Retratos de Colima, the music of Simone Iannarelli
Ramon Andrade
CD: Les Productions D’Oz: DZ2888
Reviewed 5th September 2018
This Italian – born composer has many works published by D’Oz, and this latest CD of 11 tracks highlights some of his fine musical attributes, of which Andrade is a perfect interpreter possessing as he does a perfect technique and a plentiful amount of contrasting tonal colors.
The opening Primeras Luces en Buenavista is immediately striking, with its serious melody and dark melancholic harmonies that lead to a very disturbing closing section, the overriding nature of which is its bleak and extreme atonality. The sadness of the following piece (Dos Perritos Abrazados Bailan) is again the main feeling that one gets, and the slow pace of the music seems in contrast to the title that translates as ‘Two embraced puppies dance’, for dancing never seems to enter into the piece’s mood at all. The Escalada Y Lamento that follows is another mournful piece that opens with a brief scale idea, before turning into a widely spanned melody and a slow, achingly sad harmonic workout. After a similarly paced Nieve en Fuego Fundida ( Snow in Molten Fire), one then finds a fast moving piece, La Iguana se Fue, although the speed of the notes is never an indication of happiness, as the almost atonal dash through the first section sounds angry and disturbed. Pez Vela (Sailfish) is more lightly harmonized in its playful dash around the notes. After two brief Ostinati, the CD concludes with Un Atardecer (Sunset), beautiful in its simplicity, and a fine closer to this often disturbingly thought – provoking set of pieces.
Chris Dumigan
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