“ (...) I don't believe in schools of composition! They (nonetheless) limit our minds that, instead, need room for freedom (...). I believe more in " love at first sight " with the sound experience...”. These passionate and determined words are Enrico Francioni introduction in the booklet of his CD Segni del tempo (Signs of the times). These signs represent a door through which the listener can enter Enrico's world of music, feelings and experience. He offers a journey through his most relevant memories, constantly linked to the ancestral experience of sound, always taking place in different and original ways, both inside and outside oneself. The ability of being surprised and to enjoy the thousands of colour variables of this experience appear like an essential condition both for him as a player and as a composer, though the classical meaning of this word does not actually fit him. Rather, Enrico experiments the sound that, as he himself describes in the introduction of his work, “(...) needs to wander in eternal, loosing itself and finding itself again and betraying itself, maybe to be reconfirmed soon afterwards (...)”,respecting and incarnating his desire for formal liberty until it loses the definition of a specific role.
Of course the most important element is that Enrico Francioni is a double-bass player and that the basis for his research on sound is this essential instrument, the double-bass. In this way he interprets its sound language, besides enjoying brave experiments with other instruments, he always maintains the same personal liberty and idea of exploring the features of sound that guide his instrumental performance. Last but not least, we must highlight his professional partnership with Fernando Grillo, hereby defined as the "unique maestro", that has given his research of sound a personal footprint. Enrico has dedicated to him one of the most exciting tracks of this CD, the Ricercare.
Francioni presents here ten compositions, three of which are for solo double-bass, while the other ensemble pieces include strings, (Pasquale Farinacci, violin, Aldo Zangheri, viola and Gabriele Zoffoli, cello), harp (Patrizia Carciani), flute and piccolo (Francesco Manna) and guitar (Aldo Vianello).
The opening is the solo flute of Flabrum, where the journey in sound is based on improvisations, though one can perceive some tonal basis but with free rhythm, reminding one of a concerto's final cadenza.
Impulsi is the first track for solo double-bass. It creates a meditative atmosphere, recalling exotic worlds with its sounds, whether these are harmonic or pizzicato notes, placed at intervals that space out from the Western semi-chromatic division.
Record’en flans is written for flute and double-bass. Its structure includes a final fugue and a Grave end, reminding one of the "theme with variations" in the classical structure. The first part is characterized by a refined and extremely detailed alternation of sounds and harmonics up to a distinct change in the character, with a series of "variations", with a free use of thematic notes. The piece continues with a poignant harmonic and melodic game between the pizzicato of the double-bass and the staccato of the flute. The final fugue is created by a counter-point section and a Grave.
The solo violin is the protagonist of Contr’tast, where there seems to be a kind of recitativo, in which the bow "sings" with feeling and pathos, while the other emission techniques producing sounds "accompany" this melody, that is at times resigned and, sometimes, even obsessed.
With Cluster we enter into a dream atmosphere, between the ancient-style cantilena of the winds and the double-bass with its psychedelic approach. The winds' shaping and sound emission technique remind one of the ticking of a clock and the mechanical movement of a machine. Also poignant are the balances between the sound of the flute and the intervention of the double-bass.
Ricercare is a highly fascinating track. It consists of a small thematic cell (typical of a Ricercare), repeated at different heights, with the most different technical combinations, both compositional and instrumental.
The composition for the Trio opens with an ostinato with a series of increasingly rhythmically animated variations. In its development, the sounds are gradually included in a pre-existing carpet of sound, suggesting the impression of a gradually changing "colour", almost a contemplative Adagio. After a brilliant rock-like Allegro, the Fugato for three voices begins, presenting echoes of the French baroque musical style, with dotted notes and diminutions. The Andante that follows echoes Handel's airy andante. The melody, based on a harmonic minor scale, once more provides us with echoes of the East.
I segni del tempo is the CD’s title-track. This composition won awards in a number of international competitions. Here, Francioni's music can be compared to a "liquid suspension", as defined by the Italian writer and musicologist Alessandro Zignani, in the introduction of this CD.
In the Cinque piccoli pezzi (Five little pieces) the guitar is the protagonist, with a marvellous sound and pleasing atmosphere. Cantilena has a special place, reminding one of an ancient melody spotlighted by mordents, like the style of the popular songs of Southern Italy.
Lastly, Zauberspiegel, characterized by the equivalence harmonics = reflections. This piece has a strong character, almost a fairy tale, for its analogy with the bourdon note of a bagpipe, though with clear Eastern reminiscences, not only for the scale used in the melody, but also for the references to other Western instruments, thanks to the use of particular timbres in the double-bass.
Let us give this last piece the task of confirming this baffling ancient and magic atmosphere, shared as a fundamental characteristic by the sound and the memory. Let us hope that Enrico's journey through both these elements has not yet come to an end, and that there will be further future sound experiments in his "constant research using sound".

Thanks to Alberto Pavoni for contribution.

Zeno De Rossi is an eclectic drum and percussion player. His biography is filled with activities and includes a number of musical projects. He has been cooperating with some of the most interesting contemporary musicians, such as Vinicio Capossela (with whom he constantly works), Franco D’Andrea, Marc Ribot, Fabrizio Bosso, Gianluca Petrella, Ares Tavolazzi and Otello Savoia (just to mention some double-bass players) and many more.
The musical project named “Shtik” has not very much to do with this background. As a matter of fact it includes something very personal. A rich collection of passions and memories, kept alive since his childhood that, combined together, become atmosphere, sound and music.
Zeno's love for traditional Jewish music comes from the Yiddish culture, where music is a familiar element accompanying everyday life, with its sad and happy moments (how could we forget the moving and ironic melancholy of the small wind band in the beautiful film “Train de Vie” by Mihaileanu? –writer's note). But, also and especially, memory. Those warm sounds and melodies, frequently in a minor key, but which are never too sad, with a bit of irony. This was the soundtrack of his childhood, when he used to listen to his father Toni's LPs or while he played the double bass. He inherited his love for Jewish music and for jazz. This flashback to childhood is dedicated to him; a childhood lived through the eyes and the heart of a refined musician. It is a "fictitious letter", telling what frequently notes are more able to tell than words.
Shtik: 11 covers, originally re-interpreted, whose unique leitmotiv seems to be that they were taken out of Zeno's bag of memories. They are an interesting blend of free jazz, moving melodies and dancing rhythms, including Ornette Coleman and Cole Porter's standards, traditional melodies taken from the Yiddish musical “Fiddler on the roof” and other more rare or even forgotten pieces. The pleasure of listening to this CD over and over makes us realize that there is much more. The real protagonist is the atmosphere, also thanks to the live ensemble sound, resulting in a blend of emotions, happiness, melancholy, rhythm and good taste, reminding one of old and precious "cellars", where all the greatest jazz players started their careers, where you can play together with passion and time never passes.
The creator of the project is supported by a group of friends, who are also high-level musicians. They are Kyle Gregory (trumpet), Daniele D’Agaro, Achille Succi, Francesco Bigoni, Nicola Fazzini and Piero Bittolo Bon (saxophones), Pasquale Mirra (vibes), Enrico Terragnoli and Alessandro Stefana (guitars), Alfonso Santimone and Giorgio Pacorig (piano) and Danilo Gallo and Stefano Senni (bass guitar). Together they form the "new family of musicians" of the El Gallo Rojo, the label that hosted and realized De Rossi's musical project, perfectly in accordance with the original features of their other productions.
The opening track is a perfect choice, according to the atmospheres told by De Rossi in the booklet. It is a piece by Ennio Morricone that was excluded from the soundtrack of "Once upon a time in America". The piece is performed and elegantly coloured with Yiddish-style shades by Achille Succi's clarinet. Each track hides some jewel in its arrangement or in the instrumental performance, such as the curious and original Bolero-like performance of the traditional “Chavalah”. The standard “I heard it over the Radio” is enriched by a duet between Danilo Gallo (creator of the label “El Gallo Rojo”) and Stefano Senni, with some experiments that overcome the classical schemes of the double- bass. It is Zeno himself that defines Cecile Taylor's “Luise” as "fulgurating" for its intensity and beauty. Whatever version one listens to, his opinions are definitely true, and his refined performances, combining rhythm, piano counter-parts and the warm sound of the clarinet and the bass clarinet are definitely a worthy solution. “Tradition” is the more traditional track that tempers itself through a performance of modern jazz, “My yddishe momme” is built like a moving ballad, “Sabbath prayer” oscillates between mystic and sensual shades, where the trumpet never fades, notwithstanding the full rhythmical bases on which it moves. "Have Nagila" is another traditional Jewish track with its free jazz style, though in the beginning it seems to develop like a Bossanova. A worthy finale is Cole Porter's standard, with the rhythms and sounds vaguely reminiscent of the 60’s and softened with an enjoyable and refined irony.
"It is serious or with a sly irony, wise or carefree. It seems to hide the burden of a secret, which can't be understood by whoever has not shared the history of a people that was able to maintain the spaces and mysteries of the desert from where it comes ". These words by Moni Ovadia about the atmospheres created by the Yiddish music are perfectly suited to this CD.
A special note also goes to the graphic project, which is nice, ironic, temperate and original. These are also the features of Zeno De Rossi's public image that, in his website, has been able to characterize himself with the same original appeal.

The cover of this first personal album by Lila Horovitz is guaranteed to be immediately striking. It communicates ancestral and sensual impressions with a blend of concave-convex curves, as a symbol of motherhood and childbirth, in music as it is in life.
It is Lila herself telling us that this musical project has developed while she was pregnant with one of her children. It is an intimate journey through the deepest emotions of a woman musician and also composer. Her musical journey still remains a constant discovery. She started out in pop-rock groups, followed by the encounter with jazz and then it was love at first sight with Argentine folk music, in particular the Tango and the double-bass, with which, as she says, she "immediately and eternally” fell in love.
Since then, she has carried out classical studies of technique, harmony and composition and started a two-way journey, where the discovery of classical symphonic and chamber music blend with her passion for tango and its direct ancestral language.
This ancient and lingering love is supported by a number of new instruments that Lila has used during the years to write her tangos, with her idea of tango, without forgetting her inner research. She has also played tango, in her personal style, as part of group or as a soloist. This journey gave rise to her original music. Her composing inspiration encompasses all the classical features of tango, its strong thematic impact, the captivating rhythmical development never far from a sense of dance. In her compositions she never forgets these elements, with the exception of some moments of harmonic and sound research and some experiments of contamination, that we could name “free tango-jazz”.
Lila's artistic project also includes the pianist Juan Esteban Guacci with whom, in other areas and in her private life, she forms a stable duo, a wind section organised by Ramiro Obedman, the bandoneonist Mike Augustusson and, as a special guest, a super-sensual Walter Rios and his bandoneon plus the warm voice of Susana Rinaldi, another constant professional collaborator.
They accompany her in the performance of the classics in the Argentine Tango, included in this project.
Lila Horovitz's CD includes 11 tracks, 7 of which are originals, besides performing them alone or in a group, Lila is also their composer. Then there are 4 tracks with "special guests", as examples of Tango with capital T. Starting from Carlos Gardel, the greatest example of Argentine popular culture, who created the "tango-song". He had a troubled life and died unexpectedly. Surely, the song “El dia que me quieras” is unforgettable once you listen to it, even more when surrounded by the special atmosphere of a tangueria. The performance by Rios and Horovitz, without the moving lyrics and the thrill of a voice, has to concentrate on the waving and melancholic sound that cannot be missed in a Gardel tango. The best result is reached especially when two instruments do not exchange their parts. Each one keeps his own role, just like the tango dance, which is elegant and rigid, where the man and woman's roles cannot be exchanged.
There are other two artists who are probably less famous but no less important in the history of Argentine tango. The first one is Juan Carlos Cobian, great pianist and composer. The second one is Anibal Troilo, whose nickname is "Pichuco", known as the "bandoneón mayor de Buenos Aires" (the best bandoneon player in Buenos Aires) and as orchestra conductor at the Cafè Germinal. This orchestra contributed to make the tango tradition develop in its best forms. Lastly, there has to be a tribute to Astor Piazzolla, with a very famous piece - “Contrabajeando”. Nevertheless, many people do not know that this piece of music was written due to the friendship between Troilo and Piazzolla, during a period of fruitful musical cooperation between the protagonists of two different tango generations.
It is always necessary to be brave to tackle a classic of the virtuoso repertoire, where the instrumental competence and interpretation are both fundamental. Lila is so intelligent that, besides offering her very personal view, she does not ignore, not even in this moment of solo performance, the tanguero features that this piece cannot do without.
The lyrics are by Rainer Maria Rilke, one of the most important German poets of the XX century who used art and expression to cope with a troubled life. His lyrics accompany the symbolic image of this project. They are dedicated to a "young poet" and apply to anyone, who, through the ages, defines himself as an "artist".

“Todo es llegar a término y después dar a luz.

Dejar que cada impresión, cada germen de un

sentimiento se perfeccione totalmente en sí

mismo, en lo oscuro, en lo indecible,

inconsciente, en lo que es inalcanzable para la

propia razón, y esperar con profunda humildad y

paciencia la hora del alumbramiento de una

nueva claridad: esto solo significa vivir

artísticamente, tanto al comprender como al

crear. ”

Firstly, the Repertoire: Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 1 in E Minor Op.38 by Johannes Brahms. It was composed in 1862-65 and was dedicated to Brahms’ friend Josef Gänsbacher, singing professor at the Vienna Academy and amateur cello player. The Sonata is divided into three movements: the first - Allegro ma non troppo – shows the typical features of the “sonata form”, where the structure is divided into three parts (exposition, development and recapitulation). It is characterized by a sensual and lively beauty of the opening and second subjects and the intriguing and elaborated harmonic progression of the development, followed by the “Allegretto quasi Minuetto”. It is a journey throughout the Baroque musical styles, especially in the research of ornaments and the third fugue-style movement “Allegro”, reminding one of the pattern of Bach’s “Art of Fugue”. The following piece is one of Bach’s most beautiful works - Partita No. 2 – probably dating back to between 1717 and 1723 in memory of his first wife, Mary Barbara. In particular, the fifth movement – Ciaccona – is known for its technical difficulty, and was originally written for the violin. Nevertheless, it became the testing ground for a number of different transcriptions, including Ferruccio Busoni’s for piano or Andres Segovia’s for guitar. Finally, Sergey Rachmaninoff’s Sonata for Cello and Piano op. 19. It was written in 1901 and dedicated to the cello player Anatol Brandukov and is divided into four movements. It is an absolute example of the merger of the purest Romantic inspiration, echoing Schumann’s particular style and the technical attention for the instrument - see the Allegro Scherzando showing the piano skills of the author and, in this recording, the expression of Mr. Andrew Campbell – and Russian musical nationalism, Tchaikovsky and Rimsky Korsakov above all, at the beginning of the XIXth century, offering all the shades of a modern melodic and harmonic sensuality. Three compositions that, as we see, in spite of time and cultural distances, show a number of analogies. Firstly, the virtuoso technique that placed them in their own rights among the classics of repertoire, not only for their respective instruments, but also, especially in the case of the Ciaccona, for other instruments. Then, the clear tendency to use lively and typical harmonic progressions that, by moving, form the basis of the main formal structure, where the counter-part writing, the fugue style of the melody and the variation and dilatation of the melody itself comprise the form of the main development. Then, a subtle and ideal historical-semiological thread, according to a scheme linking the work of Bach to the Romantic Brahms, great lover and expert of the Kantor’s works, moves towards one of the most relevant protagonists of musical Romanticism, the pianist Sergey Rachmaninoff.

The Interpretation. It is clear that the attention paid to the selection of the repertoire by Maestro Rotaru cannot uniquely be bound to the mere virtuoso aspects. It is a precise stylistic choice, rooted in a performing practice that identifies him as one of the most interesting chamber musicians currently performing, in particular as far as Romantic music is concerned. There are some elements that confirm this concept. Firstly, the choice of a slower metronome speed for the Allegro ma non troppo in Brahms’ sonata, here presented according to Joseph Prunner’s double bass version. Secondly, a musicological perspective that sees in this movement all the melodic, rhythmic and agogic features of a slower speed, like the Andante. This practice was first presented in the historical recording by Jacqueline Du Pre and Daniel Barenboim, for the EMI label. Moreover, in both the sonatas, the choice was of maintaining the original register of the cello score, with smooth and imperceptible changes. Finally, the beautiful transcription of Bach’s Ciaccona, whose counterpart of the original version for violin has been re-arranged for double bass and cello, is here played by Thomas Landschott. The underlying idea is the research of an acoustic blend oriented to a sound which may be able to seem an orchestral full sound. On this respect, it is important to point out that one of the most famous transcriptions of this Ciaccona is the one by Leopold Stokowsky.

Lastly, the Performance. Never forgetting its framework, it is always consistent with the repertoire, both for the accurate expressive choices and the technical ability, which allow entering a new territory for the double bass, considering the years in which these compositions were written. It shows the progresses of the teaching science for double-bass and provides these works of art with new life and colours. A special mention should also be made on the professionalism of the musicians taking part in this project: Thomas Landschoot (cello), Andrew Campbell and Baruch Meir (piano).

This album should be heard not only for its sensual listening pleasure or for the important extension of the double bass repertoire. It pays great attention to a meditated and careful interpretation approach, which Rotaru, who is an intelligent and virtuoso musician, never forgets to concentrate on.