Paolo Fresu
A Filetta
Daniele di Bonaventura
Mistico Mediterraneo

Paolo Fresu trumpet, flugelhorn
Daniele di Bonaventura bandoneón
A Filetta
Jean-Claude Acquaviva seconda
Paul Giansily terza
Jean-Luc Geronimi seconda
José Filippi bassu
Jean Sicurani bassu
Maxime Vuillamier bassu
Ceccè Acquaviva bassu
Recorded January 2010, ArteSuono Studio, Udine
Engineer: Stefano Amerio
Mixed June 2010 by Manfred Eicher, Paolo Fresu, and Stefano Amerio
Produced by Manfred Eicher and Paolo Fresu

My first encounter with Corsican chant was the wondrous Chant Corse, released in 1994 on Harmonia Mundi. Its Rubik’s cube of harmonies, burlap-textured singing, and precise intonation left indelible impressions that lay dormant until Mistico Mediterraneo graced my ears with its irresistible fusion. This phenomenal new project from Paolo Fresu casts the trumpeter’s rounded improvisations into the wind of bandoneón player Daniele di Bonaventura and the all-male Corsican singing group A Filetta. The name means “bracken” in Corsican, referring to a hardy fern that grows along the island and standing in this context as a symbol for the traditions it preserves. A Filetta’s recording career began in 1981, long before Harmonia Mundi introduced Corsican chant to a wider audience, and hopefully awareness and listenership will expand by influence of this groundbreaking ECM production.

The song cycle documented here is the result of four years’ refinement following an initial meeting in 2006. In his liner text, Steve Lake astutely notes the similarity between it and the collaborations between Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble. He makes this comparison not only because of the crossover, but also because it forges a living, as opposed to revived, music. As such, it represents much more than a balancing act of the old and the new. Rather, it upends the scale in favor of a highly enmeshed sound from which one can no longer tease apart one influence from another.

(Photo credit: Andrea Boccalini)

The Corsican strains of Mistico are written in an indigenous style of polyphony and originate mostly in the pen of singer Jean-Claude Acquaviva, who joined A Filetta in 1978 at the age of 13. His “Rex tremendae” sets parameters with its seamless combination of voices, drone, and electronic sheen. In tandem with di Bonaventura’s dreamy filigree, Fresu’s lines push roots through the rolling earth, churned to consistency of prayer. Offerings from other composers sprinkled throughout put such sanctities into bright relief. Bruno Coulais’s “Le lac” is among the album’s more ethereal, while his rhythmic ingenuities evoke African religious song in his setting of the “Gloria” (noteworthy also for Fresu’s flanged inlaying) and give the instrumentalists a fronted stage in “La folie du Cardinal.” These last three were originally written for film, as was Acquaviva’s “Liberata,” and as autonomous pieces open the possibility for fresh imagery. Three pieces by Jean-Michele Gannelli include the oceanic “Da tè à mè,” which perhaps best highlights the singers’ kaleidoscopic profundity, which in the braided “Dies irae” are the illumination to Fresu’s cellular imaginings.

At points, elements diverge for sessions of focus. “Corale,” for instance, establishes a flowing atmosphere without voices. “Figliolu d’ella” begins with that same duet of bandoneón and trumpet and bleeds into voices alone before welcoming both forces into a resonant finish. “Gradualis” features bandoneón and singers only, the concluding high note of which is an unforgettable color shift and leaves the credit roll of di Bonvaventura’s “Sanctus” to sail us out toward misty horizons. On the one hand, it’s unfortunate that no English translations are provided to help navigate those waters. On the other, the words burrow so deeply into us that linguistic signs cease to matter altogether.

None of this would be so if not for Stefano Amerio’s brilliant engineering, which draws out a code so fundamental that it can only be written on the surface of direct experience.

(To hear samples of Mistico Mediterraneo, click here.)