All'Improvviso

Christina Pluhar (Artist), L'Arpeggiata (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: L'Arpeggiata
• Audio CD (July 20, 2004)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: ALPHA PRODUCTIONS
• ASIN: B00023B0A4
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #92,199 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Unscrew the locks from the doors! Unscrew the doors ..., December 7, 2010

By 

Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: All'Improvviso (Audio CD)

... themselves from their jambs!" Or, in musical terms, with apologies to Walt Whitman: "Unscrew the clefs from the staves! Unscrew the staves themselves from their scores!"

That would be what's called Improvisation - playing 'all'improvviso' - without a page of written notes and without note-for-note memorization. But improvisation is not chaotic. It depends on forms and formulae, and on the memory of previous musical experineces, including previous improvisations that 'worked' well. This sort of improvisation was common practice in the 17th Century, and we today do have sources of information about how it was done, even if we have no time-machine recordings of the actual sounds. Christina Pluhar, the director of L'Argeggiata and a skilled harper, knows as much of the musicology of baroque improvisation as anybody. She could be conservative, stick to the sources slavishly, play it safe, but on this CD she chooses to go beyond. The 15 pieces recorded here are all improvisations structured by 'stubborn bass' figures - what the English called 'grounds' - that were extremely popular in 17th C musical circles. The most familiar ostinato bass on this CD is the Chaconne/Ciaconna. If it sounds rather surprisingly like what you've heard in more recent musical performances - in pop music by The Backstreet Boys and others, or in Latin-Afro pop and folk - it's your sense of surprise that's misplaced. ALL New World music sprang from roots in late Renaissance and Baroque musical practices.

On this CD, Pluhar boldly backfills the improvisatory formulae of jazz and Caribbean music into the known formulae of 17th C Italian music. It's quite a spicy melange. You'll hear some fantastic plucking and strumming, guitar lovers! and on a plethora of instruments: lute, archlute, theorbo, baroque guitar, chitarra battente, psalterion, baroque harp (all plucked); viole, violoncelle piccolo, violon, lirone, conterbasse (all bowed). Plus you'll hear two cornettos played by Doron Sherwin and Gebhard David. Doron Sherwin comes by his sense of jazz improv naturally; his parents were nightclub musicians. [Bravo, Whiz! You make me proud.] Pluhar and L'Arpeggiata are resolutely committed, I think, to 'unscrewing the doors' between HIPP (historically informed performance practice) orthodoxy and a wider interpenetration with "all the music of the world" that has indeed developed from those same historical performance practices.

On this CD, Pluhar has included 'guests' who are prominent in Italian jazz and 'traditional' music today. Singer Lucilla Galeazzi is the most exciting perfomer of Italian folk/traditional music in Italy today; it isn't a self-contradiction at all that she herself composes much of her traditional music. Gianluigi Trovesi is a jazz clarinettist with klezmer overtones, who has performed 'crossover' gigs with various opera orchestras; his style of improv will remind some listeners of Jan Garbarek.

Does all this stuff hang together as music? You bet it does! Believe me, it's a gas!

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A gorgeous album!, November 18, 2008

By 

Buck Bauer (ELDERSBURG, MD USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: All'Improvviso (Audio CD)

First, a few words about the ensemble, L'Arpeggiata, from their "myspace" page:

"Arpeggiata is a baroque music ensemble directed by the harpist and lute player Christina Pluhar [pictured on the cover]. Its members are today's finest instrumentalists and in addition they work with the most exceptional singers from the Baroque and the traditional music worlds.

"Arpeggiata's work and philosophy is based on improvisations on the music of the 17th century, a rich sound texture by blending all colours of various plucked instruments from the baroque period, a vocal interpretation influenced by traditional Italian music."

Stringed instruments plucked, strummed, bowed, and hammered, they're all there, and wind instruments sometimes appear. On this album, the featured wind instruments are the clarinet, and the cornetto or Zink, with its trumpet-like sound. Both are played with great effect. Two solo vocalist are also featured.

This album, recorded in 2004, was my favorite album until their "Los Impossibles" came out two years later, in 2006. Now my favorite is whichever one I'm listening to at the time. It's too bad there are no sample tracks from "All'Imrovviso" that you can listen too, but there =are= such tracks with "Los Impossibles." Go there and listen to them. You'll learn more about the ensemble and the music than you would from any written description. Buy both albums now, and you won't regret it!

From the program notes, in French, with my clarifications.

The ensemble: L'Arpeggiata
Their director: Christina Pluhar
The vocalists: Lucia Galeazzi, Marco Beasley

Instruments played on this album include:
:: Plucked strings ::
archiluth [archlute]
chitarra battente
colascione
guitare baroque
harpe baroque
luth renaissance
psalterion [hammered dulcimer]
psalterion [hackbrett]
theorbe [theorbo]
:: Bowed strings ::
basse de violon "a la [viola] bastarda"
contrebasse
lirone
viole
violon baroque [violone]
violoncelle piccolo
:: Winds ::
clarinette alto
clarinette piccolo
cornet a bouquin [cornett, cornetto, zink]

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All'Improvviso, September 17, 2009

By 

Catherine of OZ "musicat" - See all my reviews

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This review is from: All'Improvviso (Audio CD)

This is a joyous, inovative delight and the musicians' crisp, playful rendering of the pieces from the Middle Ages makes me feel extraordinarily happy whenever I listen to it. The CD notes are excellent - informative and with several photos of the group. I'm about to purchase a copy for my daughter, who has been lucky enough to attend one of their performances in Australia.