Dark Lisa by the Nuovo Rows Ensemble/Francesco Gesualdi

On the occasion of the celebrations for the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven, the Ars Spoletium Music and Record Editions, in collaboration with Strumenti&Musica have promoted a project dedicated to contemporary accordion creation, freely inspired by the work of the famous German composer.

The conception and development of one of the initiatives of the project was entrusted to the accordionist Francesco Gesualdi who invited three composers, Carlo Galante, Giorgio Astrei and Antonio Agostini, to write as many new original compositions for accordion quintet, freely confronting the musical and cultural universe of Beethoven: a famous theme, a fragment, a stylistic memory or a poetic reference of his work.

CD performers are the musicians of the Nuovo Rows Ensemble:
Francesco Gesualdi (concertmaster and musical director of the ensemble)
and five accordionists Pietro Paolo Antonucci, Raffaele Damen, Luca De Prisco, Katerina Haidukova and Nicola Tommasini.

From this proposal three pieces were born that constitute the nucleus of the present record publication, published by Ars Spoletium, offering three different perspectives of creative dialogue with Beethoven’s legacy.

One of the compositions takes its cue from the famous Für Elise, transforming the figure evoked by the song into a contemporary and restless “Lisa”. The Dark Lisa quintet reworks the well-known Beethovenian passage through continuous timbre and harmonic transformations, generating a suspended and evocative sound texture.

A second work was born from a reflection on the timbral and spatial possibilities of an ensemble made up of five accordions. The reference becomes that of Beethoven’s string quartets, in particular the String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 131, from which some elements of the first and seventh movements are taken, subsequently reworked in a path of progressive revelation of the original source.

The third piece is built from fragments taken from the mature Beethoven: the String Quartet No. 16 in F major, Op. 135, the Six Bagatelles, Op. 126 and the Grosse Fuge, Op. 133. Transformed and layered between the different instruments of the quintet, these materials give rise to a single sound body that progressively dissolves into silence. The song, entitled … like a dream that I can’t hear, is inspired by Beethoven’s famous phrase “Music is like a dream, which I can’t hear”.

The three compositions brought together in this disc testify to three different ways of encountering Beethoven: the transfiguration of an iconic theme, the reworking of a chamber model and the metamorphosis of fragments of his late works. Through these perspectives, the Nuovo Rows Ensemble explores the expressive potential of the accordion quintet, offering a tribute that renews Beethoven’s inspiration in the language of contemporary music.

The works are entitled “Like a Dream I Can’t hear”, “As Space Increases” and “Dark Lisa”.