They’re back! More “knowingly provocative” music (to quote Umberto Eco, once more providing the liner notes) from the great Italian duo that delighted many with the 1999 recording “In cerca di cibo”. This new recording finds Trovesi and Coscia taking a tangential approach to one of the most creative composers of the 20th century, still misunderstood after all these years: Kurt Weill (1900-1950).
Round About Weill
Gianluigi Trovesi, Gianni Coscia
- 1Dov’è la città?
06:13 - 2Ach, bedenken Sie, Herr Jack O’Brien
02:05 - 3Tango Ballade
04:28 - 4Improvvisamente
04:18 - 5Divagazioni su “Youkali“
02:51 - 6Mahagonny, Scene 6
01:56 - 7Ein Taifun! ... Tifone? No, pioggerella!
02:09 - 8Lieben
03:33 - 9Boxen
02:06 - 10Round About Weill I / Denn wie man sich bettet, so liegt man
03:14 - 11Mahagonny, Scene 13
02:18 - 12Essen
03:36 - 13Round About Weill II
04:54 - 14Tief in Alaskas schneeweißen Wäldern
01:48 - 15Ach, bedenken sie, Herr Jack O’Brien, var.
02:38 - 16Mahagonny, Scene 4
02:19 - 17Aber dieses ganze Mahagonny
01:33 - 18Alabama Song
05:31 - 19Mahagonny, Scene 6, var.
01:13 - 20Alabama Song, var.
01:38 - Interludio „Ma che modi sono?...“
- 21Cumparsita Maggiorata
04:06 - 22Tristezze di Fra’ Martino
01:57 - 23Denn wie man sich bettet, so liegt man
02:16
Jazzreview, Editor’s Choice
Stereoplay, CD des Monats
Consigliato da Music Jazz
Can the outrageously Germanic Weill be interpreted by a pair of wily Italians? Of course, but with a strong flavour of their native folklore, with a sense of light classical relief and even an occasional smear of what could be termed jazz. Trovesi and Coscia manage the difficult task of retaining the essence of dank, diseased, underground cabaret, yet still enjoying the rosy-cheeked open-air romping spaces of the Italian countryside.
Martin Longley, Jazzreview
Der Klarinettist Trovesi und der Akkordeonist Coscia hatten vor fünf Jahren mit dem ECM-Erstling In Cerca di Cibo ein wunderbares Statement abgeliefert: 15 gefühlsintensive, offene Dialoge zwischen Kammermusik, Folk und Jazz. Nun gibt’s endlich eine Fortsetzung, in guter Tradition wieder mit einem Essay von Umberto Eco im Booklet. Die beiden Altmeister Trovesi/Coscia – Freunde seit Kindertagen- verständigen sich auch hier mit faszinierender Mühelosigkeit. Neu ist: Sie haben eine Klammer für ihre Zwiegespräche: die Stücke des deutschen Komponisten Kurt Weill, denen sie – von der „Tango Ballade“ bis zum „Alabama Song“ – reizvolle Facetten abringen. Ebenso schlüssig sind ihre selbst verfassten, zahlreichen Intermezzi im Weillschen Geiste.
Matthias Inhoffen, Stereoplay
Klarinette und Akkordeon verfolgen einander auf ihrer Spur durchs Klagelabyrinth. Sie bleiben auf einem Ton hängen, verlieren sich in Delirien, verrecken in Wiederholungsschlaufen. Zunächst mal aber machen sich die beiden munter auf die Suche nach der richtigen Stadt. Heißt Mahagonny möglicherweise Jerusalem? Oder doch lieber Paris? Fragen der lüsternen Musette-Kaskaden des Akkordeons, wobei die wiederholt in kleinen Sekunden abwärts marschierende Antwort der Klarinette wohl als ein eindeutiges „No!“ zu verstehen ist. Viele Weill-Lieder sind aber auch ganz einfach nur instrumentiert, etwa der Alabama-Song oder die aus der „Dreigroschenoper“ geliehene Zuhälterballade oder das „Youkali“-Lied, letzteres wieder pariserisch parfümiert. Anderes ist reine Improvisation, wieder anderes ausgearbeitete Variationsfolge. ...
Wieder, wie bereits beim „Pinocchio-Album“ des Mailänder Duos (In Cerca di Cibo), hat Umberto Eco für das Beiheft eine Hymne darüber geschrieben, was er sich so dachte beim Inhalieren dieser Improvisationen. Man muss seine Ansichten über die Vorzüge des musikalischen Halbschlafs bei Weill nicht im geringsten teilen, um mit dieser Platte trotzdem genauso glücklich werden zu können.
Eleonore Büning, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Eine weitere Aufnahme mit Kurt-Weill-Themen gleicht einem wackligen, musikgeschichtlichen Hochseil-Akt. ... Der angstfreie Seiltanz, im blinden Vertrauen auf die eigene, über die Jahre erprobte Kunstfertigkeit, hat sich gelohnt: Entstanden sind versponnene, volksliedartige Nummern mit wohltuend ballastfreiem Italo-Flair. Insgesamt sind die Stücke weit weniger in einem verrauchten Kabarett der Weimarer Republik anzusiedeln als vielmehr an der frischen Luft einer mediterranen Piazza. Der melodienseligen Tristezza haften fellineske Bilder von zerbrechlicher Schönheit an. Über der imaginären Freiluft-Manege hängt eine zartbittere Verspieltheit, manchmal introvertiert und im nächsten Moment gleichsam kommunikativ.
Michael Heisch, Jazzthing
Die Oper nehmen sie zum Ausgangspunkt für Improvisationen und Assoziationen über Weill sowie Eigenes im Weillschen Geiste. Dabei schaffen Trovesis Piccolo- bzw. Altklarinette und Coscias Akkordeon delikate Klangbilder, die dem Jazz so viel verdanken wie europäischer Kammermusik und mediterranen Volkstraditionen.
Berthold Klostermann, Fono Forum
Trovesi und Coscia führen Weill in Richtung Cinecittà und kombinieren überzeugend mit eigenem Material: „Boxen“ mag eine Hommage an Brechts Faible für diesen Sport sein; jedenfalls sind hier zwei „Fechter“ mit eleganter Beinarbeit am Werk. Sentiment, das sich klein macht und hinter der Feinarbeit delikater Phrasierung verschanzt..., impressionistische Klarheit: eine gerade dank ihres unspektakulären Habitus’ sensationelle CD.
Klaus Nüchtern, Falter
More “knowingly provocative” music (to quote Umberto Eco, once more providing the liner notes) from the great Italian duo that delighted many with its 1999 recording “In cerca di cibo”, “always shifting to some point where the listener doesn’t expect to find them.” “In cerca” had included improvisations on sources as diverse as the Modern Jazz Quartet and music from an old Italian TV film about Pinocchio. This new recording finds them taking a tangential or round about approach to one of the most creative composers of the 20th century, still misunderstood after all these years: Kurt Weill (1900-1950).
Eco expresses surprise at this choice, but there’s a clear enough logic to it. Weill scholars still talk about the “problem of the ‘two Weills’”, the composer of the German years, once ranked alongside Hindemith, and the Broadway songwriter of the American years working inside the traditions of the musical, popular theatre, the cinema. For Trovesi/Coscia this ‘problem’ is no problem at all, since the Italian improvisers from Nembro and Alessandria share a similar disdain for artificial distinctions between supposedly highbrow and lowbrow art, know (like Weill) that great music can as easily be found on the street as in the conservatory and that all forms are valid vehicles to carry an argument or, simply, to have fun with. Factor in Weill’s status as a leftwing Jewish troublemaker and one of the very first composers to acknowledge the creative potential of jazz, and he stands as a natural anarcho-spiritual forebear. From their Italian perspective, Trovesi and Coscia also sees Weill as a musical-philosophical neighbour to their hero Fiorenzo Carpi, celebrated on “In Cerca”, whose music played a role in the political theatre of Dario Fo and Giorgio Strehler and who was also a poetic ironist, and a radical as well as a writer of enduring melodies.
So: here we find both Weill pieces and free meditations on Weill, plus new Trovesi/Coscia music in a Weillian spirit. The main inspirational source for the programme is “The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny”, the three act opera that marked one of the highwater marks of Weill’s collaboration with playwright Bertolt Brecht. Its musical content was recently summed up by Paul Griffiths as “Bach meets the 1920s dance band, with canons and chorales brought into critical contact with popular rhythms and song styles.” “For us“, says Coscia, “Mahagonny is the starting point, the pretext for changing the material”. The duo also plays, in its own inimitable manner, the “Tango Ballade” from “The Threepenny Opera”.
Kurt Weill’s music was one of the subjects accordionist Gianni Coscia first focused on when finally devoting himself full time to music after 30 years as a practising lawyer. In 1991 he participated in performances of “The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny” with the RAI Radio Rome Symphony Orchestra.
Gianluigi Trovesi, almost unchallenged amongst clarinettists in Europe, has been one of the defining figures of Italian jazz, a multiple prize-winner in his homeland since the 1970s. Membership of Giorgio Gaslini’s groups helped raise his profile but it was not until the 1990s that Trovesi began to be widely known internationally, both as the outstanding soloistic star of the Italian Instabile Orchestra (ECM album “Skies of Europe”), and leader of his own bands, particularly the Octet, which would also record for ECM (“Fugace” by the Gianluigi Trovesi Ottetto, recorded in 2002, takes a very unorthodox look at some of the roots of early jazz).
But the duo with Gianna Coscia is a special and unique pleasure. The two old friends have a very advanced musical understanding and the humour that radiates from their music is underpinned by astonishingly quick-witted exchanges. The music has grown steadily from their debut disc for a small Italian label “Radici” in1995, through “In cerca di cibo” to the present disc. The duo is immensely resourceful and flexible in its approach, as it roves through the margins of a dozen idioms. Not only are Gianluigi Trovesi and Gianni Coscia the best at what they do, they are the only ones doing what they do!
Eco expresses surprise at this choice, but there’s a clear enough logic to it. Weill scholars still talk about the “problem of the ‘two Weills’”, the composer of the German years, once ranked alongside Hindemith, and the Broadway songwriter of the American years working inside the traditions of the musical, popular theatre, the cinema. For Trovesi/Coscia this ‘problem’ is no problem at all, since the Italian improvisers from Nembro and Alessandria share a similar disdain for artificial distinctions between supposedly highbrow and lowbrow art, know (like Weill) that great music can as easily be found on the street as in the conservatory and that all forms are valid vehicles to carry an argument or, simply, to have fun with. Factor in Weill’s status as a leftwing Jewish troublemaker and one of the very first composers to acknowledge the creative potential of jazz, and he stands as a natural anarcho-spiritual forebear. From their Italian perspective, Trovesi and Coscia also sees Weill as a musical-philosophical neighbour to their hero Fiorenzo Carpi, celebrated on “In Cerca”, whose music played a role in the political theatre of Dario Fo and Giorgio Strehler and who was also a poetic ironist, and a radical as well as a writer of enduring melodies.
So: here we find both Weill pieces and free meditations on Weill, plus new Trovesi/Coscia music in a Weillian spirit. The main inspirational source for the programme is “The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny”, the three act opera that marked one of the highwater marks of Weill’s collaboration with playwright Bertolt Brecht. Its musical content was recently summed up by Paul Griffiths as “Bach meets the 1920s dance band, with canons and chorales brought into critical contact with popular rhythms and song styles.” “For us“, says Coscia, “Mahagonny is the starting point, the pretext for changing the material”. The duo also plays, in its own inimitable manner, the “Tango Ballade” from “The Threepenny Opera”.
Kurt Weill’s music was one of the subjects accordionist Gianni Coscia first focused on when finally devoting himself full time to music after 30 years as a practising lawyer. In 1991 he participated in performances of “The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny” with the RAI Radio Rome Symphony Orchestra.
Gianluigi Trovesi, almost unchallenged amongst clarinettists in Europe, has been one of the defining figures of Italian jazz, a multiple prize-winner in his homeland since the 1970s. Membership of Giorgio Gaslini’s groups helped raise his profile but it was not until the 1990s that Trovesi began to be widely known internationally, both as the outstanding soloistic star of the Italian Instabile Orchestra (ECM album “Skies of Europe”), and leader of his own bands, particularly the Octet, which would also record for ECM (“Fugace” by the Gianluigi Trovesi Ottetto, recorded in 2002, takes a very unorthodox look at some of the roots of early jazz).
But the duo with Gianna Coscia is a special and unique pleasure. The two old friends have a very advanced musical understanding and the humour that radiates from their music is underpinned by astonishingly quick-witted exchanges. The music has grown steadily from their debut disc for a small Italian label “Radici” in1995, through “In cerca di cibo” to the present disc. The duo is immensely resourceful and flexible in its approach, as it roves through the margins of a dozen idioms. Not only are Gianluigi Trovesi and Gianni Coscia the best at what they do, they are the only ones doing what they do!
