Review of Metissage by Spring in Duo, Preludio Records, 2013
This cd, object of this review, could not exist. Otherwise from other musical genres (particularly jazz, swing and kletzmer’s music) both classical and contemporary musics that the contemporary have avoided to question themselves about the possibilities offered by a guitar and clarinet duo.
Which can be the causes of such an absence of repertoire? The absence of suitable interpreters? I don’t think so. The presence of these two instruments in more popular genres? It’s possible, it’s difficult to overcome a couple like Charlie Christian and Benny Goodman, it’s difficult also however that a contemporary composer knows well these two musicians. Difficulty in the management of these two instruments? I don’t believe it, if it is possible in other musical forms I can’t see why is not also possible in the world of the classical and the contemporary music.
I advance a malicious hypothesis: perhaps in the European contemporary world the presence together of two instruments by the melodic and popular character as the clarinet and the guitar could … create some problems to the Darmstad composers?
OK, as not said. At the end perhaps all was needed was … just asking, nobody had perhaps thought about this before Maria Teresa Battistessa (clarinet) and Alessandra Novaga (guitar) or Spring in Duo that has realized this beautiful cd that in practice contains the whole repertoire for a duo of classical guitar and clarinet.
The composers involved in the game are Paolo Fontana with his “Otto pezzi per chitarra”, Laurent Boutros with the passages “Amasia ” and “Metisse”, Antonio Eros Negri with his “Fantasia per un Fandango”, Alessandro Cerino with “Bagliori di altri cieli ” and Giancarlo Facchienetti with two compositions, “Tre Pezzi” (originally composed in 1979 for Oscar Ghiglia and Giuseppe Garbarono and never performed) and Fantasia Breve” on purpose written for Spring in Duo.
All the pieces fundamentally play with the possibilities of accompaniment and rhythmics offered by the guitar, leaving the role to develop the most melodic part to the clarinet, with perhaps the only exception of the “Tre Pezzi”where the italian composer plays sometime to hide and seek the parts. Anyway these are passages where to the melodic and harmonic components win in comparison to dissonances or to more rigid contemporary structures and this let the music be more sweet and pleasant. The two interpreters are surely good and they confirm all of their cleverness. A cd that shows as, to shame of the pessimists, in music there are still a lot of niches and unexplored possibilities and that all it takes is to look for more. Recording quality very good.
NeuGuitars 