Da Vinci Classics
Andrea Dulbecco, Elio Marchesini, Empty Words Percussion Ensemble, Maurizio Ben Omar, Sergio Armaroli
Physical and Digital Release: 23 June 2017
Empty Words Percussion Ensemble explores John Cage’s percussion music from the early Quartet and Trio to But What About the Noise of Crumpling Paper and Three². Sergio Armaroli, Maurizio Ben Omar, Andrea Dulbecco and Elio Marchesini reveal a world of rhythm, silence and unconventional sound.
13.67€
aboutCAGE Vol. 1 · Complete Percussion Works · 9 tracks
Nine tracks performed by Empty Words Percussion Ensemble. Timings follow Spotify, Apple Music and TIDAL; other platforms and the original inlay round differently.
Maurizio Ben Omar, co-founder of Empty Words Percussion Ensemble, graduated with full marks in percussion and also studied piano and composition. He has played with leading Italian orchestras and performed as a soloist and chamber musician in Europe, Africa, the Americas and Oceania. His collaborators include Claudio Abbado, Pierre-Yves Artaud, Kees Boeke, Mario Brunello, Bruno Canino, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Jill Feldman, Andrea Lucchesini and Giuseppe Sinopoli. Composers including Bussotti, Corghi, Donatoni, Einaudi, Gorli, Manca, Mosca, Sciarrino, Pisati and Solbiati have dedicated works to him. He has taught percussion at the Genoa Conservatory, and his students have won national and international competitions. His solo recordings have appeared on Ricordi, BMG Ariola and Salabert. In 1985 he founded the percussion ensemble Naqqara.
Sergio Armaroli, founder of Empty Words Percussion Ensemble, specialises in contemporary music and improvisation and has extensive experience in orchestral, jazz and experimental music. He brings the multiple disciplines of twenty-first-century percussion into a unified artistic practice. He graduated with full marks in painting from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan and studied electronic music, jazz and percussion at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan. He also studied popular percussion at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, Cuba. He has performed with orchestras and chamber ensembles and as a soloist in Italy and abroad, including Poland, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Mexico, Great Britain and France. His recordings have appeared on Artache, Stradivarius, Rugginenti, BMG Ricordi, Red!, ArsPublica and Dodicilune. His work also includes multimedia and performance projects and sound installations.
Andrea Dulbecco graduated with honours in percussion under Franco Campioni at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan, where he also studied composition and graduated in piano. He specialised in vibraphone with David Friedman. He has performed as a soloist with Milan’s Angelicum Orchestra, the orchestra of the Graz Conservatory, the RAI Orchestra in Milan, the Sanremo Symphony Orchestra, O.D.A.I. (Italian String Orchestra) and the Novosibirsk Philharmonic. His chamber appearances include the Società del Quartetto, Teatro alla Scala and Società dei Concerti in Milan, Unione Musicale in Turin, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Amici della Musica in Perugia and the Accademia Chigiana. He has collaborated with Anatol Ugorski, Mario Brunello, Andrea Lucchesini, Pietro De Maria, Eliot Fisk, Giuliano Carmignola, Ennio Morricone and Giovanni Sollima. He is a longstanding member of Sentieri Selvaggi, conducted by Carlo Boccadoro, who has dedicated works to him; the ensemble has also recorded for Deutsche Grammophon. Alongside his classical career, he is an active jazz vibraphonist and has toured the United States, Mexico, Africa and the Far East. He has taught percussion at the Milan Conservatory.
After graduating with honours from the Milan Conservatory, Elio Marchesini began collaborating with leading Italian musical institutions. A winner of national and international competitions, he is a versatile musician whose repertoire extends from classical and avant-garde music to pop and music from other traditions. His approach to sound has led to collaborations with Teatro alla Scala, the Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Giuseppe Verdi Symphony Orchestra in Milan and Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, as well as chamber groups including Contemporart Ensemble, the La Scala Percussion Ensemble and Naqqara. He has curated projects for art galleries and events in Milan and worked on the music of the Milanese composer Davide Mosconi. He is also a composer: his works have appeared in major concert seasons, including that of the Giuseppe Verdi Symphony Orchestra in Milan, and he writes for film, television and theatre.
Empty Words Percussion Ensemble was founded in 2015 by Sergio Armaroli with Maurizio Ben Omar and is directed by Armaroli. It presents concerts for audiences ranging from newcomers to contemporary-music aficionados. Starting from John Cage’s early percussion works, EWPE develops new work and investigates twentieth-century percussion repertoire with a renewed sensitivity to sound and close attention to the musical text and its underlying ideas. Improvisation and invention are informed by a Fluxus-inspired creative tension, connecting twentieth-century percussion music with the future. Its members — Sergio Armaroli, Maurizio Ben Omar, Andrea Dulbecco and Elio Marchesini — trained in music performance at Cremona’s music high school and the conservatories of Genoa and Milan.
Sergio Armaroli, founder of Empty Words Percussion Ensemble, specialises in contemporary music and improvisation and has extensive experience in orchestral, jazz and experimental music. He brings the multiple disciplines of twenty-first-century percussion into a unified artistic practice. He graduated with full marks in painting from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan and studied electronic music, jazz and percussion at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan. He also studied popular percussion at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, Cuba. He has performed with orchestras and chamber ensembles and as a soloist in Italy and abroad, including Poland, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Mexico, Great Britain and France. His recordings have appeared on Artache, Stradivarius, Rugginenti, BMG Ricordi, Red!, ArsPublica and Dodicilune. His work also includes multimedia and performance projects and sound installations.
Maurizio Ben Omar, co-founder of Empty Words Percussion Ensemble, graduated with full marks in percussion and also studied piano and composition. He has played with leading Italian orchestras and performed as a soloist and chamber musician in Europe, Africa, the Americas and Oceania. His collaborators include Claudio Abbado, Pierre-Yves Artaud, Kees Boeke, Mario Brunello, Bruno Canino, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Jill Feldman, Andrea Lucchesini and Giuseppe Sinopoli. Composers including Bussotti, Corghi, Donatoni, Einaudi, Gorli, Manca, Mosca, Sciarrino, Pisati and Solbiati have dedicated works to him. He has taught percussion at the Genoa Conservatory, and his students have won national and international competitions. His solo recordings have appeared on Ricordi, BMG Ariola and Salabert. In 1985 he founded the percussion ensemble Naqqara.
Andrea Dulbecco graduated with honours in percussion under Franco Campioni at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan, where he also studied composition and graduated in piano. He specialised in vibraphone with David Friedman. He has performed as a soloist with Milan’s Angelicum Orchestra, the orchestra of the Graz Conservatory, the RAI Orchestra in Milan, the Sanremo Symphony Orchestra, O.D.A.I. (Italian String Orchestra) and the Novosibirsk Philharmonic. His chamber appearances include the Società del Quartetto, Teatro alla Scala and Società dei Concerti in Milan, Unione Musicale in Turin, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Amici della Musica in Perugia and the Accademia Chigiana. He has collaborated with Anatol Ugorski, Mario Brunello, Andrea Lucchesini, Pietro De Maria, Eliot Fisk, Giuliano Carmignola, Ennio Morricone and Giovanni Sollima. He is a longstanding member of Sentieri Selvaggi, conducted by Carlo Boccadoro, who has dedicated works to him; the ensemble has also recorded for Deutsche Grammophon. Alongside his classical career, he is an active jazz vibraphonist and has toured the United States, Mexico, Africa and the Far East. He has taught percussion at the Milan Conservatory.
After graduating with honours from the Milan Conservatory, Elio Marchesini began collaborating with leading Italian musical institutions. A winner of national and international competitions, he is a versatile musician whose repertoire extends from classical and avant-garde music to pop and music from other traditions. His approach to sound has led to collaborations with Teatro alla Scala, the Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Giuseppe Verdi Symphony Orchestra in Milan and Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, as well as chamber groups including Contemporart Ensemble, the La Scala Percussion Ensemble and Naqqara. He has curated projects for art galleries and events in Milan and worked on the music of the Milanese composer Davide Mosconi. He is also a composer: his works have appeared in major concert seasons, including that of the Giuseppe Verdi Symphony Orchestra in Milan, and he writes for film, television and theatre.
John Cage (b Los Angeles, 5 Sept 1912; d New York, 12 Aug 1992). American composer. One of the leading figures of the postwar avant garde. The influence of his compositions, writings and personality has been felt by a wide range of composers around the world. He has had a greater impact on music in the 20th century than any other American composer.
The “Percussive” as a Dimension of Experience Album notes by Giacomo Fronzi; English translation by Pietro Roversi There are two main rewards when performing and recording music by John Cage: the immersion in one of the most refined and unusual soundscapes of the twentieth century (although listeners may think the opposite) and the chance of sharing an important piece of contemporary music-making and discography. This is especially true of the record at hand here, which explores the unusual world of percussion instruments. Within Cage’s conceptual and musical horizon, percussion –…
Album notes by Giacomo Fronzi; English translation by Pietro Roversi
There are two main rewards when performing and recording music by John Cage: the immersion in one of the most refined and unusual soundscapes of the twentieth century (although listeners may think the opposite) and the chance of sharing an important piece of contemporary music-making and discography. This is especially true of the record at hand here, which explores the unusual world of percussion instruments.
Within Cage’s conceptual and musical horizon, percussion – and, more generally, percussive sound – are absolutely central. The choice of pieces on the present recording (Quartet, Trio, But and Three2) – which span Cage’s entire artistic trajectory from the thirties to the nineties, both chronologically and in terms of the evolution of his music – not only stand witness to the central role that percussion instruments take in Cage’s music, but also underline the symbolic value the same instruments take on within his musical journey. Some of the most important elements that characterise the composer’s aesthetic and creative world (such as noise, silence, chance, rhythm, randomness) can indeed be traced directly or indirectly to the rhythmic-percussive dimension, which forms the basis of Cage’s early work but, throughout the decades, remains as a defining horizon, even in those pieces that move away from sound and explore silence. In some ways, the discovery of the rhythmic-percussive potential of objects (and, by extension, of the whole of the physical world) on the one hand speeded up the trajectory towards a typically Cagean sound world and, on the other hand, fuelled the creation of unconventional means of sound production (such as the prepared piano). Cage would write: “Everything in the world has its own spirit which can be released by setting it into vibration. I began hitting, rubbing everything, listening, and then writing percussion music, and playing it with friends. I gradually accumulated a collection of non-conventional instruments.” (Letter to a Stranger, page 102).
The opening towards unheard and unthinkable music (which in the end are what Cage considers true music) takes place also through a relationship with the world which is percussive in nature, and clearly influences the way he conceives a musical piece, his choice of instruments, and even his approach to composing: “I remain a percussion composer whether I write for percussion instruments or not. That is, my work is never based, structurally or as an instance of process, on frequency, but rather on durational considerations” (Letter to a Stranger, page 106).
This relationship with percussion starts for Cage in the thirties, with percussion pieces written to accompany dance. On 16 May 1939, Cage organised a concert for percussion with help from Xenia Cage, Merce Cunningham, Doris Dennison, Lenore Hovey, Imogene Horsley, Margaret Jansen, and Lenore Thayer, in which several contemporary composers – such as William Russell, Lou Harrison, Johanna Beyer, Henry Cowell and Cage himself – had their works performed.
Percussive music is not reducible to a simple aesthetic choice: rather it is, in a wider sense, one of the many possible trajectories traversing the realms of hearing and sound. Each of these trajectories in its own right proves that music and art – just as other human activities – are valid means of changing human experience and the world. Music has a regenerative potential, and percussive music even more so. To cite Cage (1983): “I still believe what I wrote in 1939: ‘Percussion music is revolution’. New music, new society. I don’t think, as some do, that percussion should become like other sections of the orchestra, intrinsically more expressive (overtone structure, frequency). I believe that the rest of the orchestra should become as noisy, poverty-stricken and unemployed as the percussion section (or at least grant its acceptability in musical society).”
To a certain extent, the percussion section ends up becoming a metaphor for individuals or groups of people who are marginalised, excluded and condemned to poverty by social systems. It is clear from these statements that Cage conceives and realises artistic practice as an ethical and political discourse: his life and work are grounded in the belief that the arts are of practical benefit, both because of the bond – deep and impossible to sever – with daily life and experience, and because they offer a testing ground for egalitarian and non-hierarchical models of society. As Edoardo Sanguineti writes in his preface Praticare l’impossibile, preface to Lettera a uno sconosciuto, one of the main problems when it comes to practising art “is how the artist can bring into everyday life and everyone’s social interaction what art points to symbolically (yet with very real consequences), thus offering testable models of new connections with people and the world.”
In this perspective, “the percussive” and “percussivity”, concepts from which we started and to which we return again, frame not only the relationship between Cage and music, but more generally the one between humanity and the world. It’s a communication channel which, broadly, reconnects people with the very nature of things, with their inner workings, with their vibratory potential, with the objective and material dimensions of daily life.
The pieces in this album carry the traces of this physical and concrete world, thanks to a careful, analytical and fascinating reading of Cage’s scores. The sense of concrete matter is present throughout, even in the most rarefied and enigmatic passages. This ethereal and essential music has no abstract quality to it, almost as if it were trying to offer the sound equivalent of the reversal of the abstract into the concrete, of the subjective into the objective, that Alexandre Kojève proposed as the key to the understanding of the abstract art of Wassily Kandinsky, the first painter to make “objective and concrete” paintings. John Cage too, like Kandinsky, in some way breathes life into a concrete and objective universe that did not exist before him, that does not come from anywhere else and that is in itself whole and unique – so much so that, as Kojève writes, one should not speak of “a painting by Kandinsky” but of “a painting through Kandinsky”. Or, even better, we could simply say “a painting”, because “Kandinsky’s paintings are what they are even without him”. Similarly, a piece of music by Cage can also be understood as “a piece of music through Cage”, because “Cage’s works are what they are even without Cage”. We like to think Cage himself would welcome this provocative statement with an approving smile.
Empty Words Percussion Ensemble: Sergio Armaroli, Maurizio Ben Omar, Andrea Dulbecco and Elio Marchesini. Recorded at Pietro Cavalli Concert Hall, Castrezzato (Brescia), in October and November 2016. Engineering, editing, mixing and mastering: Alessandro Camnasio. Publisher: Henmar Press, C. F. Peters Corporation. Cover artwork: Sesshū Tōyō, Splashed-ink Landscape (1495). ℗ and © Da Vinci Classics. DDD; manufactured in Japan.
Sergio Armaroli: marimba, tam-tam, tubular bells, bass drum, gongs, paper, temple block, three graduated pieces of wood, bamboo sticks, piano played inside with mallets, metals, congas, claves, ogororo, brake drums, wood and metal microsounds, tambourine.
Maurizio Ben Omar: piano played inside and outside with hands and mallets, timpani, djembe, water drum, paper, claves, metals and woods, tam-tam, gongs, congas, two graduated pieces of wood, water and bass drum.
Andrea Dulbecco: vibraphone, marimba, glockenspiel, claves, gongs, tam-tam, three graduated pieces of wood, bongos, woodblock, bamboo sticks, wood and metal microsounds and paper.
Elio Marchesini: congas, bongos, gongs, cymbals, wood and metal microsounds, piano played inside and outside with mallets, bamboo chimes, shakers, tam-tam, maracas, small percussion and paper.
Selected awards, reviews and interviews. Radio broadcasts and podcasts are listed separately below.
Percussive Notes
“The performances on this album are phenomenal.”
Vol. 55, no. 5: exceptional praise for the performances, considered instrumental choices and understanding of sound and silence. Review reproduced on the ensemble’s official website.
Read the review ↗ - Percussive NotesMusicVoice
“Altrettanto stratosferica è la presa del suono”
Exceptional praise for the ensemble’s interpretative insight and outstanding recorded sound. Review reproduced on the ensemble’s official website; no rating or publication date is displayed.
Read the review ↗ - MusicVoiceMusica
“il valore indiscutibile degli interpreti”
Issue 298: a positive assessment of the performers and repertoire, with reservations about presentation and playing time. Review reproduced on the ensemble’s official website.
Read the review ↗ - Musicail manifesto
An appreciative reading of the recording’s contrasting textures and intensity across sixty years of Cage’s percussion music. Review reproduced on the ensemble’s official website.
Read the review ↗ - il manifesto
