Englishman Eamon Kevin Byers is working on a PhD thesis about the relationship between folk music and medievalism. In the past months, he has contacted me in order to get some infos about the TEB involvement with the "Abelard and Heloise" and "Macbeth" scores.
Here are the e-mails:
"Dear Luca,
Firstly can I express my admiration for the fantastic work you are doing on 'Ghetto Raga'? I am currently researching the Third Ear Band's music for 'Macbeth' and 'Abelard& Eloise' as part of the much wider topic of my PhD thesis and have found your site incredibly useful and informative. I am writing to ask if you could help me with a couple of things. Firstly, your chronology appears to miss out some text on the right hand side of the screen. Is this a problem on my end? If not, could I possibly ask you to email me the text pertaining to the recording of 'Macbeth'? Secondly, do you have any further information on the film 'Abelard and Heloise'? It has been suggested to me that the director, Fuchs, is Herbert Fuchs, an Austrian director who died in 2006. Is this correct?
Thank you very much, keep up the good work with the archive.
Yours sincerely,
Eamon Byers"
(October 12th, 2010)
"Hi.
These are all the stuffs in the Archive about Macbeth and A&H.
Good work.
Luca "
(October 12th, 2010)
"Hi Luca,
a million thanks for your help, the information on the two films is fantastic. I'm determined to find out more about 'Abelard& Heloise' and will pass on anything I find out. As for my thesis, it's on the relationship between folk music and medievalism, so my work on the Third Ear Band is only a very small part of it, but if I come up with anything that might be useful for the site I'll pass that on too.
Thanks again,
Eamon".
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| Abelard & Heloise |
"Hi Eamon.
What's about that very interesting research? Do you like to write something about it for the archive?
Luca"
(December 31th, 2011)
"Hi Luca,
Sorry for the terrible delay in replying. Your email seemed to get lost over Christmas! Thank you very much for your email, I would certainly be interested in writing something for the archive if I come up with something worthwhile. I shall keep in touch.
Best wishes,
Eamon"
(January 31th, 2012)
Sorry for the terrible delay in replying. Your email seemed to get lost over Christmas! Thank you very much for your email, I would certainly be interested in writing something for the archive if I come up with something worthwhile. I shall keep in touch.
Best wishes,
Eamon"
(January 31th, 2012)
So if someone knows something more about "Abelard and Heloise" (does it exist the original score somewhere?) or filmmaker Herbert Fuchs, please contact me through my personal e-mail.
no©2012 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)
It's a fascinating area to explore, one that emerges out of the Folk Medieval zeitgeist of the 60s & 70s. On one hand you had Medievalism effecting Folk Music : Shirley & Dolly Collins / Giles Farnaby's Dream Band / Amazing Blondel / John Renbourn etc. And on the other you had Folk Music effecting Medievalism with Saint George's Canzona, The Clemencic Consort, Rene Zosso (who remains a key figure in Drone Art with Third Ear resonances). Even to this day you have the ongoing mission of Jordi Savall and Hesperion XXI whose recent disks give testimony to his wish for a reconcilliation of conflict in the Middle-East through music whilst still maintaing the scholastic aspects. One of their more compelling projects was the exploration of Catharism - you can see various clips on YouTube, with music that any Third Ear Band fan will find instant empathy with:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehEUDLG3SxE&feature=related
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The legancy lives on in a whole gamut of bands : Dead Can Dance, Corvus Corax, Wulfengrimm, The Early Folk Group et al, not to mention the the various breeds of Weirdfolk in the UK which will be celebrated in fine style at a major event in Bristol on June thus year. Check it out:
http://www.weirdlore.com/
A fascinating parallel World, indeed... I know just some of the bands/artists you mention, some old and some recent (Weirdfolk). One of the problem about researching this topic is that (at least in Italy)popular studies and academic ones remain strongly separated, so it's not so easy to have studies that can help the comprehension of it...
ReplyDeleteSo I hope someone (apart you) can give us more clues to go deep in this attractive relation...
I think all the Mediaeval Music bands are very academic, whereas the Folk bands are less so - it's more of a popular approach the yields some intriguing results. I love real serious Medieval Music, but that stems as much from seeing Gentle Giant in my youth as it does watching David Munrow on TV. Obviously the Third Ear Band touched upon such areas affecting their perfect Alchemical Synthesis of folk / medieval / raga / experimental / improv which was to be (according to the cover of AEFW) File(d) Under Pop!
ReplyDeleteMy cousin recommended this blog and she was totally right keep up the fantastic work!
ReplyDeletePhD Thesis
Thanks Viney, you're very kind. The problem now is that I need some help from people that have stuffs (as reviews, interviews, rare photos...) because I'm expiring all my materials... Nice to hear you, anyway. Keep in touch!
DeleteHey, nice site you have here! Keep up the excellent work!
ReplyDeletePhD Thesis