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Sicily, an island in the middle of the Mediterranean, has been a crossroads for diverse civilisations for thousands of years. From conquerors and immigrants it has absorbed manifold cultures and traditions, which still co-exist to this day and define Sicily’s unique ethnicity. And so it is for music.

For his debut album on the Rubicon Classics label, cellist and composer Alessio Pianelli (Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship winner 2018) conceived the idea that if a land’s lineage can be traced through its history or language, it can also be tracked through its folk music. He explores the richness of his own Sicilian roots by comparing the culture and folk music of his homeland with those of Africa, Georgia, Greece, Armenia, and Romania in repertoire from late 19th and 20th century composers whose own musical identities have been enriched by travel but who are also deeply connected to the origins of their cultural heritage. Pianelli directs the young string players of the Avos Chamber Orchestra, which he co-founded in Rome where the album was recorded in November 2019.

Pianelli has transcribed and arranged every original score, his sensitivity and profound respect for the spirit of these works enabling him to embrace the many differences in the music while linking them with a common thread of humanity, “I have made each piece part of my own identity so that I can share them from my perspective with a sympathetic rather than authoritarian approach.”

The journey begins in Georgia with Miniatures by Sulkhan Tsintsadze who enlivened his classical works with elements from Georgian folk music. Originally for string quartet, Miniatures is his most representative and successful work.

Across the border from Georgia is Armenia, the homeland of Vardapet Komitas whose music has preserved human identity and culture despite the horrors and consequences of colonialism, genocide and war. Pianelli has transcribed five songs in which popular folk melodies are imbued with the characteristic rhythmic pulsations of Armenian music and textures that evoke the specific timbres of traditional Armenian instruments.

Survival is also at the heart of the work of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, an English composer of African origin who dedicated a large part of his compositional output to the integration of African elements into European music, illustrated here by two of his 24 Negro Melodies.

Greek composer Nikos Skalkottas studied in Germany with Robert Khan, Kurt Weill and Arnold Schönberg but later returned to Athens to study the folk music of his homeland. By merging indigenous traditions with the modernist European ideals he had assimilated, he generated a totally new style of music. The three Greek Dances on this album (from 36 Dances for Orchestra) illustrate how Skalkottas embraced the melodies and rhythms of folk music to create original compositions that bridge Greek and European conventions.

The father of ethnomusicology is undoubtedly Romanian composer Béla Bartók who not only synthesised the folk music of his homeland into his own compositions, but also catalogued and critically annotated folk music and made pioneering field recordings. His scores for Romanian Dances detail the precise region from which he drew his source material for every movement. At the heart of his research and creativity was the powerful ideal of brotherhood, peace and humanity.

Pianelli’s musical journey ends back home with his own work, Variations on a Sicilian Folk Theme. Originally scored for cello and piano, the piece is a set of variations on the Sicilian folksong, Ciuri, ciuri, entwined with quotations from the classical repertoire, including Elgar’s Cello Concerto, Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and Paganini’s Moto Perpetuo. Pianelli describes the piece as fluctuating “between the melancholy longing for one’s homeland and the vital impetus towards the unknown, which every migrant and traveller experiences.”

A SICILIAN TRAVELLER
Avos Chamber Orchestra
Alessio Pianelli cello/director

Tsintsadze
(1925-1991)
Miniatures
Lale • Gandagan • Song • Suliko • Shepherd’s Dance • Tsintskaro • Rural Dance

Komitas
(1869-1919)
Armenian Folk Songs and Dances
Oh, Nazan • Krunk • Al Aylukhs • Erangi • Habrban

Coleridge-Taylor
(1875-1912)
24 Negro Melodies Op 59
No 20 Pilgrim’s Song • No 10 Deep River

Bartók
(1881-1945)
Romanian Folk Dances Sz 68
I. Stick Dance • II. Sash Dance • III. In One Spot • IV. Dance from Bucsum • V. Romanian Polka • VI. Fast Dance • VII. Fast Dance

Skalkottas
(1904-1949)
36 Greek Dances AK11
Series I III. Ipirotikos • Series I:II. Kritikos • Series III:III. Kleftikos

Alessio Pianelli
(born 1989)
Variations on a Sicilian Folk Theme

Alessio Pianelli cello/director/composer

• Born 1989 in Erice, Sicily to a family of musicians
• Studied in Palermo with Giovanni Sollima and in Basel with Thomas Demenga and also cites Mario Brunello and Wolfgang Boettcher as important influences
• Prizes & Awards include Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship Award 2018, Antonio Janigro International Cello Competition 2006, 1st Prize (Tanzen Wir! ) International Composition Competition In Clausura (Ravenna Festival and 100cellos, 2016)
• Soloist with orchestras including Sinfonieorchester Basel, Kazhak State Orchestra, Lviv Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonie Baden-Baden, Orchestra Sinfonical Nazionale della RAI di Torino
• As a chamber musician, regularly invited to festivals including Marlboro, Piatigorsky and Davos and has brought his music into many prominent halls in Europe, Asia and North America including Walt Disney Hall in LA, Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Tonhalle Zurich and Hajuko Hall Tokyo
• Compositions include Tanzen Wir! for 100cellos and Sulla Quarta for two cellos. These works are published by Casa Musicale Sonzogno and Mueller & Schade. He was Composer in Residence at Marianne Piketty’s Musique aux 4 Horizons in Ronchamp, France
• Co-founder Avos Chamber Orchestra, Rome
• Regular collaborator at Palermo-based Almendra Music, a think-tank, record label and art collective which encourages collaboration between musicians and artists from different backgrounds
• Recordings include several chamber music collaborations on the Almendra Music label and an ongoing series of albums exploring Bach’s six solo cello suites: Prélude (2014) features Bach’s Cello Suite No 1 alongside works by Thomas Demenga, Sulkhan Tsintsadze and Mieczyslaw Weinberg while the second, Sulla Quarta (2018) features the fourth cello suite with Pianelli’s own work for two cellos
• Professor of Cello at the Conservatorio di Musica Antonio Scontrino di Trapani, Sicily and Professor of Cello and Chamber Music at Avos Chamber Music Project, Rome
• Plays a 1921 Evasio Emilio Guerra cello
• Website www.alessiopianelli.com

[Pianelli has]…imagination, musicality, expression, energy, the ability to convey the emotion of music, recreated as a living thing

La Stampa

He transported the expressive sounds with fervour and passion, creating an ambience of concentration and intensity over which a special kind of melancholy magic seemed to float in the Kurhaus that evening.

Badisches Tagblatt

Avos Chamber Orchestra

• Founded in Rome in 2019 by Alessio Pianelli, violinist Mirei Yamada and pianist Mario Montore
• Comprised of the promising young musicians of the Avos Chamber Music Project, which aims to enhance the growth of young musicians through the practice of chamber music
• The students meet on a monthly basis with members of the Avos Piano Quartet and other internationally renowned musicians, such as Beatrice Rana, Alessandro Carbonare, Enrico Dindo and Filippo Gamba, for professional and cultural growth based on the same spirit of open and rigorous sharing that informs this album
• Website www.avoschamber.it

Films
Watch Komitas’ Krunk
Videomaker Francesco Siro Brigiano • Assistant Andrea Franco • Drone Operator Giuseppe Gucciardi

From the recording studio watch Tsintsadze’s Gandagan (full track)