Paolo Ugoletti was born in Brescia, known as the '
Leonessa
d'Italia', 1956. He has an interdisciplinary approach to
composition - since 2003 Ugoletti has been collaborating with the painter
Rinaldo Turati, realising the soundtracks for his exhibitions.
Interestingly, the 'strength' and 'warmth' of traditional Irish music
emerging from Ugoletti's studies in the 1990s has tinted the two works heard
here with a rich Celtic glow.
Along with his knack for allowing the character of the instrument to emerge,
the
Concerto for accordion, guitar and string orchestra is a musky,
aromatic piece of contesting and complementary fragrances; it both
challenges and appeases our senses. An element of Astor Piazzolla with its
timbre of Latin American rhythms can be heard. That said, this music is
altogether more suave, aided by the string section, and less rustic. Divided
into three movements - quick-slow-quick - this composition is one in which
the solo instruments overlap and interrelate in an almost call-and-response
manner throughout. In the first movement the expressively played guitar has
a seemingly perfunctory role, keeping the beat. The intertwining accordion
and orchestra are layered on with precision. In the second movement the
accordion is more dominant and takes the melody whilst the guitar - now
plucking arpeggios rather than strumming chords - and strings accompany. The
third movement is gripping and exciting: the accordion and guitar echo one
another. Rhythms are complex and the slower harmonic modifications allow the
piece to coalesce, ultimately relating it to the earlier movements. Careful
not to overpower the guitar, Zambelli - heralded by
Amadeus
magazine as 'one of the best talents of the new Italian accordion school' -
carefully laces the tenderly and passionately played final guitar solo with
his musical responses.
Ugoletti is often inspired by the nineteenth century American poet Emily
Dickinson whose life and works are awash with nervous energy emanating out
of a transcendentalist context. The
Emily Dickinson Arias are
piercingly introspective, spiritually awakening and enlightening. This music
is in an unmistakably Dickinson style so that poetry and music seem
intimately part of our very being. As Shelley asked: 'Are we not formed, as
notes of music are, / For one another, though dissimilar?' Indeed, in each
of these pieces, the musicians seem acutely aware of Ugoletti's and
Dickinson's formal symmetry juxtaposed with the notion of the fragment. In
Dying at my music! Lin Ling Hui, velvety and warm of voice, blends
the longing, expectant waiting ('Hold me till the Octave's run!') with a
sudden urgency and release ('Quick! Burst the Windows!'). The opening string
section for
It rises creates a mystical, solitary sound-space that
is quintessentially Dickinson in style and feeling. Hui adds warmth and
character to such desolate music, though does not overwhelm or smother the
simplicity and initial unease evoked in the image of the sun slowly rising.
A mixture of confinement, spontaneity and release, these songs are
fascinating glimpses into the place between poetry and music; the hub of
creativity. Finishing with the outcry 'Soft' from
Soft as the massacre
of Suns, these pieces are both barren and bursting with life; tying
these two strands together with seamless ease. These songs are recommended
listening and are inimitably individual works.
Lucy Jeffery
