Minafra Produzioni

The Livio Minafra Piano Solo NEW CD  “La fiamma e il cristallo“ is now available by Enja Records (De) and Egea Distribution (It). Moreover in addition to the 10 tracks on the Cd, iTunes includes the piece “Umoresca”.

LIVIO MINAFRA
LA FIAMMA E IL CRISTALLO

Livio Minafra piano solo

1. Ninna Per Mimma 04:42 | 2. Choo Choof 06:52 | 3. Polvere 02:46 | 4. La Danza Del Vulcano 07:33 | 5. Rintocchi 02:52 | 6. Muezzin 09:07 | 7. Cerbiatto 05:46 | 8. Campane 06:53 | 9. Bulgaria 06:55 | 10. Nella Notte Il Cristallo 07:59

Total time: 61′25

Liner notes in English and Italian by Marcello Abbado, Giorgio Gaslini and Fabrizio Ciccarelli:

“The Flame and the Crystal” by the pianist and composer Livio Minafra is an autobiographical work. With its eleven panels* it is an implicit homage to Alfredo Casella’s “Eleven Children’s Pieces”.

The first panel (“Ninna per Mimma”) begins quoting the end of Debussy’s “Feux d’artifice” in the high register, followed by “La Marseillaise”. Then a long and repetitive children’s song. The second panel (“Choo Choof”) starts with children’s cries at once. Here is a memory of the composer’s childhood. Then some quotations from Casella and a recollection of Prokofiev.  There is a hexatonic “ostinato”: furious, yet cheerful. The young Shostakovic appears. There is outbursting vitality. Darting and mockery. But drama, too. Afterwards joking is resumed. The third panel (“Polvere”) opens with the sound of the sea. Harmonies are tonal, like in a chorale. A sound persists, similar to a bell: like in “Le Gibet” by Ravel? In the fourth panel (“La danza del vulcano”) a flageolet seems to be playing. Then jazz starts up suddenly. There are progressions leading not to a dramatic, but to an ironic mood. Great vitality.  Repetitive formulas. A persistent tritone: hexatonic language. A quotation from “Dies Irae” again.  Last of all, endless repetition and the ease of a glissando. Fifth panel (“Rintocchi”): is it an evocation? “Soirée dans Grénade” by Debussy? Is it a recollection of Prokofiev, too? “Vision fugitive”? Sixth panel (“Muezzin”): is it Debussy? “La Cathédrale engloutie”? Not at all! It is a frenetic, haunting dance. The motif recalls elementary piano drills, which become more and more exasperated, furious. Like madness. In the seventh panel (“Cerbiatto”), upon a persistent harmonic pedal there is a continuous trill followed by an abundance of grace-notes, typical of a French atmosphere. Then the bass line gains the upper hand. However, the piece ends with a return to the beginning. The eighth panel (“Campane”) begins with a pedal made up of “fifth intervals played as arpeggios”. On it, a little of everything, without inhibition. The composer cannot restrain himself; more precisely, he is unwilling to do so. In the ninth panel (“Bulgaria”), too, a bass ostinato. As well as an ostinato motif in the high register. Everything tends to stretch over musical textures and timbres. A ticking can be heard distinctly over the sound of the piano. Its noise becomes magnetizing and the pianist plays upon the instrument’s strings. Tenth panel (“Nella notte il cristallo”), the last one. Long chords defining themselves little by little. Debussy’s shadow. The extremely high-pitched melody is reflected in a whistle. Eventually the spoken voice: does it really matter what it says? What matters is the human voice, half-submergedby the high-pitched singsong and the childlike accompaniment. Little by little everything dies away. In the course of centuries there have been several pianist-composers: Clementi, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Brahms, Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Bartòk, Prokofiev. The young Livio Minafra is the most recent of them.

Marcello Abbado, Stresa, 15 December 2007

* In addition to the 10 tracks on the Cd, the eleventh panels which Prof. Abbado refers to in his notes include the piece “Umoresca”, which can be downloaded from iTunes.
Here are his own impressions about this piece: “In “Umoresca” Debussy comes back. But also Tournier’s harp. An ironic quotation in the low register follows. At first the harmonic structure is steady; then it varies every now and then. The quotation develops. Until music goes mad furiously.”

La Fiamma e il Cristallo” di Livio Minafra è un’autobiografia del compositore pianista. Con i suoi undici pannelli* è un sottinteso omaggio agli “Undici pezzi infantili” di Alfredo Casella. Il primo pannello – Ninna per Mimma – inizia con una citazione nell’acuto della fine di “Feux d’artifice” di Debussy: quindi della “Marsigliese”. Poi c’è una lunga cantilena infantile. Il secondo pannello – Choo Choof – comincia invece con grida di bambini. Ecco il ricordo dell’infanzia del compositore. Poi le citazioni di Casella e il ricordo di Prokofiev. C’è un ostinato esatonale: furioso, ma allegro. Appare lo Shostakovic giovanile. C’è vitalità prorompente. Guizzi e sberleffi. Ma anche drammaticità. Poi si riprende a scherzare.
Polvere, il terzo pannello, inizia con il rumore del mare. Le armonie sono tonali, come in un corale. C’è l’insistenza di un suono, come di una campana: come “Le Gibet” di Ravel? Nel quarto pannello – La danza del vulcano – sembra ci sia uno zufolo. Poi scatta il jazz. Vi sono progressioni che sfociano nel non tragico, ma ironico. Grande vitalità. Formule ripetitive. Tritono insistente: linguaggio esatonale. Insiste con la citazione del “Dies Irae”. E da ultimo infinite insistenze e lo sfogo di un glissato. Il quinto pannello – Rintocchi – è una evocazione? “Soirée dans Grénade” di Debussy? E’ anche un ricordo di Prokofiev? “Vision fugitive”?
Sesto pannello – Muezzin: Debussy? “La Cathédrale engloutie”? Ma no! E’ una danza frenetica, ossessiva. La cellula tematica richiama gli esercizi pianistici elementari, ma poi sempre più parossistici, furiosi. Come una pazzia. Nel settimo pannello – Cerbiatto – su un pedale armonico ostinato c’è un trillare continuo e poi un fiorire di melismi. Atmosfera francesizzante. Poi la linea del basso prende il sopravvento. Ma la cornice si chiude con un ritorno all’inizio. L’ottavo pannello – Campane – inizia con un pedale di “quinte arpeggiate”. Sopra un po’ di tutto, senza inibizioni. Il compositore non sa frenarsi, anzi non vuole frenarsi.
Anche nel nono pannello – Bulgaria – un ostinato del basso. E anche una linea ostinata nell’acuto. Tutto tende ad allargarsi nelle tessiture e nei timbri. C’è anche un ticchettio secco sovrapposto al suono del pianoforte. Il rumore diventa calamitante e il pianista suona sulle corde del pianoforte.
Decimo pannello conclusivo – Nella notte il cristallo. Lunghi accordi che si definiscono un poco alla volta. L’ombra di Debussy. La melodia sovracuta si riflette in un fischio. Alla fine la voce parlata: è importante cosa dice? L’importante è la voce umana, semisommersa tra la cantilena acutissima e l’infantile accompagnamento. Tutto a poco a poco si estingue.
Nei secoli abbiamo avuto numerosi compositori pianisti: Clementi, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Brahms, Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Bartòk, Prokofiev. Il più recente è il giovane Livio Minafra.

Marcello Abbado, Stresa, 15 dicembre 2007

* Oltre ai 10 brani presenti nel cd, gli undici pannelli a cui il Maestro Abbado si riferisce nelle sue  note comprendono il brano “Umoresca”, che può essere scaricato da iTunes. Ecco le sue impressioni su questo brano: “In Umoresca torna Debussy. Ma anche l’arpa di Tournier. Poi una citazione ironica nel basso. L’armonia dapprima è fissa, ma poi a volte è cangiante. La citazione si sviluppa. Fino ad un impazzimento furioso.”

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Cd “The Flame and the Crystal”

Releasing a solo piano recording is an arduous task requiring bravery. I remember feeling ready for it only in 1981 (“GASLINI PLAYS MONK”), after more than thirty years of artistic career. Only years later did other solo piano works follow. Therefore the young Livio Minafra is to be admired and respected: by releasing this solo piano Cd, he takes all the risks of an arduous and yet intriguing adventure upon himself.
To paraphrase a famous statement by the philosopher Wittgenstein (“One can talk only about what one knows. It is better to say nothing about the rest”), when creating “open” music by drawing upon one’s own imagination, one always ends up quoting known sources and omitting the others as a matter of fact.
In music, too, is such a rigour required. And Livio shows he possesses it in this very recording.
Performed with an impetuous piano style, the eleven original compositions reveal, within solid and vigorous formal structures, the variously shaded echoes of Livio’s musical interests and influences: the rhythmical and somewhat crazy ways of silent movie comedians (Buster Keaton, Ridolini); the sounds of nature, which give birth to consonant and natural chords; the perpetual motion typical of Paganini; the use of repeated notes as in one of Chopin’s famous scores and of harmonies let free to resonate as in Debussy’s impressionistic style; some swift and circular melodic lines liked by Rimsky Korsakov and his famous flying bumblebee; moreover, Debussy’s “children’s scenes”, some “ostinatos” recalling Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies, and some flashes of folk nursery rhymes that immediately turn into sonorous repeated phrases similar to a jazz riff.  It’s all right, this is all too normal.
What eventually matters is the overall work of a young pianist-composer, who manages to blend his own primary musical thought, acting as a guidance, with a rich memory archive, that becomes mere “working material”. The recording includes some pleasant moments of fresh and genuine inspiration that light up an intense and complex musical journey.
Therefore, Livio Minafra deserves praise for this work, prefiguring even greater achievements that in future the listener is invited to witness.

Giorgio Gaslini, Milan, 6 December 2007

Cd “La Fiamma e il Cristallo”

Registrare e proporre un disco di solo piano è cosa ardua e coraggiosa.
Ricordo che mi sentì pronto soltanto nel 1981 (“GASLINI PLAYS MONK”) avendo alle spalle oltre trent’anni di carriera artistica. Solo anni dopo ne seguirono altri.
Perciò il giovane LIVIO MINAFRA va ammirato e rispettato proprio perché con questo disco di solo piano propone e si accolla tutto il rischio di un’avventura ardua ma allo stesso tempo coinvolgente.
Parafrasando una celebre affermazione del filosofo Wittgenstein (“Si può parlare soltanto di ciò che si conosce. Del resto è meglio tacere.”) quando si crea musica aperta, di fantasia, si finisce sempre per citare le fonti che si conoscono, omettendo di fatto le altre.
Anche in musica occorre questo rigore. E Livio dimostra di averlo, proprio in questo suo disco.
Eseguiti con un pianismo impetuoso, gli undici suoi brani lasciano percepire, all’interno di solide e volitive strutture formali, gli echi diversamente sfumati di riferimenti alle sue frequentazioni e ascendenze: i modi ritmici e “pazzerelli” dei comici del cinema muto (BUSTER KEATON, RIDOLINI), i suoni della natura che generano accordi consonanti e naturali, il moto perpetuo alla Paganini, la nota ribattuta come in una celebre pagina chopiniana, le armonie lasciate risuonare con il gusto impressionistico alla Debussy, certe linee veloci e circolari care a RIMSKY KORSAKOV e al suo celebre calabrone volante, e ancora le debussyane “scene infantili”, certi “ostinati” delle danze ungheresi di lisztiana memoria, e qualche sprazzo di filastrocca popolare subito smentito da robuste frasi iterate alla maniera del “riff” jazzistico.
Va benissimo, tutto ciò è più che normale.
Quello che infine conta è il lavoro complessivo di un giovane autore-pianista, il quale riesce a fondere il suo pensiero musicale “guida” e quindi primario con tutto un ricco materiale della memoria facendolo diventare semplicemente “materiale di lavoro”.
Nel disco ci sono momenti felici di fresca e sincera ispirazione che illuminano un percorso musicale forte e complesso.
Merito dunque a LIVIO MINAFRA per questo risultato. Con il quale egli sembra invitare chi lo ascolta a futuri appuntamenti “in progress”.

Giorgio Gaslini, Milano – 6 Dicembre 2007

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Exuberant and resolute, with a spirit inclined to agile and eloquent structures in the name of a changeable and restless imagination as well as a thoroughly original stylistic coherence, Livio has developed the skill of giving an unexpected course to his own compositions, with that naturalness peculiar to those who combine their own talent with a clear – and feverish – perception of what moves around their own world restlessly.
Livio’s musical aesthetics are not “absolute”; they reside in those meridians of consciousness that give priority to searching into emotions thoroughly and painfully: this is the predictable content of his own “sound”. Of course, this does not preclude the temptation to turn towards forms that are essentially built upon sound materials; in such forms, expression becomes an intrinsic quality rather than an additional component, and ideas can never be reduced to their essence. The “academic” components are fragmented, decomposed in the light of a syntax that, as said above, is strictly personal and anything but rational, characterised by dynamic and fertile inventiveness; a syntax that is self-directed in the choice of writing musical forms that are intimately connected with present times as well as the proportion of good taste and that are driven (at times stirred up, I would say) by dynamics based on an absolute freedom of choice as to the principle of variation and theme development: here is its being modern, in both its intimate and furious tones, as in the previous work, “Crying with Tenderness”, Livio’s vibrant, fluent and brilliant recording debut.
Here are, therefore, the numerous instants that successfully escape the spur of “pure poetry”.
In this respect the Cd title shows consistency: “flame” and “crystal”, in which the harmonic idiom bursts into original, dreamlike, orphic nuances, outlining themes that are open-ended, spontaneous, “autobiographic” one might say, highly topical and played with greater and greater performing skill, bringing together a lyrical impressionism and a passionate expressionism, a multi-faceted vision and a fragmented one, the silent oddity of those who don’t follow their masters any longer and the nonconformism of those who have taken them in already. Behind, and above it all, the great and deep sensitivity of a modern human being; most importantly, of a human being.

Fabrizio Ciccarelli – journalist

Esuberante senza indugi, animo incline a disegni agili ed eloquenti in nome di una fantasia cangiante ed inquieta e di una coerenza stilistica del tutto originale, Livio ha maturato l’abilità ad imprimere andamenti sorprendenti alle proprie composizioni, con la naturalezza propria di chi al talento ha unito la lucida – e febbrile – visione di ciò che si agita intorno al proprio mondo.
Livio vive di un’estetica non di “musica assoluta”, ma nei meridiani di coscienza che privilegiano l’intenso e travagliato indagare nel sentimento: questo l’intuibile contenuto del suo “suono”.
Ciò, ovviamente, non impedisce la tentazione di volgersi verso forme costruite essenzialmente su materiali sonori, in cui l’espressione ne diviene proprietà immanente e non elemento aggiuntivo, in cui l’idea non si confonde mai con la sua essenza.
Le componenti “accademiche” vengono frammentate, scomposte alla luce di una sintassi – come detto – rigorosamente personale e tutt’altro che intellettualistica, vivace e fertile dal lato dell’ “inventio”, autonoma nella scelta della scrittura di forme fortemente legate alla contemporaneità ed alla proporzione del buon gusto,  mosse (talora agitate, direi) da una dinamica ispirata ad un’assoluta libertà di scelta rispetto al principio di variazione e di elaborazione tematica: eccone la contemporaneità, nei toni intimi ed in quelli furenti, come già nel lavoro precedente, “La dolcezza del grido”, intenso, fluido e brillante esordio discografico di Livio.
Ecco, dunque, i tanti attimi che felicemente sfuggono allo stimolo della “poesia pura”. Ed in questo, appunto, coerente è il titolo: “fiamma” e “cristallo”, dove l’idioma armonico prorompe in nuances originali, oniriche, orfiche, delineando temi aperti, immediati, “autobiografici” si sarebbe tentati di affermare, sentiti di urgente attualità ed esposti secondo una crescente maturità esecutiva, abile a trovare il trait d’union fra impressionismo lirico e veemenza espressionista, fra la poliedricità visionaria  ed il frammentismo, fra la tacita eccentricità di chi non vuole più maestri e l’anticonformismo di chi li ha già dentro sé.
Dietro, e sopra il tutto, una sensibilità profonda e magnifica di uomo moderno; e di uomo, soprattutto.

Fabrizio Ciccarelli – giornalista

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Livio Minafra, pianist and composer, plays some of his compositions and tells about himself as well as his music and studies.

Livio Minafra from nicolai ciannamea on Vimeo

My music – which I take the liberty of defining as “my own” – has not only an emotional, inward, soft component, but also a physical component, which is not muscular, but volcanic, almost peculiar to my native land, Southern Italy. I drew on a variety of sources: free improvisation, traditional jazz, classical music, ancient music
(in fact my mother plays the harpsichord and has devoted herself to studying, among other things, the music repertoire known as the Neapolitan School); moreover, I was influenced by other elements of contemporary times, such as rock music, electronic music, some traits of psychedelic music; in other words, we rotate and look around ourselves as a beacon light does. Sergey Kuryokhin, a Russian pianist and composer, used to include in his musical performances things like a car passing beneath the stage, fireworks, or a cow (like when he came to Apulia and I made his acquaintance – I was only eight years old then); if a dancer or an athlete happened to be there, he would make them turn somersaults or jump: that is to say, his music was the result of the integration between diverse human characters as well as art forms. I personally took on such an attitude – which might seem picturesque or amusing – on a musical level, too.In my music pieces some passages can have a “traumatic” effect. For example, slamming the piano lid against the instrument’s body can be shocking to the audience, yet it achieves the desired effect; or it can be the case of odd performing techniques, like when I play some notes with the foot out of necessity (Mozart had already done something similar, playing with the nose). This might be regarded as a somewhat histrionic act, aimed at impressing the audience. No, it isn’t: I do it out of sheer necessity. For example, there is a passage in which I play with both hands on the upper register of the keyboard and I use the foot to play a bass note at the same time. The foot doesn’t hit the keys randomly in order to produce a devastating sound effect: a definite note is what I need and I play it with the foot, even repeatedly.

“Bulgaria” is a composition of mine, based on a “trick”. It is written in 7/8, a meter that is akin to Western music. I’ll give you an example: if I play a tune in B-flat major and 4/4 meter, we are on familiar ground; if I play the same tune in the same key and with the same approach and intensity but the meter shifts to 7/8 (which is a bit shorter in time than 4/4 – as if someone was walking and stumbled regularly) we then rush into other territories.

I have always been intrigued by the possibility of exploring and approaching the piano in different ways, for example by placing some objects on the piano strings. Such a technique is meant neither to innovate nor to pay homage to John Cage (who wrote a lot of music for “prepared piano”, as the placing of objects on the piano strings is called), but to bring the piano back to a more ancient and original sound, back to the psaltery, the hammered dulcimer and the harpsichord, which would become the modern piano no sooner than three hundred years ago. And the result is a really unusual perception of sound …

(Text by Livio Minafra; translation into English by Giuseppe Strafella)