IMPROVISANDO Il jazz del Cinquecento
Paolo Pandolfo, Guido Morini, Thomas Boysen et al.
GCD P30409
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Performing artists
Paolo Pandolfo, viola da gamba Guido Morini, harpsichord & organ Thomas Boysen, theorbo & vihuela Andrea De Carlo, violone Álvaro Garrido, percussion Céline Scheen, soprano Marie Gelis, organ
Production details
Playing time: 78’59 Recorded at Église de Franc-Waret, Belgium, in November 2005 Engineered and produced by Manuel Mohino Executive producer: Carlos Céster Editorial assistant: María Díaz Artwork: oficina tresminutos 00:03:00 Booklet essay: Paolo Pandolfo Booklet in English-Français-Italiano-Español-Deutsch
Links & downloads
Commercial release sheet (PDF)
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IMPROVISANDO
1 Uno (Toccata di tutti musici) 2 Due (sopra Las Vacas) 3 Tre (Passemezzo... nei boschi del Re) 4 Quattro (Anchor che col partire) 5 Cinque (... che col partire) 6 Sei (sopra Canaryo) 7 Sette (Toccata del Signor Pandolpho) 8 Otto (sopra La Spagna) 9 Nove (Toccata del Signor Gharrydo) 10 Dieci (sopra Passemezzo moderno) 11 Undici (Doulce Mémoire) 12 Dodici (Dialogo sopra un Pass’emezzo) 13 Tredici (Dolce Memoria) 14 Quattordici (Foliandalus)15 Quindici (Toccata del Signor Morhiny)
About this CD
Paolo Pandolfo is one of those rare artists who does not give into the temptation of establishing a regular and frequent rhythm of making new recordings – except, in his case, when he feels that he has something really relevant and new to say. If, in some way, this sets him apart and places him on the fringes of the record market, it does guarantee on the other hand a sense of timelessness and durability for his artistic work. His dazzling virtuosity and a musicality that knows no bounds transforms him into a true reference marker in an early music world that grows more predictable by theday.
And now, after nearly two years of silence, Pandolfo gathers round him a group of friends in order to create something which has practically been lost among the performers of “classical” music, victims of a wasting process that has become almost ingrained: improvisation. Turning back to a tradition which in the 16th and 17th centuries counted upon practitioners as famous as Diego Ortiz, Christopher Simpson and Girolamo Della Casa and that continued with significant names such as Frescobaldi, Corelli, Mozart and Brahms, these musicians unleash their imagination to regale us with eighty minutes of touching beauty and an unusual freedom. What we have here is a journey across musical structures which are mainly late- Renaissance ones, from dance ostinato basses (Pass’e mezzi, Folías, Canarios, Vacas) to the Fantasies for a solo instrument, from improvisations on a cantus firmus (La Spagna) to the alla bastarda style, based on polyphonic compositions (Anchor che col partire, Doulce Memoire)… Truly delightful.
It seemed that the music of Carl Friedrich Abel was proving singularly impervious to modern performance initiatives. More is known about the life and times of this Köthen-born composer than about his actual music (he can be placed as a pupil of JS Bach and as someone who died in the year of the 17 year-old Beethoven’s first visit to Vienna). Yet it was as a virtuosic improviser on the by then (surely?) outdated instrument of the viola da gamba that Abel was equally known for by his contemporaries. So, the most suitable candidate in the 21st century for bringing back Abel’s music to its rightful place needs to be not only a supreme interpreter on the viola da gamba and steeped in its repertory but one capable of understanding the almost lost art of improvisation. [read more...]
Widely admired as a virtuoso exponent of the viola da gamba through his concert performances and recordings of key composers from Germany, France, Spain, England and his native Italy, Paolo Pandolfo has in recent years been concentrating on his instincts and skills for improvising and composing (not to mention continuing with his teaching). An artist who can bring out the expressive vitality and poetry in the viol music of composers such as Sainte-Colombe, Marin Marais or J.S. Bach is plainly also relishing the challenges of other musical explorations that have included, on disc, an unaccompanied tour de force in A Solo and a travelogue (from this artist who is a modern, high-tech nomad himself) in Travel Notes. [read more...]