Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza

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The Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza (in the studio)

The Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza was the first long-standing improvisation ensemble in the field of new music.

The ensemble was founded in 1964 by contemporary composers living in Italy at the suggestion of Franco Evangelisti and existed until 1975. They took their name from the concert company of the same name, which had existed since 1961, as the group gave its debut concert at its third festival in Rome in 1965 .

The members of this group were Mario Bertoncini (drums and piano), Ennio Morricone (trumpet), Walter Branchi (double bass), Franco Evangelisti (piano), John Heineman (trombone and cello), Roland Kayn (vibraphone, marimbaphone, Hammond organ) and Egisto Macchi (drums and celesta). The musicians were all composers who wanted to broaden their musical horizons through their interaction and who consciously perceived the dual function of composer and interpreter. The ensemble members pursued the utopia of a spontaneous composition during an experimental music-making. Without hierarchies and formal boundaries, some of the wildest and most lyrical recordings of the post-war avant-garde were made.

Unlike AMM or New Phonic Art , the Roman improvisation group did not see itself as a countercurrent to the aesthetic discussions of the time. Its members were concerned with the consistent further development of musical thinking and the formulation of new worlds of sound and forms of communication. The aim was not to develop free forms of improvisation , but rather to implement agreed concepts together. The substance of the improvised works depends to a great extent on the sounds used and their production conditions. The improvisations were usually preceded by rehearsals, which were understood as training for the performance and in which the respective concept of the work was made familiar.

Franco Evangelisti in particular fixed the basic lines of these sound actions theoretically; he saw the ensemble as a way out of the established music business with commissioned works, worn-out forms of communication and division of labor. The central rule was the principle of the economy of compositional-improvising work. However, the foundation is listening and learning to hear. According to Evangelisti, the essence of improvisation lies in the "ability to listen to one's own mistakes and the mistakes of others and in the immediate reaction to correct oneself accordingly, that is, in the distribution of individual energy in the service of the common idea." In Nuova Consonanza's repertoire, pieces with an unconventional treatment of the instruments used at the time predominate (e.g. breathing and speaking in wind instruments, grand pianos as resonance bodies for other instruments, etc.).

Discography

  • Doo Avantgarde 137007, (1969)
  • RcA Italiana MLDS 20243 (1970)
  • General Music D ZSLGE 55491, (1973)
  • Cinevox Record Sc 33/44 Sc 14, (1975)
  • Cramps Records (Nova Musicha n.9) CRSLP 6109, (1976)
  • The feed-hack, RCA Italiana P5L 10466, (1977)
  • Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza RZ 1009 (2001)

source

  • Gianmario Borio, (accompanying text to) Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza , CD RZ 1009 (2001)