The past decade has seen the birth and evolution of so many progressive rock bands that it can be more than a little challenging to keep track of them all. And let’s face it, at this stage in the game it isn’t easy to come up with a band name that hasn’t been taken already. But occasionally a name is able to strike a blend of originality and absurdity such that it also sticks in one’s head and stands out from the rest…
Veteran Italian rock band Pooh formed in Bologna in 1966. During the late '60s, the band featured Roby Facchinetti, Valerio Negrini, Dodi Battaglia, and Riccardo Fogli, but after Negrini left in 1971, the band recruited guitarist, bassist, and vocalist Red Canzian plus drummer and percussionist Stefano D'Orazio, and began a long run as one of the best and most popular Italian rockers of their times. The band recorded for many labels, including CBS, Vedette, CGD (Compagnia Generale del Disco), and Warner Music Italy, selling over 100 million records in the process. Pooh continued to tour and record continually up into the 2010s, but in late 2016 they decided to call it quits by the end of the year, in order to complete their 50-year anniversary as a band. The concert album Pooh 50: L'Ultima Notte Insieme, recorded in mid-June at two shows in Milan, promptly hit number one in the Italian charts upon release in September.
A storm of passaggi to echo the virtuosity of the cornettists of Renaissance Italy who exalted their instrument, of which Andrea Inghisciano is one of the most sought-after contemporary exponents (listen, for example, to the disc ‘La Morte della Ragione’ with Il Giardino Armonico). Here, along with the keyboard player María González, he presents a programme bursting with diminutions, whether written or improvised: from the acrobatics of Francesco Rognoni and Dario Castello to the sweetness of Luzzasco Luzzaschi and Giovanni Battista Bovicelli, by way of Girolamo Dalla Casa, who, while recommending performers to ‘do few things, but do them well’, amazes us with his exuberant writing, with rapid cascades of notes as arduous to play as they are fascinating to listen to. This duo recital is the recording debut of the ensemble I Cavalieri del Cornetto, which aims to explore the art of diminution in all its forms.