Accordion Time Voyage - Various Artists

2015

from Winter&Winter:

The accordion voyage starts in the here and now and becomes a fascinating musical travel spanning the centuries. It seems paradox that precisely the accordion – just having been invented in the revolutionary year 1848 – is able to uncover new secrets from the Baroque time to the present without sensing the time jumps. The link is made from Johann Sebastian Bach to Domenico Scarlatti, to Richard Wagner, to Erik Satie and to the Japanese contemporary composer Fumio Yasuda. The accordionists Teodoro Anzellotti, Alan Bern, Stian Carstensen, Dominic Cortese, Guy Klucevsek and Ulrich Schlumberger are among the best in their field, they lead the listener by the hand throughout modern times.

The musical time voyage is opened by Alan Bern and Guy Klucevsek with the title „Life, Liberty And The Prosciutto Happiness“. This composition was written by Klucevsek, his composition is influenced by Eastern European folk music and jazz. The second composition „Charms Of The Night Sky“ by Dave Douglas leads into a new sound world with Dave Douglas on trumpet, Mark Feldman on violin, Guy Klucevsek on the accordion and Greg Cohen on bass. »Charms Of The Night Sky« belongs to the most important works of jazz musician Dave Douglas, who received for this production the Annual German Record Critics' Award. A musical and sonic highlight!
 

With two titles from the Goldberg Variations by Johann Sebastian Bach the great virtuoso Teodoro Anzellotti builds a bridge between our time and the world of the Baroque. Anzellotti is indeed an exceptional phenomenon. He shines with his skills and high musicality, creates an interpretive and tonal approach to one of the most famous compositions of Bach. Composer Guy Klucevsek writes for accordion and saxophone (Phillip Johnston) the duet „The Gift“, an interlude merging the world of jazz and improvisation. Domenico Scarlatti, born in the same year 1685 as Johann Sebastian Bach, is in the same way and manner inspired at the beginning of the 18th century by the music of the Spanish flamenco as 300 years later Klucevsek by Balkan music. Teodoro Anzellotti performs Scarlatti brilliantly and takes us into the emerging 20th century to Leoš Janácek and his famous work „On an overgrown path“, originally partly composed for harmonium, very close to the accordion’s sound. The leaps in time seem to exist only on the paper and not in the work »Accordion Time Voyage« itself. The contemporary composer Fumio Yasuda, who is inspired by the world of Argentinean tango, creates with „Tango for November“ a composition for accordion and orchestra. He composes an homage to Buenos Aires for Teodoro Anzellotti, who opens another window with Satie to the Paris of the Fin de Siècle. Two very important works of Satie, the song „Lent Et Douloureux“ from „3 Gymnopédies“ and „Petite Ouverture À Danser“ are introduced by Anzellotti. Alan Bern interprets the Polish-Jewish dance „Kuyavyak“ after Joseph Kozlowsky, who lived in Warsaw and Sankt Petersburg at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century. Our travel continues to Bulgaria in order to experience a new interpretation of Balkan dances by Stian Carstensen and the group Farmers Market. Jazz and rock musicians from Norway and Bulgaria transform this folk music with their new sounds and instruments into a stirring sound cascade of our time. Fumio Yasuda composes his accordion concerto for a symphonic sound body, we hear from this concerto the movement „Last Choral“. Yasuda knows the sound versatility and possibilities of the accordion and the mastery of Teodoro Anzellotti, he writes special music for Anzellotti and the Kammerorchester Basel. Even though Yasuda has composed and constructed everything, each breath and sound insertion, every melody line, every touch seems like a spontaneous sound experience, accordion music in its highest artistry. The contemporary composer and jazz musician Uri Caine is known for his adaptations of classical compositions. Richard Wagner’s „Tannhäuser Overture“, written for coffee house ensemble with accordion lets the theatrical world of the romantic opera sound unheard and new, yet without losing the respect for Wagner’s masterpiece. With „Lament for the Accordion Maker“ of Guy Klucevsek whom we heard as the composer of the opening piece, we arrive in the here and now after having roamed through the times of Western music.