Recensione di Bartók Electrified di Párniczky Quartet, BMC, 2018
https://bmc.hu/en/programs/parniczky-quartet-bartok-electrified-bmc-album-debut
Bartók è stato un eccezionale musicista e compositore. Era affascinato non solo dalla musica folk, ma dal jazz e dall’improvvisazione musicale come una forma potenziale di stile musicale. Una testimonianza di questo interesse fu Eight Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs. Aveva anche composto un brano musicale per Benny Goodman, il musicista jazz di maggior successo nell’era dello swing. Il chitarrista ungherese Andras Párniczky ha composto/riarrangiato/rivisitato il suo repertorio utilizzando alcuni dei brani più corti di Bartók come il Mikrokozmosz, gli Easy Pieces for Piano o Contrasts for Violin, Clarinet and Piano. La sua è un’operazione musicale allo stesso tempo coraggiosa, intrigante e contemporanea. Un’operazione resa possibile dalla scadenza del copyright sulle opere di Bartok, avvenuta nel 2015, e dal desiderio di riproporre in chiave più moderna e jazz le sue opere, con un musica allo stesso tempo complessa ed emotiva. Il tutto permettendo al Párniczky Quartet di mantenere un proprio suono riconoscibile, saturo e decisamente energetico.
Concordo con quello che Béla Szilárd Jávorszky ha scritto nel booklet che accompagna il cd:
“Bartók was a proud, sincere character, who brooked no compromise, who was at one and the same time a late Romantic composer full of feeling, and an incredible, lean, determined ethnomusicologist, who composed with surgical precision’ said Párniczky. At the same time, Bartók, referred to as contemporary even seventy-two years after his death, was one of the last composers not to exploit in any way whatsoever the opportunities afforded by electronics. One reason Párniczky decided to call his project Bartók Electrified was because for years he had been curious as to how these works, which he loved in their original form, would sound on electric instruments.
Most of the music chosen is from Bartók’s short pieces: some of them have been translated into a jazz idiom ‘as is’, while others he has played around with considerably, using them as a source of inspiration. He has endeavoured to keep a constant balance between Bartók’s ideas and improvisation, even though the jazz impro in these compositions doesn’t necessarily happen in the same way as in the standards. In several instances he had to write improvisatory riffs for Bartók’s themes, but there are some pieces where there aren’t even riffs, and basically he and the band play free impro.”
Bartók Electrified è un ottimo lavoro, lasciatevi tentare dalle idee del Párniczky Quartet.
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