Paolo Fresu

PERSONNEL:

PAOLO FRESU, flugelhorn
DANIELLE DI BONAVENTURA, bandoneon

Recorded May 15,16, 2014 at Auditorium RSI Lugano

TRACKS:

01. Da Capo Cadenza
02. Ton Kozh
03. O que será/ El pueblo unido jamàs serà vencido
04. Non ti scordar di me
05. Sketches
06. Apnea
07. Te recuerdo Amanda
08. La mia terra
09. Kyrie Eleison
10. Quando me’n vò
11. Se va la murga
12. Calmo
13. In maggiore

Through their work in the concerts of Mistico Mediterraneo, created together with the celebrated Corsican vocal ensemble A Filetta (see ECM 2220), Paolo Fresu and Daniele di Bonaventura discovered a strong creative affinity and have further developed their lyrical musical language in a decade of collaborative projects. In maggiore, recorded in Lugano’s Auditorio Stelio Molo in May 2014 and produced by Manfred Eicher, is their first album in duo formation. It explores a more intimate expressive dimension, in which the Sardinian trumpeter and the bandoneonist from Italy’s Marche region deploy the poetry of small sounds and gestures, all the more potent in an often noisy and information-saturated time. Their focus is on the colours generated by the breath flowing through the valves of Fresu’s horns and vibrating in the reeds of di Bonaventura’s bandoneon. Fresu here renounces the use of electronic effects characteristic of some of his live performances. The detailed Lugano recording emphasizes instead the grain of the sound which incorporates also the sounds of metal struck by Fresu or the rattle of di Bonaventura’s keys as occasional rhythmic accompaniment: audible signs of the physicality of the relationship with the musical instruments.