Antonio Ciacca String Quartet CD
In the world of music, there are so many genres available to artists and listeners that encompass many different styles, moods, and fundamental structures. There is often, however, a stigma that certain artists are meant for certain genres, and that if you start your career playing a certain type of music then it is hard to stray away from that identity and evolve over time. Thus, most artists have found themselves writing, performing, and playing the same genre of music during their professional career, with only a few exceptions in the commercial world. While many artists like and tend to stick to one genre, there are some that break that stigma. Longtime musician Antonio Ciacca has been playing jazz music since he was a teenager, and has been a professional musician for over 30 years. Within the last ten years, however, he decided it was time to try something new. A student of advanced composition and orchestral conducting at Julliard School in New York City, Ciacca also has firsthand experience in classical music, not to mention the recent work he has done in gospel and religious music. During the pandemic, a time where there are so many unknowns and surprises, it has also been a great opportunity for musicians and composers to do things that they had never done before in their career. Antonio Ciacca decided that he wanted to compose his very first classical record, one that showcases his ear for another genre of music other than jazz and also another side of his composition and arranging. His debut album, “String Quartet,” is performed by highly acclaimed string group the Selah Quartet, and features a wide variety of movements and compositions that any contemporary classical listener would enjoy. The quartet is made up of first violinist Sarah Kim, second violinist Douglas Kwon, violist Laurence Schaufele, and cellist Junkyu Park. The album will be released on all streaming platforms on Tuesday, December 22nd.
Liner Notes
With these two recordings, composer and Jazz musician Antonio Ciacca pays an important tribute to two cultural giants, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Walt Whitman.
Both these intellectuals mastered, respectively in the Italian and American cultural landscapes, a number of fields, from poetry, to essays, to a sharp analysis of the times and nations they belonged to.
In a parallel way, Antonio Ciacca, who has combined and mastered numerous skills in the music industry, presents two string quartets that blend many musical sensibilities.
The first quartet, dedicated to Pier Paolo Pasolini, is made up of four movements. It starts with a lively and light-hearted first movement that feels like it is set in the semi-urban Italy where Pasolini was born and spent his early years. We can hear some rural atmospheres alternating with more dialogic parts. Here Ciacca alternates single voices, melodies in octaves as well as harmonic passages in thirds.
The following movement is classical in flavor. Here and there the cadences look forward to the third movement, a slow piece where we can hear a harmonic development from the first two, much in line with the development of Pasolini’s life. The timbres are varied, with the slow melodies mixing real and flagioletto sounds. The last movement begins with a slow succession of dissonances that seamlessly transition into a fast final of a certain dramatic intensity. The violin leads the melodic developments alternating lyrical and bravura sections. The harmonies look at the first Romantic generation, while at the same time giving rise to more modern combinations of chords, before a classical tutti that ends the composition.
The second quartet, dedicated to Walt Whitman, presents a different level of complexity. Right from the beginning one can hear the “American Exceptionalism” that inspired Dvorak’s New World Symphony. Varieties of harmonies and timbres, octaves, harmonics are blended to introduce the vibrations and emotions that can be felt in the works of the American intellectual. The melodies of the second movement are supported, at times unexpectedly and in a pleasant manner, by contemporaries juxtapositions of chords. The lyrical cadenza-like of the viola communicates intense dramatic feelings whose resolution will only be given in the third and last movement. Here the violin introduces more light-hearted melodies while supported by the other instruments in a mix of pizzicato and con l’arco passages. The rhythms, Escherian at times, always flow into sections of a remarkable melodic clarity. The movement is led with energy to a satisfying spondaic conclusion.
Overall, listeners can appreciate in these quartets a variety of composing styles and atmospheres that allow them to enjoy the cultural journey across times and places that the two geniuses to whom Ciacca dedicates his quartets embody.
Emanuele De Biase, PhD
Liner Notes
With these two recordings, composer and Jazz musician Antonio Ciacca pays an important tribute to two cultural giants, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Walt Whitman.
Both these intellectuals mastered, respectively in the Italian and American cultural landscapes, a number of fields, from poetry, to essays, to a sharp analysis of the times and nations they belonged to.
In a parallel way, Antonio Ciacca, who has combined and mastered numerous skills in the music industry, presents two string quartets that blend many musical sensibilities.
The first quartet, dedicated to Pier Paolo Pasolini, is made up of four movements. It starts with a lively and light-hearted first movement that feels like it is set in the semi-urban Italy where Pasolini was born and spent his early years. We can hear some rural atmospheres alternating with more dialogic parts. Here Ciacca alternates single voices, melodies in octaves as well as harmonic passages in thirds.
The following movement is classical in flavor. Here and there the cadences look forward to the third movement, a slow piece where we can hear a harmonic development from the first two, much in line with the development of Pasolini’s life. The timbres are varied, with the slow melodies mixing real and flagioletto sounds. The last movement begins with a slow succession of dissonances that seamlessly transition into a fast final of a certain dramatic intensity. The violin leads the melodic developments alternating lyrical and bravura sections. The harmonies look at the first Romantic generation, while at the same time giving rise to more modern combinations of chords, before a classical tutti that ends the composition.
The second quartet, dedicated to Walt Whitman, presents a different level of complexity. Right from the beginning one can hear the “American Exceptionalism” that inspired Dvorak’s New World Symphony. Varieties of harmonies and timbres, octaves, harmonics are blended to introduce the vibrations and emotions that can be felt in the works of the American intellectual. The melodies of the second movement are supported, at times unexpectedly and in a pleasant manner, by contemporaries juxtapositions of chords. The lyrical cadenza-like of the viola communicates intense dramatic feelings whose resolution will only be given in the third and last movement. Here the violin introduces more light-hearted melodies while supported by the other instruments in a mix of pizzicato and con l’arco passages. The rhythms, Escherian at times, always flow into sections of a remarkable melodic clarity. The movement is led with energy to a satisfying spondaic conclusion.
Overall, listeners can appreciate in these quartets a variety of composing styles and atmospheres that allow them to enjoy the cultural journey across times and places that the two geniuses to whom Ciacca dedicates his quartets embody.
Emanuele De Biase, PhD
