CAMILLE - Martegiani, Coclite, Mariozzi

CAMILLE - Martegiani, Coclite, Mariozzi  (ARCLS025)

Available in: LP, CD, File HD (wav) and File CD (flac)

Track list

1 – Acqua (M. Coclite – A. Martegiani) 4.51
2 – Promenade (M. Coclite – A. Martegiani) 4.59
3 – La Vague (M. Coclite – A. Martegiani) 3.49
4 – La Valse (M. Coclite – A. Martegiani) 3.54
5 – L’Âge Mür (M. Coclite – A. Martegiani) 4.47
6 – L’Abandon (M. Coclite – A. Martegiani) 5.04
7 – Persée et la Gorgone (M. Coclite – A. Martegiani) 3.42
8 – Ninna Nanna per Paul (M. Coclite – A. Martegiani) 4.04

Alessia Martegiani – Vocals
Massimiliano Coclite – Piano
Francesco Mariozzi – Cello

Recorded on May 19 and 20, 2018 at Cotton Lab Music Club in Ascoli Piceno. Mixed and mastered by Stefano Isola at Arcipelago Studio in Rome between June and August 2018.

Produced by: HD MusicLab Srls
Executive Producer: Rocco Patriarca
Photos: Pierluigi Giorgi
Cover image: Marino Melarangelo
Title lettering: M° Manlio Patriarca

The encounter with Camille was devastating.
She immediately crept into the heart, into the soul. Born in drama, heard raw when it was only partially composed, in private, lived and recounted. But already pulsating with passion, with overwhelming emotional intensity.

Then the project took shape, convincing, almost forcing, with a very tight schedule, the authors to give it a complete meaning. To make it an album, or rather, a Concept Album of classical memory. Eight musical sculptures conceived to be represented on vinyl. Alessia and Massimiliano show that they have reached that artistic maturity long awaited that will lead them from now on to explore new expressive heights, each in their own language. Francesco accompanied, indulged, experienced Camille with elegance, with vigor, with transport.

Perhaps it is the musical language that makes this album so special. Perhaps it is the simple yet luxuriant writing in a language unexpected for our times but very modern, rich in that expression that Stefano Isola, as a perfect tonmeister, rendered with invaluable mastery.

There is a special story in this album, a story made of passions and fears, of glances and intertwined hands. A story as intense as it is impossible. That leaves its mark.

Enjoy listening.
Rocco Patriarca

It's hard to say how this work came to be.
It was a period in which my musical inspiration focused on impressionistic music, with soft, veiled, suspended sounds. There was a desire to write with a chamber music concept rather than a song, even if the final form was that of the lieder.

During that period I was experiencing a renewed passion for the study of Schubert, Brahms, Debussy, and these authors inevitably influenced my writing. Thus, various material was born, including what later became Acqua, the first track on the album. It was during the same period that Alessia developed her knowledge of the character of Camille. Our paths crossed, and Alessia's readings, texts, and visits to exhibitions helped me to better understand the figure of Camille, generating a new creative impulse linked to her figure after entering her world, in the period in which she lived, while maintaining the original approach: conceptually chamber music, inspired by late romanticism and early twentieth-century impressionism.

From this came the idea of accompanying the voice and piano with the cello and sticking with this idea for the entire project, for which I developed the general concept, the story, which I then translated into "eight small musical sculptures." Surely the timbres influenced me, and inevitably Alessia's vocal timbre and the cello's timbre, two instruments that I conceived very melodically, very lyrically, had a strong influence during the writing process.

It's interesting that the journey began with musical inspiration, to which Alessia's suggestions in the form of literary text were added, but also the pleasant surprise of the opposite, that is, musical writing inspired by and based on texts, which, moreover, is a type of conception that should be closer to what the musician's work of that period was. It is right that the music should follow the accents of the text, its intrinsic meaning, and the image that can arise from literary concepts, and therefore Promenade or Ninna Nanna per Paul, pieces written on Alessia's text, highlight their ability to contribute to the overall meaning of the work.

Camille represents a focused recording work, a project with a classical approach of a completely different nature from my previous works, written for classical instruments and without rhythms. A work with an original concept, with a written and published score, which also offered me the opportunity to intervene as a performer, interpreting my music, alongside excellent interpreters. A work rich in satisfaction for each of the elements to which I contributed.

Massimiliano Coclite

The stories of artists are transmitted through the centuries through the eyes of other artists.
This is how Camille Claudel was introduced to me three years ago, through the passionate vision of a voice and gesture artist like Umberto Fabi. Her image grew within me until she became a daily and cherished presence.

But then again, how can one not fall in love with this strong and fragile woman, with this proud and sorrowful gaze that projects all her sweet restlessness head held high through time? Camille Claudel was a sculptor in glorious fin-de-siècle Paris. She was a student of the greatest French sculptor, Auguste Rodin. The two, even before meeting, were linked by the same approach to material and idea. Camille became Rodin's assistant, modeling parts of the human body for him, especially hands and feet, and offering her body to the master's gaze, posing as a model.

It was natural for them to fall in love. A love between artists, between equals, between two souls who had gold in their hands. In Camille's hands, the gold soon became a shattered dream, loneliness, poverty, disappointment, persecution, madness. Camille Claudel was interdicted, on the initiative of her beloved brother Paul himself, to the asylum of Ville-Evrard, in 1913.

My story ends here.

Alessia Martegiani