Aldo Orvieto - Stefano Gervasoni: Le Pré '2016

Tracks list

Tracklist

01. Prés-First Book-For Piano: Pré ludique
02. Prés-First Book-For Piano: Pré lubrique
03. Prés-First book-For Piano: Pré public
04. Prés-First Book-For Piano: Prémisse
05. Prés-First Book-For Piano: Précipice
06. Prés-First Book-For Piano: Prémices
07. Sonatinexpressive-For Violin and Piano
08. Prés-Second Book-For Piano: Précieux
09. Prés-Second Book-For Piano: Prétentieux
10. Prés-Second Book-For Piano: Pernicieux
11. Prés-Second Book-For Piano: Pré épuré
12. Prés-Second Book-For Piano: Pré carré
13. Prés-Second Book-For Piano: Pré paré
14. Luce ignota della sera (D'après Schumann)-For Piano & live electronics
15. Prés-Third Book-For Piano: Prétérit
16. Prés-Third Book-For Piano: Pré d'après
17. Prés-Third Book-For Piano: Pressenti
18. Prés-Third Book-For Piano: Pré d'avant
19. Prés-Third Book-For Piano: Prédicatif
20. Prés-Third Book-For Piano: Pré de près
21. Adagio ghiacciato (D'après Mozart)-For Violin and prepared Piano



The concept of the album can be summed up by the word 'pre': inexPREssive,
PRÉ... „Pré as a word (in English 'pré' means: meadow or
grassland), or a PREfix (PRE-something): before the exPREssion, before being
exPREssed, or 'before the game' as in PRÉ-lude (in a pré, a meadow, where
children play). In other words: the peculiar state in which something does not
yet exist in an accomplished 'adult' form. Childhood as a way of having a
premonition of an adult life, with its negative aspects (losing the magic of a
non-rational relationship with words, no longer being innocent in grasping and
knowing things, losing the ability to marvel at the wonders of beauty) and some
positive ones (acquiring a logical, rational, pragmatic relationship with
reality). That is why the program includes pieces for children played by adults
(looking for an 'impossible' way of getting back to infancy). The
'Sonatinexpressive' (track 7) which could also be called a 'Sonatine expressive'
or a 'Sonate inexpressive' (ambiguously suspended between adulthood and
childhood) quotes a few elements from the composition 'Précieux (Prés -
second book)' (track 8) as a piano accompaniment to a very simple, celestial
violin melody.

The album includes two re-elaborations/adaptations: In 'Adagio ghiacciato'
(Adagio for Glasharmonika) after Mozart – usually considered as an easy
piano piece for children – a silent violin with a metal practice mute
plays just a few higher and lower notes and exceeds the two-octave range of a
toy piano (again infancy and apparent simplicity). The other adaptation after
Schumann is also written for children (adults trying to be children). The piece
is composed for four-hand piano. One pianist has to play only a monodic line
with one hand: a singing piano. This line is a beautiful vocal line, an 'inner
voice', magic and insane - typical of Schumann. The sounds are created with
electronics and projected inside the piano. This piece contains some bars from
'Pressenti (Prés - third book)' (track 17) which is a homage to Luigi Nono,
ideally linked to Schumann - two 'adult' visionary artists. Again: stupor,
premonition, prophetic vision, past (the infancy of PREsent) projected to the
future (the declining 'Abend' melody by Schumann turned into an ascending
utopian line by Nono, composer of a violin piece with live electronics entitled
'La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura').

Plenty of symmetries and cross-references in this program. The piano is not a
piano, the violin is not a violin. When the violin could sing, it is an inner
melody made by a transformed piano, when there is a real violin, it is reduced
to a toy instrument, the whistling sounds of a Glasharmonika becoming real
harmonics produced by the piano and by the small violin ...

The work is inspired by Francis Ponge’s book 'La fabrique du Pré'
('The making of the Pré“) in which the French author opens the doors of
his atelier and offers the readers the opportunity to witness the creation of
his text 'Le Pré'.

I give a double interpretation to this title: constructing from zero, creating a
story starting from the beginning of life (infancy or the infancy of the world);
or working on the preliminaries of existence, trying to give consistency to this
magic zone where childhood starts its long process of becoming adult (it takes a
whole life), magic starts to separate from reality, infancy from adult life and
the reverse, adult life feeling deprived and nostalgic of a purely emotional
relationship with reality, children and adults becoming aware of the lack of an
ecstatic relationship with the world, later replaced by an aesthetic one (in
art), by faith (in religion), by love, or by drugs, meditation, extreme sports
or any artificial method to go beyond this present, heavy, concrete world. I
think this is the leading thread and the deep meaning of this program.

Prés is a cycle of eighteen pieces, divided into six groups of three. Their
main characteristics are brevity and simplicity (more or less apparent), making
them belong to the category of pieces for children (in the twofold and ambiguous
sense of being performable by non adult pianists or taking their inspiration
from the world of childhood).

Eighteen small préludes, so small as to merit the name prés, that is
“meadows” in French. Thence the underlying theme of the cycle,
portrayed in six different ways, three pieces for each one: the apparent
carefree atmosphere of a meadow where children play and the premonition of
something bad that is about to happen and that the innocent gaze of a child is
able to perceive beforehand, with all the sense of foreboding that an adult
cannot or doesn’t want to comprehend.

Aldo Orvieto, piano
Saori Furukawa, violin
Alvise Vidolin, electronic 

All publication of the user fantastik - IsraBox

Related artists