All’Opera Profumo di Violetta Gianluigi Trovesi

• 1 Alba 01:32
• 2 Toccata 01:49
• 3 Musa 01:36
• 4 Euridice 03:28
• 5 Ninfe avernali 02:33
• 6 Ritornello 00:53
• 7 Frammenti orfici 03:48
• 8 Intrecciar ciaccone 03:31
• 9 "Pur ti miro" 04:15
• 10 "Stizzoso, mio stizzoso" 01:41
• 11 Vespone 03:47
• 12 Profumo di Violetta - Part I 01:35
• 13 "Ah, fors'è lui che l'anima" 02:19
• 14 Profumo di Violetta - Part II 02:36
• 15 Violetta e le altre 01:50
• 16 "È piquillo, un bel gagliardo" 00:42
• 17 Salterellando 01:03
• 18 Antico saltarello 00:32
• 19 Salterello amoroso 04:04
• 20 "Largo al factotum" 02:58
• 21 Aspettando compar alfio 05:03
• 22 "Il Cavallo Scalpita" 00:55
• 23 Così, Tosca 08:53
• Total Runtime 01:01:23

Info for All’Opera Profumo di Violetta

„How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers“, Rossini once exclaimed, and his colleague Claude Debussy protested that “in opera there is always too much singing”. When Gianluigi Trovesi, Italy’s great musical archaeologist and one of today’s outstanding improvisers, indulges in his old love for the drama and beauty of Italian opera he doesn’t just pick a few ever-popular hits to “sing” them on clarinet and alto saxophone, he builds an entire suite based on playfully interwoven operatic topics, encompassing the myth of Orpheus, the great festive ball, “the game of seduction”, joyous dance, and of course the inexhaustible theme of tragic jealousy. Accompanied by a fantastic “banda”, the large wind orchestra with percussion as we find it in the on-stage-music of many operas by Donizetti and Verdi, the reedman takes us on a humorous journey through the history of the genre, enriched with both light and very expressive improvisation. The trajectory leads from Monteverdi’s “Orfeo” via Pergolesi, Verdi and Mascagni to Puccini’s “Tosca”.

Both title lines carry witty double meanings: The Italian expression for “Trovesi at the opera” is equivocal with “Trovesi at work”, “Profumo di Violetta” on the other hand simultaneously alludes to the protagonist of Verdi’s “La Traviata” and to the flower’s sweet perfume – while more religious and erotic associations linger in the background. Humour and irony are paramount in “Profumo di Violetta” – an impish and charming, thoroughly Italian brand of iconoclasm that is always tinged with a strong poetic sense. This becomes evident already in the initial dawn with its musical gesture of “once upon a time at the Mediterranean”, or in Mario Cavaradossi’s march to his execution from “Tosca” where Trovesi’s clarinet gives its jazzy commentaries before the music leads back to the Te Deum from the finale of the first act. In “Trovesi all’opera”, the great intensity of Italy’s favourite art is juxtaposed with cheeky popular humour – which doesn’t exclude deep love and respect. The popular and the sublime, irony and unrestrained emotion meet in this ingenious project with an improvisational spirit that conveys the pure joy of music making.

The importance of the Banda in Italian provincial society can hardly be overstated. Recruiting its players from different milieus, these orchestras which played at all major civic and religious celebrations served as a melting pot for the social classes. In the age before the advent of the mass media, traditional Banda-repertoire, consisting of popular marches, waltzes, Neapolitan songs and – most important – operatic tunes, served as a kind of cultural memory that handed on popular musical treasures from generation to generation. Trovesi himself grew up listening to the local banda playing in the courtyards of his native village of Nembro near Bergamo. As he says in his personal introduction to the present recording, he decided to take up the clarinet as a boy when, unexpectedly, one day the regular player was missing from the orchestra.

Like most Bandas in the 20th century, “Filarmonica Mousiké” have shifted the focus of their repertoire to original contemporary compositions thus developing into a concert orchestra. It was Gianluigi Trovesi’s idea to revisit Italian opera from an unconventional angle by combining famous and lesser known tunes and including orchestral excerpts that enhance the symphonic design of the composition. While the general concepts were conceived by Trovesi, “Profumo di Violetta” is the product of an intense collaboration with the orchestra’s musicians who contributed significantly to the arrangements.

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). Subsequently Trovesi issued two highly successful discs with accordionist Gianni Coscia – “In cerca di cibo” and “Round about Weill”.

On his most recent release “Vaghissimo ritratto” (with Fulvio Maras and Umberto Petrin) he pulled together melodies and musical portraits from all manner of sources: Palestrina, Orlando di Lasso, Monteverdi, Josquin Des Prés, Jacques Brel, Italian pop singer Luigi Tenco, as well as pieces by the group members individually, plus collective improvising.

„To say they’ve succeeded in making wonderful music is to understate their accomplishment. Boundaries are not erased; they’re treated as if they never existed. The melding of classical techniques with jazz is wholly organic. Trovesi’s consummately modern improvisations sound completely at home in the context of his own compositions and Guarino’s arrangements, without a hint of compromise. Indeed, this is the most naturally affecting music I’ve heard in a while.“ (Chris Kelsey, JazzTimes)

„Gianluigi Trovesi, wild-haired Italian jazz clarinettist, creates a turbo-charged version of a traditional Italian town band to play a medley of quirkily arranged Italian opera tunes. It includes some of Rossini’s and Verdi’s greatest hits, garlanded with Trovesi’s husky solos, plus foot-tapping Baroque dances. It’s funny, sentimental and charming.“ (Ivan Hewett, Daily Telegraph)

„Trovesi’s own compositions extend and stretch the material. It is this, alongside the assured and sensitive arrangements by a clutch of hands, that give this record much of its charm. The Italian band tradition substitutes brass or woodwind for the prima donna and uomo, so this is no great leap for Trovesi. … There is a real energy and joie de vivre to this orchestra’s performance that truly lifts the music and makes this truly special. Elegant and it swings.“ (Duncan Heining, Jazzwise)

„Trovesi offre le meilleur de son inspiration à la fois légère, poétique et délicieusement sarcastique, s’autorisant, dans l’écrin d’une orchestration baroque tout en éclats lyriques, les plus audacieux vagabondages instrumentaux.“ (Stéphane Ollivier, Jazzman)

„(…) tratti di perfezione "Profumo di Violetta" ne ha, nel rievocare "a modo suo" pagine immortali (Monteverdi, Pergolesi, Verdi, Rossini, Mascagni, Puccini) e nelle mirabili, siano struggenti o argute, "aggiunte" di Trovesi stesso. (...) Un disco non trattenuto nei soli confini del jazz, ma davvero importante, per finezza e maestria.“ (Gianmario Maletto, Musica Jazz)

„Eine frühbarocke Ciaccone trifft auf John Coltrane, ein Saltarello kommt in der Harmonik eines Thelonius Monk daher, und von irgendwo weht plötzlich Bizets “Habanera” herein. Trovesi würfelt sein Material allerdings nicht einfach zusammen, er erzählt vielmehr eine kleine Geschichte der Oper, von den Anfängen bis heute, eklektisch, ironisch, übermütig, mit verschmitzten Augen. Es ist eine sehr persönliche Geschichte, seine Geschichte. Ihre Kapitel: Prolog, Mythos, der festliche Ball, das Spiel der Verführung, Liebe, Tanz, Eifersucht, Epilog. Klingt nach Oper. Und nach prallem Leben. Ein himmlisches Vergnügen für alle. Wie sagte doch Debussy? Es muss ja nicht immer gesungen werden.“ (Albrecht Thiemann, Opernwelt)

„Hier wird geseufzt, gescherzt, geschmachtet, gelitten, gealbert, mit Schmiss und Herzblut, con machismo, sentimento e gioia. Tragödie und Satyrspiel stehen sich immer nahe. … Wer glaubt, die Oper sei tot, gönne sich diese CD – das pralle Leben!“ (Franz Cavigelli, Neue Zürcher Zeitung am Sonntag)

Trovesi kommentiert und kombiniert die Melodien mit Eigenem und hat unüberhörbar seine Freude daran, mal Pergolesi in Tanzorchesterhafte kippen zu lassen oder der schwindsüchtigen Sünderin Violetta noch eine eigene Elegie zu widmen. Konzipiert als 23-teilige Suite, umgesetzt von der Filarmonica Mousiké unter der Leitung von Savino Acquaviva mit dem nötigen Gespür für das mediterrane Pathos der Vorlagen und die passende Gefälligkeit, nicht in den hochkulturellen Diskurs abzugleiten, ist Trovesi ein humorvoll unterhaltsamer Tribut … gelungen.“ (Ralf Dombrowski, Jazzthing)

Gianluigi Trovesi, piccolo and alto clarinets, alto saxophone
Marco Remondini, violoncello, electronics
Stefano Bertoli, drums, percussion
Filarmonica Mousiké, wind and percussion orchestra
Savino Acquaviva, conductor

Gianluigi Trovesi
"Thanks to his music, Gianluigi Trovesi has been able to give shape to a musical world which is familiar and original at the same time. He has drawn inspiration from a large variety of sources... His style as a composer and the voice of his instrument have placed him among the composers who have consolidated the concept of the European jazz, inspired by the American tradition far from being a slavish imitation of it" (F. Martinelli)

Following his graduation in clarinet under M° Giuseppe Tassis, he studied harmony, counterpoint and fugue under M° Vittorio Fellegara. He performed with classical music groups, dance and jazz bands. After making important experiences with Franco Cerri and Giorgio Gaslini, he received the Milan RAI National Orchestra (Big band) prize for first clarinet and alto saxophone soloist.

His first records named Baghet and Cinque piccole storie were recorded at the end of the 70ies and made him popular with both Italian and international jazz audience.

In 1978 he became popular developing a music which combines jazz memories and other forms of music either art or folk music: first with his Trio (he received the prize from the Critica discografica italiana), then with Ottetto - From G to G (Soul Note), the 5 star American magazine "Downbeat"; Les hommes armée (Soul Note) and Fugace (Ecm) Top Jazz best group, voted best record and best musician in "Jazz Musica".

The long fellowship with Gianni Coscia, the accordionist, has brought them to perform all around the world. At present three CDs have been successfully met by their audience and a fourth one is coming out by Ecm in autumn 2011.

In 1998 he was committed by the French festival of Coutances, le Mans and La Villette-Paris to compose a suite inspired to A midsummer night's dream by William Shakespeare which was recorded by Enja in 2000. Many orchestras have invited him to perform his compositions: the Koln WDR Big Band with whom he has created the CD Dedalo (Enja) with the arrangements by Gianluigi Trovesi and Corrado Guarino, guest Markus Stockhausen; the Guimaraes International Orchestra; the Bergen Big Band; the Bruxelles Jazz Orchestra, guest Dave Douglas; the Bari Synphony Orchestra; the Czech Republic Big Band; the Luzern Music Academy Big Band and the Slovenia Big Band. The Switzerland simphony orchestra committed him a piece of music dedicated toThe magic mountain by Thomas Mann which was presented on a summer tour in Switzerland in 2011.

He composed Profumo di Violetta (by Ecm, 2008), with the Mousiké Philarmonic, an imaginary journey inside the Italian opera from Monteverdi to 18th century.

The trio consisted of Umberto Petrin, Fulvio Maras and Gianluigi Trovesi gave birth to Vaghissimo ritratto (by Ecm, 2004), with the music by Monteverdi, Orlando di Lasso, Luigi Tenco and Jacques Brel.

He has recorded and performed with a large variety of both Italian and international musicians such as Paolo Fresu and Enrico Rava, Kenny Wheeler, Misha Mengelber, Conny Bauer, Anthony Braxton, Keith Tippett, Cecil Taylor, Misha Mengelberg, Clarinet Summit, Peter Kowald, Gunther Sommer, Zhivaro, Michel Portal, Louis Sclavis. He is the member of the Italian Instabile Orchestra, a national ensemble which entails the best musicians of the Italian avant-garde.

He recorded live with his quintet for L'Espresso jazz series at La Casa del Jazz in Rome in 2007, guest Enrico Rava.

Many of his performances have been marked by a "baroque atmosphere". He has recorded All'improvviso with the ensemble L'Arpeggiata by Christina Pluhar where jazz and traditional music combine with baroque impro spirit. The ensemble toured all over the world. In 2011 Trovesi performed with the ensemble La Venexiana at the Halle Handel meets jazz festival. In 2010 he performed with Attilio Cremonesi and the Wien Orchestra Strings with Stefano Montanari, violinist and conductor.

In 2003 he peformed again with the Trionfale Quartet: Manfred Schoof, Barre Phillips, Gunter Sommer with whom he experienced free improvisation.

He has composed themes with Gianni Coscia for films such as Mi piace lavorare: mobbing by Francesca Comencini and Liscio by Claudio Antonini. He took part into the works of Luigi Cinque and the Swiss film Pane per tutti theme by Christoph Baumann and Jacques Siron.

He has composed for the theatre with Gianni Coscia where he has staged In cerca di voce. He took part into Paolo Damiani's show I kiss your hands with Sonia Bergamasco, Fabrizio Gifuni, Danilo Rea and Rita Marcotulli.

He has composed music for literature and poetry working with both Giuseppe Cederna and Stefano Benni.

Trovesi has been performing with Paolo Damiani for over thirty years and he was chosen by him as a soloist in his Orchestre National de Jazz français edition. He has perfomed with Bruno Tommaso whose arrangements have enabled him to record - Around small fairy tales with the Enea Salmeggia Chamber Orchestra (4 and a half star in "Downbeat") and with Enrico Intra who has produced several programmes based on his compositions.

The whole 2001 edition of the Barga Jazz festival was dedicated to him and his music.Mr. Luigi Sforza from Dams in Bologna and Mrs. Annette Maye from Hochschule für Musik Köln have written their graduate theses about him. He has also been the protagonist of the documentary film dedicated to him, called Il cortile della musica by Sergio Visinoni (Lab80 Film).

For his art he has been appointed Ufficiale della Repubblica Italiana (Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, President of the Italian Republic), Chevalier de l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres (République Française) and Commendatore dell'ordine al merito della Repubblica Italiana (Giorgio Napolitano, Presidente della Repubblica Italiana).

Booklet for All’Opera Profumo di Violetta