Letter Marco Mezquida

Marco Mezquida's piano sparks when it meets Massa Kamaguchi's double bass and Ramon Prats' drums, three musicians who performed together ten years ago in a memorable concert and have come together again in "Tornado". Marco Mezquida has tried to be the catalyst for the energy that is generated when the trio plays together and they have made an album that draws on free improvisation and jazz. The album includes twelve tracks that "are like a tornado passing over you, with its moment of calm after the storm included". The force of nature is something close to Mezquida, who was born and grew up among the tramontanas in windy Menorca, as it is for the Japanese Massa Kamaguchi. The album shows the connection with nature of these two musicians and the versatile Ramon Prats, a drummer full of resources that enrich Mezquida's scores.

Siempre que puedo lo voy a ver», escribía hace unos meses Marco Mezquida en su página de Facebook sobre Bill McHenry. «Es muy inspirador y creo que tiene un sonido fuera de lo común, un lirismo y una inventiva sofisticada, siempre sincera y profunda. Es un poeta de verdad que, sin fuegos artificiales, ha desarrollado un discurso inventivo, inteligente y humorístico conectado con un conocimiento profundo de lo que toca.» Talento en erupción de la escena jazzística de Barcelona (debutó en el festival hace años durante un homenaje a Tete Montoliu).

Es diu que en aquest projecte Marco Mezquida i Juan Gómez, Chicuelo es troben, no es pregunten d'on vénen. Conexión és el nom del nou àlbum d'aquests dos músics, disponible a botigues a partir del mes d'abril i la presentació oficial del qual serà a L'Auditori de Barcelona el dijous 4 de maig, a les 21.00 h.

Giuseppe Mazzini, the greatest revolutionary of the 19th century in Europe, was very passionate about music, he attended theaters and organized an annual concert to support the Italian School he founded in London. He published a very interesting “Philosophy of music” in Paris in 1836 and, as we know from the letters to his mother written in periods of exile from Italy, he loved to play the guitar. His three guitars, appearing for the first time together in a single recording, are preserved in his birthplace in Genoa, today Museo del Risorgimento – Istituto Mazziniano, at the Istituto Storico Nazionale Domus Mazziniana in Pisa, where he died, and in the private collection preserved in Milan by Marco Battaglia. The album includes a varied and fascinating repertoire of original music by Niccolò Paganini, Luigi Moretti, Giulio Regondi and Luigi Legnani, a song specifically mentioned in a letter from Mazzini, a theme by Giovanni Pacini varied by Mauro Giuliani, also author of a pot-pourri that includes parts of works by Gioachino Rossini, and a fantasy on Verdi's Traviata, elaborated by Caspar Joseph Mertz.

On 3 July 1502, a remarkable letter with a bold and daring proposal went on a ship from Genoa to Istanbul, signed by one of the most brilliant minds of his time: Leonardo da Vinci.

The considerable fame that Bartolomeo Campagnoli (1751–1827) achieved during his own lifetime was largely due to his contribution to violin studies. The 41 Caprices he wrote for viola and the 7 Divertimenti for solo violin are still in use today. Campagnoli’s career as a concert performer began in Rome in 1775, continuing in a long tour of the courts of the capital cities of Europe. In 1797 he was made concert director and first violin at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, a post that he held until 1818, although he also maintained his contacts with the most advanced and influential cultural centres of Europe. He thus enjoyed a florid exchange with some of the most famous teachers and Nevertheless, there is an unmistakably composers of the time, in particular with Cherubini and Kreutzer. The idea that ‘true expression depends on the sound, intonation, movement, taste and aplomb of the measure’ was a constant tenet with Campagnoli, as was his insistence on the need to understand clearly the character of each piece in order to appreciate to the full the composer’s intentions. All this required respect for the exact point in which embellishments have to be added (without exceeding), because: ‘nothing is more beautiful and moving than what is simple’.

Despite his name, Federigo Fiorillo (1755-1823) was German by birth, the third son of a violinist who had studied in Naples with Francesco Durante and Leonardo Leo. Federigo followed in his father’s footsteps as an instrumental virtuoso, both on violin and mandolin; the 19th-century musicologist Fétis praised him as ‘one of the most remarkable violinists of his time’ in the Biographie universelle des musiciens.

Marco Albonetti writes: ‘”Amarcord” signifies memory, the nostalgic re-enactment of the past. Here, it evokes the idea of joining two instruments, the saxophone and the bandoneón, both of which were invented in the middle of the nineteenth century. The bandoneón, created as a more agile substitute for the organ in the world of sacred music in Germany, was brought by German immigrants to Buenos Aires, where it became central to the tango, a music enlivened by rhythmic ideas from Africa and inextricably linked to dance.

Born in Rome in 1678 to a family of German extraction, Nicola Francesco Haym was employed (from 1694 to 1700) as a violone and cello player by Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni in the orchestra led by Arcangelo Corelli. In the final years of this period the 2nd Duke of Bedford (Wriothesley Russell, 1680-1711) visited Rome and invited the violinist Nicola Cosimi to follow his entourage back to London. Cosimi in turn invited Haym to come with him as continuo cellist. Haym therefore moved to London in 1701 and would serve as the Duke of Bedford’s ‘master of chamber music’ until the patron’s death in 1711. A significant number of Haym’s compositions were produced during this first period in his life, among them diverse instrumental music for concerts at the ducal residences.