ÁFRICA

Description

This book in Castilian [translation into Catalan and English] is the photographic illustration of the African part of the musical instruments funds collected for almost forty years by a passionate couple “cultura primitive” Helena Folch–Rusiñol and her husband Alejandro Maluquer. These instruments – nearly 1,800 today – make up the permanent collection of the Fondation La Fontana created in 1992.

This is a beautiful book, both for its editorial and iconographic quality for his ethnomusicological interest. Even if it is to fall into the category of “art books”, is not only a “beautiful book” because the bottom is not sacrificed to form. Written by anthropologists and ethnomusicologists with extensive knowledge of Africa, the texts are there to testify. Manifestly and claimed, that is the aesthetic dimension of African musical instruments that is put forward, and the authors do not hide. However, the ethnomusicological dimension (“Music in context“) is not sacrificed.

The theme of the book is clearly organological. After two introductory texts Madeleine Leclair and Elena Martínez-Jacquet, the body of the book consists of four chapters, corresponding to the four main categories of instruments classificatory universally adopted today: aerophones, stringed instruments, and membranophones idiophones.

The book concludes with an interesting “Journey to Africa through his music” written by David Serra Ester (p. 164) followed by “ethnic card” (p. 172), though brief, is not less useful, as well as a bibliography on African music (p. 218).