|
PRESENTATION by Massimo Berzolla
Reflections in space and time...
Riverberi nello spazio e nel tempo... (Vai alla Versione Italiana)
The idea to couple sax and organ could seem, at first sight, quite odd.
Definitely the two instruments are separated from the almost total absence of specifically dedicated works,
furthermore exists a kind of cultural distance between sax and organ, distance which we received as customary
and stereotype.
Actually the saxophone recalls heavily the jazz, the entertainment or the easy listening, meanwhile the
organ is mainly related to the Church, to the ancient music, to the serious expression.
Which is the path which brings to this combination and, first of all, which artistic background can
inspire such a project?
The eminent precedent, from the musicology's point of view, is a famous tour of Hilliard Ensemble with
the celebrated sax player Jan Garbarek. During that sessions the public had the chance to listen Renaissance
music voices with sax improvisations;
as result came a new timbre and language, which highlighted both the instrument and the voices with new
brightness; also the musical expressions, from the past and from today were enriched.
Another similar experiment can be quoted, in the CD "Répons", the Gregorian chant of the Ligugé Abbey
is accompanied from the bass-tuba of Michel Godard.
The principal points of interest in these proposals are two:
- The first is the linguistic-musicological one: the irruption (not rude but erudite) of contemporaneous
expressive keys into music centuries aged creates something brand new, not a simple accretion but an object
of art, to be played in fully autonomy and integrity, beyond his generative process.
- The second is the pure sound: the joining of so distant elements transfigures voices and instruments,
and can modify the perception, creating powerful suggestions and visions. By and by the sax and the
bass-tuba look like archaic instruments, the medieval monody and the Renaissance polyphony suggest us
contemporary recalls.
It's not a simple "contamination", where often we don't care about estimate and select the final product,
pondering only over the game of mix elements. The challenge between different sound and linguistic world
is under control and not random, in order to achieve a coherence of expression,
even almost provocative.
This is the way of thinking of sax and organ ensemble of Sciddurlo and Tagliaferri.
So is clear the title of this CD, like their first one, "Riverberi" (Reflections), where it means echoes,
recalls, quotations, coming back of sounds which return to us different from the very origin.
As spoken before we have to interpret in two different ways:
- one musicological - linguistic where the subtitle is a help to us "Riverberi nel tempo" reflections
in time. The sax becomes part of the ancient repertoire, taking the strange gown of the baroque cornet,
almost imitating an organ pipe to become a new reed stop which discusses with the others, and offers a
reading of that repertoire absolutely loyal and revolutionary at the same time; but even the organ follows
the sax in his world, where lands of jazz rhythm and harmonies are next to the counterpoint ones.
- But also charming is the timbre-acoustic play of both instruments ("Riverberi nello spazio" reflections
in space), empathised from the usual places of the organ:
the power of sax (his sound is the most rich between the reeds instruments) and his flexibility allow a
dialog surprisingly copious with all the timbre resources of the organ. By the way the church becomes as
a giant acoustic case, where the spectator is involved, during the "live" performance, and where the two
instruments create unexpected new acoustic interacting sources. The space dimension of the sound goes over
the traditional chamber listening and becomes a new expressive key and as an aesthetic value.
All the argumentation is not only referring to the pieces born for organ solo or other ensemble and
re-elaborated for the duo, but even and mostly for the new compositions written for this duo: the
composers answers in some way to the players on the same expressive path (partially or in toto),
by keeping different languages and sensibility.
The CD contents, that reflects the duo concert's program, is thought as a gallery of proposals,
remarkable not only for the single works and their instrumental interpretation, but also for the
intersection of many expressive sides (often left in shadow), as the space of sound, the timbre,
the play of contamination intended as generative of new objects of art.
Riverberi in space and time then, reflections of sounds in a merry go round in the church's arches,
timbres reflections that recall other instruments, or new faces of organ and sax, languages reflections,
which mix up, which may conflict, but finally recognize themselves and come together: we do receive echoes
of new expressions for a charming, rich and variegate musical present.
Massimo Berzolla
(translated by Stefano Foppiani)
|
