural features in language (a particular dialect of slavish origin), music, dance and customs.
Here the music is only performed by two instruments: Citira (fiddle) and Bunkula (three-stringed cello).
This repertoire is well alive and also flourishing because, besides the old tunes, the best players compose some new ones which are often named after them. In this way some fiddlers have tied their name to the local musical history.

All the tunes have a two-part structure: the first one fingered in the Key of D (called na tenko) and the second one in the key of G (called na tusto) fingered in the same way a fifth lower.
The melodies are so repeated for several times. In the first part the cello rhythmic drone is a double sound D-A while in the second one it is a simple G, so that strings are never fingered at all. Another essential element of the tune is the hard foot stamping of the fiddlers who play sitting down.
It’s custom to tune the fiddle at least a whole tone higher or more, to get a louder sound in the open. Tunes are played in the common D and G fingering but the real keys often sound higher, up to F and Bb.
Another feature is that the fiddler, after playing the D note, often remains with his 3^rd finger on that string, so to produce with the adjacent open E string the typical dissonance of the local vocal style.
Still nowadays the fiddle music sounds in every social gathering of the Resian community: Assumption, carnival, wedding parties and conscription.

Associazione Violinistica Italiana

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