Review of Rosso Improvviso by Arturo Tallini, EMA Vinci Records, 2018
http://www.emavinci.it/store/prodotto/rosso-improvviso-di-arturo-tallini
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
Ciaccona dalla Partita n.2 in Re minore BWV 1004 – Arturo Tallini’s version
ALBERTO GINASTERA
Sonata op. 47 for guitar
1. Esordio
2. Scherzo
3. Canto
4. Final
BRUNO MADERNA
Serenata per un satellite Arturo Tallini’s version
LUCIANO BERIO
Sequenza XI
MAURIZIO PISATI
ChahaX intrusioni nella Ciaccona di J. S. Bach written for Arturo Tallini
Mestre, 26 March 2010. Arturo Tallini in concert. Music by Maderna, Pisati, Ginastera, Bach and improvisations. Tallini is in a personal phase of innovation and re-elaboration. In recent years Tallini wanted to develop and follow a personal path of innovation and stylistic maturation. A journey started with his CD “BLU” and with the music of Scelsi that will lead him to review many conventions and interpretive convictions and that takes shape after eight years with this new solo album called “Rosso Improvviso”.
As evidence of the period of study and gestation that was necessary to elaborate a new musical territory the music here performed are practically the same as that concert eight years ago, with the addition of the Sequence XI by Luciano Berio. But they are very different. What has changed in eight years thanks to the stylistic evolution and also thanks to the fact of being in a recording studio and not in a “live” context? Meanwhile, the sound. Much more defined. More secure and incisive. Tallini talks about “crystallization” as he mentions his version of Bach’s Chaconne. I think he’s right. This record “crystallizes” an evolution. The photographer, the freeze, defines the panorama and to my ears makes the work done by the interpreter even more impressive. Eight years ago, for example that Ciaccona was still a sketch, a design outlined by some charcoal sign, a prototype of the current version, less complex, less structured, less defined, rough, almost punk. Now its structure is more complex, mature, evolved, but it maintains an energy, a background that I rarely perceived in a classical musician, a subtle and restless anarchic charge that seems to be Tallini’s stylistic sign.
I waited Rosso Improvviso for a long time after that concert. Tallini seemed ready to let him out, then he postponed. Deconstructing, rebuilting. Demanding. Perfectioning. Listen to the “Serenata per un satellite”. I fell in love with that “score” and Maderna thanks to Arturo. This would only be the purchase of the record. It’s the piece that best represents Tallini. I saw it change, swell, shrink, define itself and reformulate itself over the years. And Ginastera and Berio. Reread. Transfigured. Taken to the limits of the possibilities of the instrument, exhausted versions, up to the bone. And the Pisati Hack on Bach. Reconstruction? Deconstruction? Musical theater? Emphasizing the gesture? Rosso Improvviso is the representation of an inexhaustible form. The realization of an absolute desire. The pleasure of continuous research. You can bet it’s not perfect. You can bet that if you now listen to the record and if after five minutes you go to see Tallini playing the same music in concert, you would listen to something different. Because this is Arturo Tallini. I do not know any classical guitarist who love the risk like him, I do not know any classical guitarist ready to abandon a well defined and sure path like him. Arturo Tallini is a punk.
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