THE IMPOSSIBLES - Tarantino, De Lorenzi, Bardoscia

LOS IMPOSSIBLES (CVLD273)

Composer: Various Artists
Performers: Luca Tarantino (baroque guitar), Vito De Lorenzi (tabla and percussions), guest artist: Marco Bardoscia (double bass)

Available in: HD File, CD

Tracks

01 - Jacaras (A. de S. Cruz) 5:44
02 - Gallardas(G. Sanz, A. de S. Cruz, S. de Murcia) 4:54
03 - Canario sobre la C (A. de S. Cruz, G. Montesardo, G.B. Abatessa) 4:18
04 - Fandango, Fandango indiano (S. de Murcia, E-Mn Ms. 811) 7:34
05 - Capona quarta (F. Valdambrini) 3:54
06 - Otros Canarios (S. de Murcia) 6:10
07 - Canarios (S. de Murcia) 3:01
08 - Preludio (G. Sanz) 3:07
09 - Folias Gallegas (S. de Murcia) 7:01
10 - Los Impossibles (S. de Murcia) 5:30
11 - Ciacona (G. P. Foscarini, Alessandro Piccinini) 4:18
12 - La Jota (S. de Murcia, E-Mn Ms. 811) 7:15

24bit/96kHz original recording made at Chora Studi Musicali, Monteroni di Lecce, Italy on July 2015

Production: VELUT LUNA / Executive Producer: Marco Lincetto / Artistic Direction: Luca Tarantino / Recording Supervisor: José Luis Molteni / Balance Recording, Editing and Mix: Valerio Daniele / Mastering: Marco Lincetto at Velut Luna Studio / Photos: Lu Negro / Layout: L’Image / Sales Manager: Patrizia Pagiaro

Notes

This album sets to music an imaginary encounter. A guitarist-composer from the late 17th century in Spain, in search of dances and songs, meets a Tabla player, a distant descendant of those nomadic families who, from India since the early Middle Ages, migrated through Anatolia across Europe, finding a stable home in Spanish Andalusia, already a land of coexistence between Jews and Arabic-speaking Moors.

Plausible, but impossible. Just as impossible is the meeting between the baroque guitar, the ultimate interpreter of the ornamentation trend characterizing all of Spanish culture since the Renaissance, and the Tabla, a pair of drums symbolizing, along with the Sitar, the mature phase of Indian classical music.

The languages of the two instruments share a common characteristic: the Glosa (Vistar, in Indian), i.e., variation on a theme, which introduces new thematic ideas, which in turn are subject to glosas. It is said that in Andalusia, this unprecedented blend gave rise to Flamenco.

We imagined that this repertoire would enable the two instruments to converse, starting from the few written and oral sources that would soon become, by antonomasia, the music of Spanish gypsies worldwide.
It was February 2011 when Marco Bardoscia, a double bassist and composer from Salento, artistic director of the SoundMakers festival, proposed to Luca and Vito to perform together in an improvised and unexpected concert. The festival's theme, in fact, involved the impromptu organization of unplanned encounters between musicians very distant from each other in style, studies, and language.
Luca comes from the conservatory and early music, Vito from world music with a degree in Indian classical music.
From there, it's a short leap to realize that tabla and lutes can get along.
Delicate and perfect instruments, built with a subtle balance of material mixtures chosen by tradition, by masters who for centuries have handed down, largely by word of mouth, the secrets of working ebony, leather, mother-of-pearl, ivory, pitch, gut, rosewood, fir, parchment to accompany singing, dancing, emotions, praise to the supreme.
Separated by other musical projects, the duo's members waited until 2013 to be able to play together again, thanks to the birth of Desuonatori, a coordination of self-productions for the socialization of unreleased music in new contexts of enjoyment, from an idea by Valerio Daniele, guitarist and producer, architect of the linguistic revolution that has affected traditional Salento music since the 2000s. The duo thus resumed performing, appearing in festivals and house concerts.

In 2015, having adopted the name Los Impossibles (from the title of a piece by Santiago de Murcia, based on the Vacas bassline, a Spanish version of the Italian Romanesca), the duo's repertoire focuses mainly on the interpretation of 17th and 18th-century Italian and Spanish repertoire for baroque guitar. Indeed, on this instrument, already from the early 17th century, the first attempts by cultured musicians to approach popular unwritten traditional music are documented (three centuries before the birth of modern ethnomusicology).
Our reading of the sources starts from Girolamo Melcarne, known as Il Montesardo, author in 1606 of the first collection of guitar tablatures, and extends to Santiago de Murcia, a Spanish composer who in the early 18th century transcribed for his instrument, in addition to minuets, solemn arias and allemandes, also the music of the Indians, such as the Fandango, the Cumbee, Zarambeque, without sparing Follies and Tarantellas.