THE SONG OF THE EARTH

Ilaria Patassini

voice

Fabio Lorenzi

guitar

Roberto Nobìlio

clarinet

Paolo Fontana

viola da gamba

The Song of the Earth - from Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde - is a meeting between folk and classical music, an excursion across different approaches to the “folk theme,” with particular reference to composers of the late 19th century, the period of national folk culture’s greatest influence on the field of music.
It is in this sense that, taking advantage of the freedom offered by the folk theme, we present and revisit a repertoire that spans from Maurice Ravel’s “Cinq mélodies populaires grecques” to Matyas Seiber’s “Medieval French Songs,” and beyond, to Luciano Berio’s “Folksongs” and Gustav Mahler’s “The Song of the Earth”.

These pieces are embodied in our repertoire in virtue of the common ground offered by their folk nature; our re-interpretation, combining classical scripture, improvisation and the musicians’ contemporary approach – “contemporary” meaning here the music of our present day – marks thus a return of folk music to its natural origin, which is certainly neither phylological nor crystallized in classical stylistic methods.
The pieces are presented using the only irreplaceable instrument for this repertoire - the human voice - in counterpoint with the clarinet. Accompanying these two voices are the guitar and the viol, instruments which – like this concert itself – have two souls: ethnic roots and a chamber music nature.