Manuele Brunatto

Bill Frisell, the supreme textualist and restless searcher for new contexts, has gone supersize. Employing two classical ensembles, the 60-piece Brussels Philharmonic and the 11-piece Umbria Jazz Orchestra, Frisell and famed composer/arranger Michael Gibbs, a longtime mentor and friend of the guitarist, have programmed an entire set with each group. Gibbs, who began scoring for films and simultaneously leading jazz groups in the early 1970s, is an equal partner in this beautifully recorded project. The Brussels Philharmonic set opens with the short and uneasy "Nocturne Vulgaire," in which strings and brass nervously shift before Frisell and his drummer Rudy Royston and bassist Thomas Morgan enter. They pluck a few notes before an abrupt transition to more familiar territory, a version of Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life." Frisell slowly works his elongated way in Strayhorn's jazz standard, switching between notes and chords, backed by a lush swarm of strings. Verging on joyous easy listening, Gibbs' "Sweet Rain" rolls along with Frisell and the strings trading leads. In the Brussels closer, Stephen Foster's unerringly divine "Beautiful Dreamer," Frisell—who's always been a sucker for a great tune—picks out the melody as the band confects an opulent background.

As in other later works by Lehár, Giuditta eliminates the happy ending otherwise typical of the entertaining genre of the operetta: here Lehár and his librettists endeavoured to weave elements of the grand opera into the operetta. In 1910 the composer himself had predicted 'that between the opera and the operetta, as far as artistic quality is concerned, there will soon be no more dividing wall.' In Giuditta, in keeping with the occasion, the Lehár melody wears orchestral attire that is splendid and almost pompous.

Buena Ciencia Ficción. Ciencia Ficción sin ciencia. ¿Sin ciencia? No exactamente… El cambio en las formas sociales y en las relaciones personales suele ser el background sobre el que se construyen muchos de los relatos de ciencia ficción. Pero en la mayoría, y más últimamente, esto se convierte en un mero trasfondo que se muestra de soslayo en favor de la acción, tratándose como un mero accesorio narrativo. En ese sentido Manuele Fior utiliza ese trasfondo como elemento principal para desarrollar La entrevista, un texto que ahonda en esas temáticas pero en un contexto en el que estas se revalorizan.

Grâce à des dossiers médicaux d'époque, aujourd'hui interdits d'accès par l'armée, l'album Vies tranchées expose une quinzaine de cas emblématiques de soldats internés durant la Première Guerre mondiale. Aliénés au sens de la Loi de 1838, inoffensifs, fous dangereux, etc. L'histoire de ces soldats suscite de nombreuses questions éthiques, historiques ou médicales, et mérite d'être ramenée au grand jour.