LA SENTINELLA DEL
BRACCAGNI - WHO WE ARE
In Braccagni (GR) each year
on the 1st of May takes place the celebration of the May-singers, a
ritual that back to the old May Day festivities. In a
characteristical spot of the Maremma, groups of May and ballad
singers as well as poets of ottava rima, coming from all parts of
Tuscany, get together for a medley of begging songs, improvised
verses and classical songs of old rural tradition.
Today like yesterday in Tuscany, but above all in Maremma, the night
between the 30rd of April and the 1st of May it’s possible to listen
this ancient song whose origins lead back us to the ancient cult of
the trees. This rite become in the time a song of wishes to the
arrival of Spring for the blossom of nature after the rigors of
winter, fertility and harvest.
Therefore in Maremma it’s easy to meet these brigades of “maggerini”
(so are these singers named) all adorned on afternoon of the
successive day, after to have sung all the night.
These squares of unusual visitors are formed in kind of 10/15
elements, they dress dresses and nails head usually decorate to you
with paper flowers and colours to you.
The group is accompanied from the sound of musical instruments like
the "fisarmonica" and guitar. In the groups, beyond to the voices of
the chorus, we find other kinds of personages, as the principal
figure of the “Poet” that composes the text and improvise in the
houses backs in eight rhyme; “Alberaio” is that who bring the small
branch symbol of the May; “Corbellaio” is that who collect gifts
offered of families, that later will be consumed in a meal called
“Ribotta”.
Many of these squares of “Maggerini” are found every year in the
afternoon of the 1 st of May in the evocative olive grove of
Braccagni, to the door of Grosseto, with their songs to celebrate
with you the beginning of the Spring.
Braccagni is in Province of Grosseto, 150 km from Florence and 200
km from Rome far. The group “Cantori of May” is available also for
exhibitions in foreign countries.
indietro
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