BORCIANI Quartetto
Razzmatazz

Fy 7003

8021750700325
Newtone Records

 

«Razzmatazz is a strange American word, related in some ways to the dawn of jazz. Its root is the verb "to razz" - to make fun of someone - and that, in a friend of mine opinion it could mean "a big mess". It seems that is was screamed by charleston dancers, but to me it also sounds like a word from Trieste that it could mean disorder, a disorder that often our things have, intense and funny, creative in his more far and intimate corners. A word with the taste of fun and irony of that land but also a little bit melancholic. » (Fulvio Luciani)

The music of this CD is not a programmatic answer, does not look for a coherence, does not try to demonstrate a theory. These scores are simply music written by «not-academic» composers (whatever it can mean). They go from folk tradition of the four districts area (Northern Italy) (Cadmio) to the very extreme repetitive movements of the machine, like in Luce-Ombra (Light - Shadow) where the sampled QUARTETTO BORCIANI plays with the real (!) Quartetto Borciani. Passing through exotic folk reminiscences (Chatwin and Caucaso), literature memories (La nave dei folli and Chatwin) or existentialist questions (La via - The way). The medium to presents this assemblage of music and sounds is the String Quartet, the most classic ensemble in the Western chamber music. The workshop of the most esoteric researches of the last three centuries. The recording technique is the most classic, as for the recording of the Beethoven Quartets.
The result is a big «mess», a mix of old and popular flavors and modern and urban hysteria, of sense of memory and feelings to be part of a tradition, even a very far away one, and the nervous breakdown of contemporary daily life, some consider the highest symbol of being modern. A combination «read», and taken along by a short story of the Italian writer Dario Voltolini.

In 1984 PAOLO BORCIANI, first violin of the famous Quartetto Italiano, allowed some of his students to form a string quartet named after him to indicate its connection to an excellent instrumental and music school. It was the sign of continuity of the lesson of the unforgettable Quartetto Italiano. Since then the QUARTETTO BORCIANI has been the guest of the most prestigious Italian music institutions and festivals. It appeared for the first time in London at the Purcell Room in 1990 and in Salzburg at the Grosser Saal of the Mozarteum in 1992 on the occasion of the Mozart bicentennial celebrations. It was invited to the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto in 1991 and again in 1992. In 1996 it was invited to the Festival of Wexford in Ireland. The RAI (Italian National Broadcasting Company) recorded two public concerts on video, one of which was broadcast all over Europe via satellite.
The QUARTETTO BORCIANI will also play a major role in Milan during the next two seasons of the complete cycle of Beethoven quartets, the utmost challenge for a string quartet. Besides the more traditional and well-known works, the QUARTETTO BORCIANI cultivates the pleasure of curiosity.