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Truro Cathedral, December 1998

by: The Dongas Tribe (and friends)

MRW

Publication date: 2005-09-01 00:00:00

Usage: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

Folk tunes from Cornwall, Brittany, France, Italy and elsewhere, played by the nomadic Dongas Tribe in Truro Cathedral, one evening in December 1998.

Notes

Jo - wooden flute, melodeon, bombarde
Stef - concertina, mandolin, biniou
Inge - mandolin
Matthew - saz
Colin - stick drum
Dave - bodhrán
Lisa (possibly?) - bombarde
Selena and/or Josh may also have played some percussion.

Dongas playing in Truro Cathedral, December 1998

Dongas playing in Truro Cathedral, December 1998

left to right: Dave (friend from Camborne), Stef, Colin, Matthew, Jo, Inge
Very lo-fi, this, unfortunately. It was recorded on a cheap hand-held cassette recorder, onto a low-quality cassette. Some EQ'ing and dynamic processing has improved it somewhat, but there's a limit to how much you can do with something like this. It was a bit of a struggle to play in the cavernous space that is Truro Cathedral, but at least (due to the previous year's experience) we knew what to expect. The effect was something like playing under water.

the inside of Truro cathedral

inside Truro cathedral - image from http://www.bbc.co.uk/cornwall/photos/truro/15.shtml
The two bombard and biniou pieces clearly worked best in this kind of acoustic. Those are from Brittany. "Ryb on Afon" is a traditional Cornish tune (one of few which have survived - we may have got the name slightly wrong), the tarantella is Italian, and the rest are (presumably) central French.

Stef, Jo and Lisa playing biniou and bombarde, One Big Family Festival, May 1998

Stef, Jo and Lisa playing biniou and bombarde, One Big Family Festival (near Perranporth), May 1998
Both years we were invited to play during special services conducted to coincide with late-night Christmas shopping. The first year we received a letter asking us to come and play "for the Glory of God and the Entertainment of the Late Night shoppers"! We were relieved to note that "shoppers" had not been capitalised.

We were particularly keen to play in the Cathedral, as our battered copy of H. Miller and P. Broadhurst's The Sun and the Serpent informed us that the Mary line (half of the twin Michael-Mary energy currents which intertwine along the St. Michael alignment from Land's End to the Norfolk coast) runs alongside it, through the site of the former parish church of St. Mary's. The Tribe had gathered and played music at various sites along the Michael and Mary lines over the previous five years - Avebury, Glastonbury Tor and Abbey, The Hurlers and Cheesewring, Lostwithiel, Brentor, Resugga, Boscawen-Ûn, Carn Lês Boel - and this would normally have been one of the more difficult ones to gain access to.

The voice heard speaking at the end was our friend Banana Tom (visible in background above, wearing fake Ray-Bans and a wreath of ivy) who indeed had come hundreds of miles for the occasion. As the other (unidentified) voice hinted, we continued later outside the Cathedral.

the outside of Truro cathedral