Author: Tyran Grillo

John Surman: The Spaces In Between (ECM 1956)

| Tyran Grillo

The Spaces In Between

John Surman
The Spaces In Between

John Surman soprano and baritone saxophones, bass clarinet
Chris Laurence double-bass
Rita Manning violin
Patrick Kiernan violin
Bill Hawkes viola
Nick Cooper cello
Recorded February 2006, Propstei St. Gerold
Engineer: Markus Heiland
Produced by Manfred Eicher

When reedman John Surman first collaborated with bassist Chris Laurence and an ad hoc string quartet on 2000’s Coruscating, the end result was a cause for beginnings. Unlikely surprising to the veteran Surman listener yet fresh as sun-dried sheets, the music of that debut opened a chapter in his compositional thinking now fleshed out to the depth of a novel on The Spaces In Between. Indeed, despite the wealth of fine performances all around, it’s the writing that makes this album such a notable entry in Surman’s expansive discography. The folk-infused melodies, and the means by which they are elucidated, shine through translucent curtains of improvisation, at which the bow-wielders now more forthrightly try their hands.

Balances abound. At the larger level, the album works in two halves, spit at the fulcrum of the title track. This playful sojourn for solo violin, brought to evocative fruition by quartet leader Rita Manning, upgrades the album’s wingspan from butterfly to bird, flitting from limb to limb in search of emerging buds. Before this, the set list steeps itself in winter, interlacing embraces and lettings go. Surman etch-a-sketches his own branches in “Moonlighter,” his methodical figurations seeming to describe a return from hard labor. In them is a sense of tragedy, with bass acting as narrator and strings as chorus. More nuanced balances follow. There is the diurnal contrast of bass clarinet (which under his fingers sings incarnate) and soprano saxophone. The latter doesn’t so much add to as emerge from the strings, drawing out warmth of heart from “Wayfarers All” and the crisper “Winter Wish.” As for those strings, they speak in pastoral dialects, their home a hearth among the ice.

Spring abounds on the other side of the album’s titular spaces, with “Now See!” setting tone in bucolic tracings. Only this and “Where Fortune Smiles” rely on the soprano’s inherent buoyancy to speak its own accord, favoring instead the baritone’s relatively challenging bounce. “Mimosa” (originally written for, but never included on, Thimar) elicits the jazziest inflections in this regard, that low reed moving jaggedly yet surely across the plains. This leaves only “Leaving The Harrow,” a song of drifting, of chemical reactions, of moving on.

Although its mise-en-scène is minimal, the emotional complexities of The Spaces In Between reach far and wide. Like the skies above, they welcome every change in weather, rain or shine, as if it were the first.

Paul Motian Trio: Time and Time Again (ECM 1992)

| Tyran Grillo

Time and Time Again

Paul Motian Trio
Time and Time Again

Joe Lovano tenor saxophone
Bill Frisell guitar
Paul Motian drums
Recorded May 2006 at Avatar Studios, New York
Engineer: James A. Farber
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Paul Motian: a drummer of such intuition that his kit might as well have been a part of his body. Joe Lovano: a saxophonist who lights the way with darkness. Bill Frisell: a guitarist who turns six strings into a symphony. A trio to die for. Then again, why deprive yourself of the luxury? A trio, then, to live for.

Since first meeting in the context of Motian’s Psalm quintet, this nimble nexus worked its tunes for decades from the inside out with freshness intact. As per usual, most of this session’s thematic material comes to us by way of Motian, whose “Cambodia” joins guitar and drums in methodological harmony. Frisell plays around the melody in much the same way that Motian plays around the beat, each descriptive in his approach (check, for example, the crystalline “Whirlpool”), so that when Lovano’s cautious lyricism slinks into the picture, we welcome him as an alley might welcome a stray cat with a song that defines the night. Such feline moods flow through a good portion of the set list, curling their tails around highlights “In Remembrance Of Things Past” and “K.T.” In the latter tune, Motian makes yin and yang of snare and cymbal.

Yet where he truly shines (if not also shades) is in those tracks penned by others, each a space in which he feels content to lurk in admiration of his bandmates’ sensitivities. From the Rodgers and Hammerstein show tune “This Nearly Was Mine” and the luminous spirals of Monk’s “Light Blue” to Lovano’s “Party Line,” the drummer’s capacities for melody, swing, and subtlety are on full display. He walks on beds of flowers, leaving pollen for many beds more.

For all the album’s listlessness, an undeniable clarity of expression abounds. We hear this especially in “Onetwo,” both for its thematic fortitude and presence of mind, and in the concluding title ballad. From strings of ordinary things, it weaves extraordinary pictures. The free spirit that moves this trio surfaces nakedly in these swan minutes, turning postcard into movie and recollection into reality.

Christian Wallumrød Ensemble: A Year From Easter (ECM 1901)

| Tyran Grillo

A Year From Easter

Christian Wallumrød Ensemble
A Year From Easter

Christian Wallumrød piano, harmonium, toy piano
Nils Økland violin, Hardanger fiddle, viola d’amore
Arve Henriksen trumpet
Per Oddvar Johansen drums
Recorded September 2004 at Rainbow Studio, Oslo
Engineer: Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher

A Year From Easter is the third ECM leader date for pianist Christian Wallumrød. Nourished on the same label’s diet, his skills as an improviser (and as a composer) have sprouted fields of their own making and artfully striate the colors of fiddler extraordinaire Nils Økland, trumpeter Arve Henriksen, and drummer Per Oddvar Johansen into the present spectrum. Wallumrød has always folded his aesthetic along tactile creases, but the chambering of Easter finds him unusually palpable.

The triangular melody of “Arch Song” sets the stage accordingly, scanning its laser of pathos across the barcode of “Eliasong” (and its deeper sequel) with equal precision. From gray to shining gold, Henriksen’s elliptical reasoning morphs over harmonium, an instrument Wallumrød plays to further, glassy effect on “Lichtblick.” With the gentility of breeze through poplars, his keyboarding—regardless of instrument—puts lips to candle and blows just enough to make things flicker. Such is the bearing of “Stompin’ At Gagarin,” a delightfully programmatic piece that emits Wallumrød’s east-leaning aura. His understated feel for arrangement and storytelling is clearest in such tunes, as also in “Japanese Choral.” Here, over an icy surface, keys and horn unfold with chromatic purpose, misted like a Kenji Mizoguchi still.

Ugetsu

Indeed, cinematic feelings abound. Like a crafted visual story, the slow figurations of “Wedding Postponed” build into dynamically richer constructions as more characters are introduced. Similar impulses mark “Horseshoe Waltz,” of which the pianism beams an attic of clattering relics. Pizzicato strings scuttle along the hard wood, carving rays of light into the air by freshly liberated dust plumes.

Yet the album’s focus remains out of doors, the title track being a representative example. With its warming skies and leaf-lined pathways, it leads us to the sacred spaces of tunes like “Psalm” and “Neunacht,” both like hymns reverse engineered to their stained-glass origins. Such is Wallumrød’s approach: conjoining cells of color by the solder of his crafting. In the latter solo piano piece, block chords process like candle-bearers from rear to fore, making way for linear melodies and violin sketches. Rasping across the night, his motifs swing ably from tree to barren tree, leaving ashen poetry in their wake.

John Abercrombie Quartet: Wait Till You See Her (ECM 2102)

| Tyran Grillo

Wait Till You See Her

John Abercrombie Quartet
Wait Till You See Her

John Abercrombie guitar
Mark Feldman violin
Thomas Morgan double-bass
Joey Baron drums
Recorded December 2008 at Avatar Studios, New York
Engineer: James A. Farber
Produced by Manfred Eicher

John Abercrombie’s moody quartet gets a reboot on Wait Till You See Her, swapping out bassist Marc Johnson with a young Thomas Morgan (in his ECM debut) while retaining violinist Mark Feldman and drummer Joey Baron. Just as the previous outings were exercises in atmosphere, so this 2008 session is a paragon of subduedness, for even at its most swinging (checkpoint: “Anniversary Waltz”), Wait maintains a cautious fusion of reflection and fire. The results are in no way pedantic, but instead shine with robust physicality.

To offset the buff, “Sad Song” opens the album’s mostly Abercrombie-penned journey on a slow note. Whereas in the past, Abercrombie and Feldman took turns at the melodic helm, this time around the guitarist breathes more independently, freeing Feldman to converse with the band’s newest addition. Indeed, violin and bass diagram their conversations softly and with tact, skating across a surface burnished to ebony sheen by Baron’s brushing. Abercrombie proceeds non-invasively, a firefly writing its somber blues through an open shutter. Couched in the chamber aesthetics of “Line-Up,” for another, the Feldman-Morgan circuit fizzles with pizzicato sparks, but returns to a feeling of quietude like a baby to mother’s embrace.

Despite the looseness of the music, its focus finds epitome in Morgan’s bassing. Be it the laser precision of “Trio” (a tent on the album’s camping grounds that leaves no room for violin) or the dreamy tension of the Rodgers & Hart show tune from the album gets its title, Morgan keeps the spine activated while the rest of the body drifts in and out of consciousness. A notable drifting out takes place in “I’ve Overlooked Before,” which from coolly ambient beginnings draws mysteries in charcoal. Through these reefs Abercrombie moves aquatically, his strings the tendrils of a jellyfish, stretching and compressing to the pulse of the tides. Feldman, ever the dolphin, darts through the currents and lures some of Abercrombie’s most mellifluous playing from the coral. In both “Out Of Towner” and “Chic Of Araby,” the second of which closes shop, the feeling of connection among the quartet is especially intense. To a camel’s gait, Abercrombie snakes through Feldman’s direct hits like a sidewinder, leaving a trail of esses to show for his carriage. For our part, all we can do is follow, tracing our listening along that perfect path in admiration.

John Abercrombie: The Third Quartet (ECM 1993)

| Tyran Grillo

The Third Quartet

John Abercrombie
The Third Quartet

John Abercrombie guitar
Mark Feldman violin
Marc Johnson double-bass
Joey Baron drums
Recorded June 2006 at Avatar Studios, New York
Engineer: James A. Farber
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Congress of John Abercrombie, violinist Mark Feldman, bassist Marc Johnson, and drummer Joey Baron is back in session with The Third Quartet. Like its predecessors, this junior outing is a master class in atmosphere and navigation—only now, Abercrombie points his compass toward a decidedly nostalgic north. While much of that retrospective feeling is already encoded into the guitarist’s Jim Hall influences, his toolkit now rattles with screwdrivers marked Ornette and Evans. The former is a crosshead, fitting snugly into “Round Trip” by way of the rhythm section’s deft interplay. The latter is a flathead, and in the somber “Epilogue” finds its groove in a looser sort of lyricism. The rest of the set list comes from Abercrombie’s pen, which gives pliant skeletons for his band mates’ fleshings-out.

Opener “Banshee” combines the free and the composed. From nebulous beginnings, a quivering violin treads intermittent guitar buzz until the two unify in one thematic vessel, crossing currents onto the shore of “Number 9.” With the slack-jawed lyricism of a Bill Frisell tune, its love potion courses faithfully through the veins. And as Feldman gallivants through winter trees with the fire of moonlight, it’s clear that he is once again the celestial force of the band. His watery—though never watered down—tone conforms to every shape even as it defines new ones. Whether flowing through the duo intro of “Vingt Six,” in which he shares windswept dialogue with Abercrombie before the rhythm section appears, intimate and reassuring, or moving with feline flexion in “Wishing Bell,” he guides us downriver into another season with every sweep of his bow. He can be as loose (as in the intensifying “Bred”) as he can be frenetic (“Elvin,” which pays tribute to Coltrane drummer Jones), but is always attentive to the infrastructure through which he percolates.

Not to be out-nuanced, Johnson holds his own as a master of description. His solos tend toward the compact, although their implications are anything but, for even when they guide us back to the head, improvisational echoes remain. He matches Abercrombie’s rainbow arcs with trails of footprints below, and gilds the progressive swing of “Tres” with charm. Lest we forget the leader’s impact, however, Abercrombie ends with “Fine,” an overdubbed duet of steel-string acoustics that regresses to his duo albums with Ralph Towner. It is a backward glance turned inward, an elegy for someone not long passed.

The Third Quartet chambers a tender heart, delicate as a morning glory yet just as sure to bloom with the coming of dawn. Such certainty is hard to come by in a sound-world built on spontaneity, but here it is.

Tempesta di Mare: A Live Review

| Tyran Grillo

Tempesta

Tempesta di Mare
Barnes Hall, Cornell University
March 6, 2014
8:00 pm

In the 1991 French film Tout les Matins du Monde, Gérard Depardieu plays an aged Marin Marais—in-house composer at the court of Versailles around the turn of the 18th century. Gussied up in all the accoutrements of his station, a corpulent Depardieu stares off camera, filled with envy at the ambitious young man he once was. The real Marais studied under Jean-Baptiste Lully, who by the patronage of King Louis XIV singlehandedly defined the French baroque style. Listeners at Barnes were treated to his “March of the Turks” Thursday as part of a lively program by Tempesta di Mare. Much in contrast to the self-scorn of Depardieu’s Marais, who indifferently conducts the same march early on in the film, Tempesta brought flair and steady passion to its evening performance. Under the title “Apollo at Play,” Philadelphia’s premier baroque chamber orchestra culled a thoughtful program of incidental music by Lully, British emulator Matthew Locke and 20th century iconoclast Igor Stravinsky before coming full circle to Lully protégé Johann Sigismund Kusser, whose Apollon Enjoüé, composed in 1700, ended the concert.

Because the entire program consisted of music written for the stage, individual movements were as rich as they were compact. With its stately undercurrents and detailed orchestration, Lully’s descriptively astute Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1670) set the bar high. Even without the titles provided for our edification, we could feel the sway of tailored cloth in the “Dance Teacher” scene and imagine the revelry of “The Uninvited Guests,” of which the Spaniards led the way with castanets and vihuelas blazing. On that note, Lully’s colorful palette represented a fascinating transition period in the evolution of Western European classical music, when the aristocratic impulses of court-appointed composers shared staves with motifs borrowed from earlier Sephardic traditions, as evidenced by the bevy of percussion at Tempesta’s employ.

Consequently, Lully’s sound world was equal parts pomp and folk. Enhancing its spread were recorders, bassoon, harpsichord and theorbo, a sort of lute on steroids sporting an elongated neck fitted with sympathetic bass strings. The latter provided a visual element that was the subject of much pre- and post-concert conversation. Yet the theorbo, played by the ensemble’s co-director Richard Stone, was a subtle anchor for the dramatic goings on. So too, in Locke’s instrumentals for The Tempest (1674) was the canvas replete with vivid splashes of baroque charm. Shuffling weighty pauses into upbeat turns of phrase, lovelorn abandon into systematic denouements, Locke’s writing emerged swift and sweet.

The next portion of the concert, however, brought to the fore what proved to be the evening’s only flaw: Tempesta’s battle with tuning. Although tuning issues first arose in the wind section of the Lully, the off-key slips of which were quickly smoothed over, in the all-string intimacy of Stravinsky’s 1928 Apollon musagète two mismatched cellos grated on the ears. Such inconsistencies, however, come with the territory, especially when performing on period instruments (although it seemed most were modern copies—the harpsichord, for example, having been built in 2012), and the fine musicians of Tempesta handled these hiccups with grace and fortitude. There were also the uneven temperatures of the venue itself, which required musicians to flit between a cold backstage room and a warmer auditorium: further proof, perhaps, that this year’s winter has overstayed its welcome. Nevertheless, they muscled through with a perseverance that certainly did not go unnoticed.

All said, Tempesta gave us a treat with Stravinsky’s gorgeous paean to the French style. By turns mournful and frolicking, each movement was like a shard of glass in a slowly turning kaleidoscope. But the best came last with Kusser’s fabulous orchestral suite, from which the program borrows its name. Not only did the ensemble smooth out its tuning snags; it also presented us with the loveliest and most adventurous music of the night. Full of surprising twists and virtuosic performances all around, it left us all with something to smile about. In that respect, the joys won over the nitpicks. Challenges make us human, and finishing strong in spite of them is no small feat. In this respect, Tempesta di Mare reminded us of why we go to hear live music in the first place: to remind us that we are all human.

(See this article as it originally appeared in the Cornell Daily Sun.)

Philip Glass and Tim Fain: A Live Review

| Tyran Grillo

Philip Glass & Tim Fain Promotional Images at Emory University.

Philip Glass: An Evening of Chamber Music
with Tim Fain
State Theatre, Ithaca, New York
March 1, 2014
7:00pm

If you have ever said a word over and over until it sheds all meaning and becomes its own sound, raw and devoid of attachment, then you know what the sound world of Philip Glass feels like. His melodies evolve in just such a way, nurturing new aspects with every iteration until they blossom of their own accord. His music has been called many things, from hypnotic to interminably monotonous. Its repetitive arpeggios and insistent themes have polarized listeners for decades. His admirers—myself among them—take comfort in his recognizability. His many critics, on the other hand, are often guilty of the very monotony of which the iconoclastic composer stands unfairly accused. Either way, resistance to his minimalist (im)pulses is futile: There’s nothing minimal about them.

But this is only half the story. Many will have heard Glass the composer, whose soundtracks for such films as Koyaanisqatsi and The Illusionist have long tickled the ears of even those unfamiliar with his name. Saturday night’s intimate chamber concert at the State Theatre was a choice opportunity to experience Glass the musician. Poised mountainously at a rococo baby grand piano yet with the touch of a willow’s tendril on water, he took concertgoers on a journey through his varied career by way of its most essential colors. To that end, he opened with a spirited performance of “Mad Rush.” The song was written—he explained to the audience—in response to a commission for a piece of “indefinite length.” This comment brought a collective chuckle and showed Glass as one at ease with his critics. It was obvious that the piece was originally written for organ as its waves crashed over one another in a gorgeous tumble. He also performed three selections from his Metamorphosis series. Like a jump between dream levels in the film Inception, each movement proceeded from a deeper place. The crosshatching of their dynamic pianism recalled the “stagger” technique of Baroque harpsichordists, and served to make an already resonant instrument brim with overtones.

Although Glass has ever been his own best interpreter, he has found in Tim Fain a viable partner in time. The American violinist, also no stranger to cinematic crossovers (he can be heard in Black Swan and, most recently, 12 Years a Slave), has emerged as one of the most exciting and innovative violinists of our generation. It was in the spirit of affinity that he joined Glass on stage for a smattering of scenes from The Screens. This incidental music, written for a stage production of the play by Jean Genet, was by turns sprightly and mournful. So, too, the concluding Pendulum, condensed here from a trio to a duo.

Yet it was Fain alone who secured the performance’s most stirring memories in the form of a two-part “Chaconne.” Excerpted from the seven-movement Partita for Solo Violin, it ranks among the solo violin works of Eugène Ysaÿe as a true inheritor of Bach’s hallowed craft. The purity and surety of Fain’s tone was alive with purpose as he leapt through a near constant chain of double stops. Concertedly, his strings sang the most recent music on the program, bringing everything back to Glass the composer and reminding us of just how he has evolved. Here was his art, soaring, full-throated, and open to whatever may come.

(See this article as it originally appeared in the Cornell Daily Sun.)

John Surman/Howard Moody: Rain On The Window (ECM 1986)

| Tyran Grillo

Rain On The Window

Rain On The Window

John Surman baritone and soprano saxophones, bass clarinet
Howard Moody church organ
Recorded January 2006 at Ullern Kirke, Oslo
Engineer: Jan Erik Kongshaug
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Since their first collaboration on Proverbs and Songs, Ivan Moody (then as conductor, here as organist) and reedman John Surman have established an affinity that manifests itself vividly throughout this duo session under the evocative title Rain On The Window. Recorded in the Ullern church of Oslo, the program includes mostly originals and improvisations, the two exceptions being renditions of the English folk song “O Waly Waly” and the Negro spiritual “I’m Troubled In Mind.” The latter two bring earthiness and grit to the album’s textural palette. Both also feature Surman on baritone saxophone, as do a number of pieces, including “Stained Glass” and the brief yet memorable “Dancing In The Loft,” a free improvisation that showcases Surman’s eminently recognizable approach to the instrument. All of these and more are laid at the altar of “Pax Vobiscum,” a baritone prayer that ends the album. Like a phoenix from the ashes of Moody’s dense embers, Surman’s lyricism sings, reborn, in light of day.

Yet in spite of the recording’s sacred leanings, there is a refreshingly agnostic sheen to its musculature, as attested by Surman’s ingenious sopranism. Between the geometry of “Circum I” and the klezmer-like flourishes of “Step Lively!” there is plenty of gradation to be found. Some portions of the program (specifically, “The Old Dutch”) cast their nets back into childhood, when the calliopes of distant carnivals still mingled with the breeze. At times Surman’s tone matches Moody’s with its clarity and fortitude, while at others it looks through a glass darkly. Moody even goes solo in the inward spiral that is “Tierce.”

Like the title track, the record as a whole makes stars of raindrops and connects them in virtuosic constellations. The listener need be no astrologist to appreciate their interlocking stories, for each is told as if for the first—and the last—time.

Gianluigi Trovesi All’opera: Profumo di Violetta (ECM 2068)

| Tyran Grillo

Profumo

Gianluigi Trovesi All’opera
Profumo di Violetta

Gianluigi Trovesi piccolo and alto clarinets, alto saxophone
Marco Remondini violoncello, electronics
Stefano Bertoli drums, percussion
Filarmonica Mousiké Orchestra winds and percussion
Savino Acquaviva conductor
Recorded September 2006, Teatro Serassi, Villa d’Almè, Bergamo
Engineer: Stefano Amerio
Assistant: Giulio Gallo
Edited and mixed by Gianluigi Trovesi, Manfred Eicher, Savino Acquaviva, Stefano Amerio
Produced by Manfred Eicher

The mind of multi-reedist Gianluigi Trovesi is a storehouse of refraction, the lens of a human kaleidoscope in whose turning we can see many zeitgeists, each gushing with its own color. For Profumo di Violetta, Trovesi dives headlong into a sea of operatic favorites, treading waters at once romantic and troubled. With sources ranging from Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo to Puccini’s Tosca, his meta-commentary manages to draw fresh catch from an overfished pond. Buoyed by a wind and percussion orchestra in the grand “banda” tradition of his native Italy, Trovesi taps his memories as a boy growing up around these ad hoc configurations and from them coaxes shoots of ingenious contrast.

It’s easy to appreciate the boldness of this project, which spreads the melodramatic jam of tragedy across hunks of improvisatory bread. In the latter vein, Trovesi is very much the Mad Hatter, altering familiar motifs as might a furniture restorer strip a bench to expose long-neglected grain. In the process, however, one comes to realize that his penchant for humor is not without its serious edge. Take, for instance, his rendition of the famous “Largo al factotum,” which turns a tongue-tying chain of Figaros into a field of dots connected by the fuzz of a heavily distorted electric guitar. A far cry from the tuxedo-and-evening-gown aria, it nevertheless boils over with intuition. Such brilliant grandiosity is part and parcel of the album’s sweep.

Bookended by a Prologue and Epilogue, Profumo unfolds across wild stretches of the imagination. The program proper is broken into six sub-suites, of which “Il Mito” (The myth) drops us into the path of Orpheus. Here Trovesi binds a Toccata and Ritornello of Monteverdi with his own compositional veining, so that the sonority of the old touchstones and the whimsy of the new may interlock in flight. In this regard, the butterfly kisses of “Musa” massage away the fatigue of interpretation, allowing Trovesi’s taunting clarinet in “Euridice” to work its way like sugar through the nervous system. His height of range on the instrument is piercing, tickling the clouds until they loose jazzier droplets.

From the underworld to the overdressed, Trovesi and his cohorts escort us to “Il Ballo,” for a dance that is as grand as it is brief. This leads further into “Il Gioco Delle Seduzioni” (The game of seduction), a triptych of early Baroque and contemporary transparencies. From the convivial to the parodic, Trovesi navigates its burrows with eyes closed and whiskers extended, playing with feet aflame while maintaining control of his dance at every bend.

“L’innamoramento” houses the two-part title piece. Trovesi’s homage to Verdi’s doomed La Traviata heroine belies its love through melodic time travel. Here the emotional overload of opera is compressed to diamond clarity. “Il Saltellar Gioioso” features album highlight “Salterellando.” Anchored by snare and cymbal, and threaded by Trovesi’s grungy altoism, it sets off a ripple effect that lingers long into the spiraling “La Gelosia” (Jealousy).

The performance ends with “Così, Tosca,” which for all its eclecticism breathes with consistency. Trovesi’s soulful pitch-bending traces every contour of an underlying drone with care. A subtle harrumph in the brass only serves to brighten the felicitous interweaving of breath and sonority that is his reverie, diving headlong into an incendiary finish that grovels with profound favor. Indeed, the album might just as well be called “Profondità di Violetta,” for all its depth of thought, arrangement, and execution.

Bravissimo.

(To hear samples of Profumo di Violetta, click here.)