The italian duo of flutist Stefano Leonardi and cellist Antonio Bertoni expands the sonic palette of their instruments. Leonardi plays in addition to the flute, the ancient Chinese globular flute, bass xun, the Anatolian wood wooden flute, dilli kaval, and the Sardinian pipe, the launeddas and the silittu, an obsolete flute made of elderberry wood. Bertoni, who is also a double bass player who has collaborated before with Leonardi («L’Eterno» and «Aura», Leo, 2018 and 2020), plays in addition to the cello the guembri, the Moroccan bass instrument associated with Gnawa music.
The imaginative sonic vision of «Viandes» transforms the conventional interplay between a musician who blows a metal or wooden tube and a musician who bows or frets a stringed instrument something completely different, a unique, out-of-time and out-of-place experience. Something that needs to listen carefully in order to fully capture its rare beauty, or as French scholar Jacques Attali once said: the world should not be looked at or read, but listened to.
«Viandes» was recorded live in October 2018, with no effects or overdubs. The distinct seven improvised pieces offer mysterious textures that shift, shape and re-contextualize the archaic sounds of the traditional instruments. «Viandes» begins and ends with meditative-ecstatic timeless rituals – «Lupercus» and «Fatua», both pieces borrow ideas from Indian, Persian, Morrocan Gnawa and Native American traditions, but sounds fresh, intimate and tangible. «Fléau» and «Schiocco» suggest a tour into the depth of imaginary rainforests, where both Leonardi and Beroni employ their flutes and cello as percussive instruments. The urgent «Baccanale» dives into tense, dissonant territories and the gentle title piece sounds like an enigmatic dance between the sensual, tempting flute and the stubborn and muscular cello. «Hircus» is another kind of dance, tense and intense, where the rubbing of the strings and the noisy sounds produced from the wooden flute collide with each other.
Eyal Hareuveni
Antonio Bertoni (c, guembri), Stefano Leonardi (fl, sulittu, dilli kaval, bass xun, launeddas (mancosedda, tumbu)
