Albanian folk iso-polyphony is a "Masterpiece of the Heritage of Humanity", protected by UNESCO. It became part of the UNESCO World Heritage List on November 25, 2005.
According to folklore scholars, Albanian iso-polyphony is one of the masterpieces of Albanian musical folklore and of the world folkloric tradition in general.
Two-voice iso-polyphony, considered the simplest form of Albanian polyphony, is widespread throughout southern Albania. We encounter two-voice iso-polyphony among both women and men. The geographical spread affects without distinction almost the entire geographical area included in Toskëri and Labëri as well as in the districts of Korça, Librazhd, Pogradec, Kolonjë, Fier, the Upper Elbasan Slope, Myzeqënë of Vlorë, the city of Vlorë, the Vlorë river, the villages of Berat, Mallakastër, Gjirokastër-qytet, Lunxhëri, etc.
We encounter this type of double-voicedness also among the Arbëresh of Calabria, where it is widespread and widely used even today.
Three-voice iso-polyphony is dominant in the popular iso-polyphony repertoire of the villages of Southern Albania, or known as vocal iso-polyphony, and the civic one accompanied by saze. This is the basic form of the performance of our polyphony, where the voices are individualized not only in terms of melody, but they also have their own meaningful definitions for the roles they perform. Three-voice iso-polyphony is in most cases sung by men.
This original formula of our polyphony was also inherited in the urban folk music of Southern Albania, or as it is otherwise known in the iso-polyphonic music with saze. Albanian isopolyphony is characterized by songs composed of two solo parts, a melody and a countermelody with a chorale drone. The structure of the solo parts varies according to the different ways of interpreting the drone, which has a great variety of structures, especially in the folk style adapted by all the groups that perform this music.
Iso-polyphonic music accompanies a wide range of social events, such as weddings, funerals, local holidays, religious celebrations, and national festivals such as the well-known National Folklore Festival in Gjirokastra.
Over the past few decades, the growth of cultural tourism and the growing interest of the scholarly community in this unique folk tradition have contributed to the revival of Albanian iso-polyphony.
