SERGIO CASALE / ANTONIO ARIETANO / SERGIO FANELLI - Sciuscia
Losen: LOS192-2
Sergio Casale: flute, piccolo; Antonio Arietano: clarinet; Sergio Fanelli: viola, violin
Recorded June 2013 by Sergio Casale at GrandeMago-Music Farm
The title of this collection comes from one of the masterpieces of Italian post war cinema. De Sica’s ‘Sciuscia’ (which we might know better by the English title of ‘Shoeshine’) features two young boys displaced in a post-war Italy, trying to make ends meet. Like his later film, The Bicycle Thieves, the film mirrors the hardship of life in an Italy overcoming Mussolini’s dictatorship, and can be read as a metaphor, a call for political action, and as a straight-forward tale of ordinary folk in their daily struggles. These combined factors defined that form of Neo-Realism, and for Casale, the themes that have been selected for this collection are ‘the main supporting structures of these movies’. So, you can listen to these snippets (some running for less than a minute, a few running for more than a couple of minutes) as homage to the films that have inspired them. Certainly, in these films the music is not simply incidental, but provides a commentary on the action and adds pathos to the characters’ many trials and tribulations. Given the closeness of the music and the movies, it might seem an odd concept to present one without the other.
The oddness of the concept is underlined by the use of Ennio Morricone’s theme for Pasolini’s film ‘Uccellacci e uccellini’ (‘The Hawks and the Sparrows’) to book-end the set. Rather than the stern delivery of Domenico Modungo (perhaps better known for co-writing the song we know as ‘Volare’), Casale has his children singing the lyrics (alone on first appearance alone and at the end with a swelling choir). Also, the peculiar combination of instruments creates an oddly muted take on the tunes, as if the players are recollecting the scenes associated with the music with a sad smile on their faces. Perhaps it would be reading too much into this to think that the passion and optimism of the films of Fellini and Antoniou have, over time, faded. From this, you can hear in the tunes some of the passion of the original films but also a sense of yearning on lost hopes.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Losen: LOS192-2
Sergio Casale: flute, piccolo; Antonio Arietano: clarinet; Sergio Fanelli: viola, violin
Recorded June 2013 by Sergio Casale at GrandeMago-Music Farm
The title of this collection comes from one of the masterpieces of Italian post war cinema. De Sica’s ‘Sciuscia’ (which we might know better by the English title of ‘Shoeshine’) features two young boys displaced in a post-war Italy, trying to make ends meet. Like his later film, The Bicycle Thieves, the film mirrors the hardship of life in an Italy overcoming Mussolini’s dictatorship, and can be read as a metaphor, a call for political action, and as a straight-forward tale of ordinary folk in their daily struggles. These combined factors defined that form of Neo-Realism, and for Casale, the themes that have been selected for this collection are ‘the main supporting structures of these movies’. So, you can listen to these snippets (some running for less than a minute, a few running for more than a couple of minutes) as homage to the films that have inspired them. Certainly, in these films the music is not simply incidental, but provides a commentary on the action and adds pathos to the characters’ many trials and tribulations. Given the closeness of the music and the movies, it might seem an odd concept to present one without the other.
The oddness of the concept is underlined by the use of Ennio Morricone’s theme for Pasolini’s film ‘Uccellacci e uccellini’ (‘The Hawks and the Sparrows’) to book-end the set. Rather than the stern delivery of Domenico Modungo (perhaps better known for co-writing the song we know as ‘Volare’), Casale has his children singing the lyrics (alone on first appearance alone and at the end with a swelling choir). Also, the peculiar combination of instruments creates an oddly muted take on the tunes, as if the players are recollecting the scenes associated with the music with a sad smile on their faces. Perhaps it would be reading too much into this to think that the passion and optimism of the films of Fellini and Antoniou have, over time, faded. From this, you can hear in the tunes some of the passion of the original films but also a sense of yearning on lost hopes.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
