The album of the day: Gianluigi Trovesi and Gianni Coscia, “Radici”
Gianluigi Trovesi and Gianni Coscia
Roots (Cd EGEA SCA050)
A whole album of music for clarinet and accordion? It might seem like a monotonous listen if there weren't great artists like Gianni Coscia and Gianluigi Trovesi operating the two instruments; we have fun and are moved, fifty minutes evaporate in a flash, sometimes we find ourselves marking time and even clapping our hands behind the irresistible rhythmic charge of Coscia's accordion and the supremely swinging runs of the bass clarinet that Trovesi uses with astonishing virtuosity; but it is not just a question of technical fireworks, there are moments of absolute expressive power, for example the thematic exposition of the “Variations on Ose Shalom”, where the multiphonic sounds of the clarinet seem like a sharp cry of pain which is happily counterbalanced by the disheveled Argentine rhythm of “Tanghesi” which smells of Gardel but also of a village festival.
It is precisely this natural mix of cultured and popular that makes Trovesi-Coscia's music unique and unmistakable.
This is not an ideological operation studied on the table: the thing comes naturally to the two of them, almost without thinking about it.
Humour, melancholy, singing, jazz improvisation, very rich harmonizations over which broad and biting melodic phrases flow, this duo has the ability to cross the entire spectrum of expressive possibilities of Music, giving us moments impossible to forget such as “Her Cab”, “Sia maledetta water” and “Ancient mazurka”.
Coscia and Trovesi take photographs of another era through the eye of the present, the scent of nostalgia hovers over
every track on the album without ever turning into a reactionary stylistic tracing, everything seems to be born for the first time under the fingers of these alchemists of the seven notes.
The splendid recording that Francesco Ciarfuglia made follows every slightest nuance of the instruments, making us listen to them
every smallest breath, restoring intact the convivial warmth and enthusiasm that the soloists dispense liberally: the Balkan influences of the two “Dances from East” have no difficulty sitting next to the rhythmic atmospheres of “Culo di Pasta” and the poignant cantabilities of “There was a witch, there was a fairy”. Trovesi and Coscia seem to have infinite expressive arrows to shoot and you arrive at the end of the album amazed and enchanted by such skill.
Carlo Boccadoro, composer and conductor, was born in Macerata in 1963. He lives and works in Milan. He collaborates with soloists and orchestras in different parts of the world. He is the author of numerous books on musical topics.
This text is taken from “Lunario della musica: A record for every day of the year” published by Einaudi, courtesy of the author and the publisher.
