Pirrigheddu, Maria Teresa & Vieri Mura : Rundinas

Vieri Mura grew up under Sardinia’s intense sun. For many years, he has traveled to the north of the island to visit the renowned singer Maria Teresa Pirrigheddu (b. 1942). What began as a musical interest evolved into a profound familial bond. Rundinas (“Swallows” in Sardinian), captured by Vieri on portable devices, documents this relationship, along with the sound of the island, and the rhythm of Maria Teresa’s daily life. Maria Teresa sings orally transmitted cantos a chiterra over Vieri’s minimal compositions for guitar (Side A, in her garden) and organ (Side B, in the church, steps from her home). Swallows drift throughout, symbols of passing seasons and fleeting youth. Maria Teresa, now 84, her voice at once agile and veiled with age, imparts new layers of meaning to these ancient chants.

One of the most profoundly moving and transporting pieces of music we’ve heard, recorded in the present yet stretching back hundreds of years, a musical dialogue between two artists of different generations and the land that nourished them. A source of hope and beauty in a diminished world.

Pressed at Smashed Plastic,