Tronco

Attending the performance of “Tronco” was like witnessing a seamless and continuous metamorphosis, travelling across a wide range of textures and colours in a round, uninterrupted flow. This work, conceived and directed by Stefano Grasso, brought together seemingly simple musical practices from various fields, yielding a hybrid format where improvisation, poetry, folklore and minimalism fused in a sixty-minute continuous work.

The ensemble, consisting of a double quintet seated in a symmetric semi-circle, followed a mixed score with diagrams, through-composed sections, guided improvisation, harmonic patterns. Above all, Grasso’s poetry was spoken by the two singers in a captivating phonetic polyphony of Italian and English. Stefano, standing at one edge of the semi-circle, led the group through the piece with his overflowing creativity and perceptible sensitivity to colour and musical form: no section was unnecessarily lengthy, no silence empty, and the few but cherished moments of joy were reached though a moving, cathartic build-up of sound mass.

What struck me during the performance of «Tronco» (an Italian word meaning both «trunk» and «truncate») was the curious feeling that the story I was witnessing was not happening before my very eyes but was rather being told in third person. The narration didn’t seem to consist of direct actions, but of scattered and incomplete memories along with truncated grooves and fragmented melodies. In my messy notes from that night, I jotted down “pure melancholia”, referring to a moment when all musicians hummed a simple but syncopated melody that was looped endlessly while material accumulated around it. Perhaps this was because all elements suggested the mourning of something that was lost. The text, with its allusions to a metamorphosis between human and animal, human and plant, and the recurring texture of collective singing and group improvisation spoke to me from a place of deep nostalgia, where people met to talk and make music in search of lost time.

The introspective nature of «Tronco» becomes evident when one looks at its instrumentation. As the concert booklet from the premiere writes: “The ensemble is designed as a system of mirrored instrument pairs, [...] reminiscent of chamber music, folk traditions and jazz: two voices, two violas, cellos and double basses, two percussion setups (drums and vibraphone), accordion and melodicas. This doubling confronts each musician with a counterpart, reflecting the concept of inner self-confrontation that runs through the entire project.” From the audience's perspective, I could not distinguish clear hierarchies within the instrumental couples, while I clearly noticed a state of constant, reciprocal imitation and reaction, in which every gesture is responsible not only for its direct sonic and visual effect, but also for the other's. 

In my opinion, this live performance (which will soon to be released as a CD) was particularly successful in creating a coherent and engaging continuum from throughout its heterogeneous sections. The concert hall at Gare du Nord was filled with a powerful emotional load emanating from all players, especially from Stefano's frenetic yet infallibly poetic improvisatory style; an energy that created another mirror in the room, one between me and the music, and I certainly saw myself in it. 

Performers: 

Francesca Gaza, Mirjam Hässig (voice); 

Laura M. B. Kumwenda, Mona Creisson (viola); 

Sara Guidolin (cello); 

Angelo Vardabasso (double bass); 

Sophie Oetinger (accordion); 

Ignat Khlobystin (melodica); 

Mila Comel (drums/vibraphone); 

Stefano Grasso (drums/vibraphone/composition/text)