| Maestro Ennio Morricone joining the group
of Nuova Consonanza, share with them in the creation of the
music on this CD, which groups tracks performed with improvisation
during a public performance.
The love of Morricone for the trumpet is well known, and this
instrument is his beloved among the other.
In these tracks his genius is particularly noticeable from
the amazing result:
music very pleasant to the ear. |
Founded 1964, Rome-based avant-garde ensemble
Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza was dedicated to
the development of improvisation and new music methods.
The ensemble functions as a laboratory of sorts, working with
anti-musical systems and noise techniques in an attempt to redefine
the new music ensemble and explore "New Consonance".
The musical deconstructions were published on LP at the time,
some of which have been reissued on CD.
Many of the techniques reflect the influence of Luigi Nono and
Scelsi, and the group created abrasive and intricate sound studies
on classical instruments and occasionally employed electronics
and tape music methods in the process.
The group was the breeding ground for a group of avant-garde
composers including the then-burgeoning soundtrack composer,
one Ennio Morricone.
Other group members included Franco Evangelisti, Egisto Macchi,
Antonello Neri, Giovanni Piazza, Giancarlo Schiaffini, and Mario
Bertoncini, although the project housed the activities of many
guests over the course of the '60s through to the early '70s.
Held in high regard in avant-garde music circles, they are considered
to be the first experimental composers collective, their only
peers being the British improvisation collective AMM.
Recordings of the group have been reissued by the Ampersand
label and Editions RZ in the '90s.
Like the fellow Rome-based Musica Electronica Viva, they were
a challenging group of established composers and shared progressive
concepts as well as one group member, Fredrick Rzewski, who
later became one of the leading interpreters of 20th century
classical music.
Through exposure to free improvised music and jazz as much
as to post-serialism, music concrete, and avant-gardism of
the '50s, the group developed an entirely new strategy of
collective composition that functioned outside of any idiom.
Their influence can be heard in free improvising ensembles
from the European movements including Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic
Ensemble, Voice Crack, and in the techniques of modern classical
music and avant-garde jazz groups.
Group member Giancarlo Schiaffini carried the flame of G.I.N.C.
into his Italian Instabile Orchestra, while Franco Evangelisti
and Mario Bertoncini would work in contemporary classical
music for the ensuing three decades.
The ensemble's groundbreaking work informed their work in
composition.
While Morricone would become one of the most important cinema
composers of the century, he would be the only member of the
ensemble who could claim to have his work heard in every Western
household while his peers would sit on the fringes of obscurity.
The ensemble did perform in varying capacities with Morricone
adding noise to some of his '60s Italian soundtracks, but
their importance in music history remains to be in the avant-garde
music world as the premier group for experimental improvisation.
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