Canto for cello was commissioned by the Park Lane Group for its 1982 Young Artists series, and first performed by Tim Hugh at London's Purcell Room in January 1982. It is one of Swayne's most audibly 'African' pieces, and was inspired by the kora - a plucked instrument originally from Malinka culture of the mediæval Mali empire. The kora is midway between harp and lute, and is classified by ethnomusicologists as "a double-bridge-harp-lute". It has 21 strings, divided into two ranks (one played with each hand) which are suspended from a long hardwood neck, stretched across a high bridge, and fastened to a nut at the base of the instrument. A large gourd covered with tightly-stretched cowhide acts as a resonator. Dating back to the sixteenth century - though some of its repertoire dates from much earlier -  the kora was traditionally (and still is) is the instrument of Mandinka-language jali (griots, or hereditary praise-singers & oral historians).

Swayne knew and worked with the jaló Paamadu Bansang Jobaaté in the Gambia in 1981 and when he visited Britain. When Swayne was Composer-in-residence to the London Borough of Hounslow, he took Paamadu Bansang round schools to demonstrate the kora to schoolchildren and play some of its repertoire. While he was tuning during a break between numbers at a recital in a mixed secondary school, Paamadu (then at least seventy) casually asked Swayne whether "any of these young ladies" (average age about fifteen) were single, or did they have husbands? The girls were thrilled when Swayne translated this.

The composer describes Canto for cello as a "reinterpretation through European ears" of an ancient Mandinka melody called Lambango, which originated as a song in praise of music itself. The melody predates the development of the kora, and probably dates from about 1200. Swayne's Canto reflects the structure of the original  in its own structure of variations interspersed with refrains, and echoes the sound of the kora in its frequent use of pizzicato. The selection of pitches is very restricted: initially a pentatonic scale on C, to which is soon added a sharpened 4th (F-sharp) with the minor 3rd (E-flat) an occasional variant and the flattened 7th (B-flat) a later addition, while the sharpened 5th (G-sharp) makes a single climactic appearance. This simplification of pitch focuses attention on the work's sophisticated rhythmic structures, with repeated patterns in constantly changing metres creating a mesmeric effect.

© 2007 Anthony Burton
(additional material by Giles Swayne 2025)