Ivano Battiston plays
Johann Sebastian Bach |
Here is yet another convincing single topic CD, this time, the music of the greatest, JS Bach.
The presenter is accordionist, composer and teacher Ivano Battiston who offers us, with considerable technical skills and interpretive maturity, a program consisting of famous JS Bach works which ideally, in their succession, are intended to evoke the fulll range of human experience, as the performer has written in the CD booklet.
All compositions have been adapted and transcribed specifically for the accordion by Battiston and so appropriately, they sound beautifully accordionistic.
The merited execution is marked with considerable inspiration and freshness and a freedom of interpretation - never "provocative", but appropriate and sincere - that makes us appreciate and re-discover the masterpieces by Bach as if illuminated by a new light.
Another merit of the CD is the booklet, which contains varied comments and impressions; not the usual musical CD booklet text, but comments by "non-experts", fans of good music, representing various professions, which - often taking the mark - are demonstrating how Bach's music can (or should!) be democratic, to be enjoyed at different levels and therefore for all the people! This is appropriately asserted by Ivano Battiston in the introduction of the booklet.
In conclusion, this is a truly "enlightening" CD, which makes us understand how music known as "classical" must not be only for an elite, confined only in theaters or churches, but should be explained and made available as much as possible, to all people.
To achieve this requires two preconditions: versatile tools, like the accordion and secondly, an interpreter as sensitive and intelligent as Ivano Battiston.
Reviewed by Alessandro Mugnoz July 2015 |
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