Canada - Cape Breton

No doubt, Cape Breton is the best place to hear the old Scottish repertoire, brought in Canada by Scots immigrants centuries ago, before the changements that Scott Skinner's influence had in traditional style.
Nowadays the Cape Breton music is very well known in the world mainly thanks to Natalie McMaster, reputed by many peaople to be one of the best fiddlers in the folk scene, however I think it's still a great pleasure to watch at her uncle Hugh "Buddy" McMaster.
When this elegant man plays his fiddle we can hear a musical taste that is unknown to most of the younger and more skilled musicians. Here in 1984

France - Le Massif Central

Since the early 70's, many field recordings took place in the different areas of Centre France, where fiddle traditions were still alive.
We must say thanks for this job mainly to the Association of the Musiciens Routiniers that also published many documents on LP (some of them remastered on CD). The great French folk revival movement of the following years allowed to preserve and continue a rich corpus of dance tunes as Bourrées, Scottishes, Branles etc.

In this beautiful video "Des violons en sabots" by Francis Lapeyre, we can see three great violoneux from Cantal: Jean Chastagnol, Leon Peyrat and Joseph Perrier



And here is Joseph Perrier again, some years later, with many younger fiddlers playing his tunes

Italy - The Caffaro Valley

The musical tradition in the Caffaro Valley, sited in the north-east Alps of Lombardy, in the province of Brescia, is featured as one of the most interesting fiddle traditions all over Northern Italy. It is still alive and in progress since it is closely linked to the rite of Carnival.
The fiddle repertoire in the Caffaro Valley was made of twenty-four ritual dances, which were similar both in the villages of Ponte Caffaro and Bagolino.
Since the second half of the 70s, other dances no longer in use were reintroduced notified by Marcello Buccio (1912-1978), Costante Cosi (1917-1988), fiddlers of the old Fellowships, and Stefano Bordiga (born 1931), still a member nowadays .
Despite some differences in harmonizations, the tunes are still quite the same in the two villages.
Here is the old LP published by the Lombardy Administration, containing recordings made in Bagolino in the year 1972

Out-of-print

Regione Lombardia Vol.4 - La musica del carnevale di Bagolino

Here is the Bagolino Carnival in the year 2000




And here is the Carnival in the hamlet of Ponte Caffaro in 1993