This young performer, the protagonist of a recently released CD entitled ‘Space Is Only Noise’, is an admirable example of linking tradition and research. Two concepts rarely placed side by side in our culture, if not considered to be in conflict. Through four compositions in which the instrument dialogues and interacts with electronic sounds and music, Sampaolesi's acute and experimental sensibility allows us to grasp the real possible depth of an instrument that, it should be remembered, is like a musician's ‘third lung’. The use of the bellows, if in traditional practice, structures changes of tone and harmonics, here seems to return to the ancestral origins of a spatial breath, totally involving, so much so as to recall the theory of eternity and infinite space as a ‘motionless engine’ of Plato’s memory. ‘Come Fendere un'Ombra’ by Tommaso Settimi (also electronic), “Il Buio è Volume Pieno” by Maurizio Azzan, “Con Moto” by Giulia Lorusso, “Dorsale” by Carlo Elia Praderio -the last three with electronics by Mattia Parisse- are four compositions by young Italian composers who demonstrate creative vitality thanks to their ability to assimilate international culture and sensitivity intense research into sound. In this case, the ‘focus’ is on an instrument that has long since reached levels of the highest artistic dignity. If authors of the calibre of Gubaidulina, Kagel, Berio, Donatoni and Sciarrino, to name but a few, have launched the accordion into the empyrean of expressiveness, Sampaolesi, with this organic work, sets a milestone, in terms of ability, technique and almost liminal sensoriality, in the history of this instrument.
Other reviews
Marco Maria Tosolini - Il Gazzettino