Music

Eventually I began my translation work. It's still incomplete, but I'm working on it.
Hope my English will be at least understandable... and I'll be very grateful to those kind peoples who'll help me correcting errors.

Trying to write, in a few lines, something significant about the so-called Classical Music would be ridiculous. Moreover, Classical Music is very varied in all its styles that followed one another from 16th Century to now. On the web there are whole sites that, although detailed and well-built, can only be introductory to this kind of music.

• The Classical Music Pages is the best that I found. It contains a wide alphabetic catalogue listing authors from each period (also contemporary ones), and a very interesting history of western music reporting a short description for each of the main musical styles.
• The WWW Virtual Library: Classical Music is a part of a virtual library that picks up most of the human knowledge. The part devoted to the classical music reports many composers, organized by kind (Baroque, Romantic, Impressionistic, Contemporary etc.) beyond to informations on the ethnic music of different Countries and numerous interesting links.
• Classical Net reports the main composers from all times, ordered in 8 different kinds.

What I feel listening to Classical Music is wide and various as the music itself. Therefore, I can only list the classical musicians which I like the most.

Antonio Vivaldi deserves the place of honour. A venetian violinist from the first half of 18th Century, the "red priest" is the author of my favourite all-times musical work: L'ESTRO ARMONICO. It is hard to describe the enthusiasm that rises listening to that sharp virtuosity, so full of emotions, most of times happy but also languishing and sometimes dramatic.
Vivaldi also anticipated the programatic music with LE QUATTRO STAGIONI (The four seasons) concert, his most famous work depicting some typical moments in the alternation of the seasons.

Johann Sebastian Bach is another fundamental name in all-time music. A dutch organist and harpsichord player from the first half of 18th Century, J.S.Bach is well-known in musical history for the strictness of his contrapunctual compositions, similar to stately architectural works, impeccable in their construction yet refined in their taste. But what I love the most in Bach's works is their immense solemnity that, more than any other thing, can depict the image of the infinite.
"...within this technical perfection Bach devotes all his profound religiousness, all his soul supported by a boundless Faith. He is convinced that human existance necessarily turns towards the good because God guides it, and he knows that human life is a continuous aiming at the highest truths.
And, in his fugues, the initial theme, being refracted in the variations following one another, becomes more and more profound and expressing lightening certainties, until it talks with supreme words."
In his numerous fugues (most renowned the TOCCATA AND FUGUE IN D MINOR) he reached the summit of the expressiveness in the musical canons of his times. Yet he wrote entertainment music too, like BRANDEBURG CONCERTOS, having an easier and catchier sound but keeping the technical perfection peculiar in this author.

Fryderyk Chopin
Robert Schumann
Claude Debussy

Maurice Ravel, Modest Mussorgsky, Edward Grieg, Bedrich Smetana, Erik Satie, Antonin Dvorak.

I don't know very well "classical" Jazz. I'll make my mind about exploring it in my (more or less) near future. But many times I was fond of some Jazz/Fusion author, that is music with a Jazz root and different influences or, on the other hand, other kind of music with a strong Jazz part in it.
What should I say about Jazz, another genre I could get rid of in a few sentences in the same way as I could paint the Universe on a stamp?
What I feel more fascinating, in Jazz music, is a feeling of movement. It is not only a matter of rhythm, which surely is a peculiarity of this black-root music. It is something wider. In Jazz musicians there is a natural tendency which leads them to move out of every scheme, move themselves in the rhythm to invent new patterns, move themselves in the harmony to produce unexplored and pleasant tunes, a whole of characteristics usually called "improvisation", but I see them as the utterance of a special way of feeling the music.
Dissonance, typical in some Jazz, is a consequence of this feeling. Dissonance has a particular taste, it disconcerts listeners who looks for what's sweet and predicatable in music: it's like a little trick, like a sudden change of direction, and it's really interesting to those who, like me, appreciate what's new and unforeseen.
On the contrary the heat of Jazz, especially live, is immediately perceivable even to those who are not used to this genre. To watch a Jazz concert means to get involved in a unique event. It is impossibile even for the musicians to predict what will be happening in the concert: the emotional link set up between the band and the audience is something singular and unrepeatable, slighty accidental, and it also surely depends on what does each of the listeners feel.
Often the emotional level of live music overcomes a great deal the one reached in studio recordings, although the last ones are technically perfect. The proof is that many of Jazz records are live recording.

Chick Corea
Pat Metheny
John Scofield
Weather Report
Spyro Gyra
Azimuth
Tito Puente
Stan Getz

Who's interested may view my list of CDs, discs, cassettes etc. (updated January 5, 1998).

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