Ivano Leva, a Neapolitan composer, publishes with NovAntiqua “The Rain of October”: an intriguing work between modern-classical, late-romanticism and improvisation. An itinerary between enchantment and memory, for piano solo and electronics.
“The Rain of October” is a work whose exegesis must be sought in the heartbreaking truth of a year, 2019, in which for personal reasons I experienced the lowest point of my existence as an individual: a real punch in the stomach that literally exploded inside me, a flow of songwriting incredibly concentrated in just a few days; “vomiting” out these songs (excuse the very rude term) was cathartic and fundamental to embark on a climb that, although it will never be free from the scars accumulated, has given me a renewed awareness of my inner search”. Ivano Leva does not mince words: his new album is born from an overwhelming inner push, in an itinerary of human and inevitably artistic recovery and renewal. This is the profound meaning of The Rain Of October, his new album for NovAntiqua, in which he presents himself alone, with piano, prepared piano and electronics, driven by a speculative nature that moves from the phenomenon of the October rain to a “sensorial and emotional composition”.
See also: www.ivanoleva.com
Released by a boutique label of fine musical craftsmanship like NovAntiqua, The Rain of October is the fourth album as a leader for Leva, the Neapolitan composer who over the last few years – in particular thanks to works such as L'ala del silenzio (2016) for piano and string quartet and Debussy: La Cathédrale Transfigurée (2017) for piano and oboe – has obtained significant feedback for his ability to make late-Romantic languages dialogue with jazz and modern-classical (“I have authentically combined in a single expressive form not only the two musical genres that I have practiced and listened to the most, but also all the other musical styles that I have absorbed throughout my life, in addition to the other art forms that have always fueled my creativity: literature, painting, cinema and scientific-mathematical disciplines, which I consider arts in all respects”).
See also: www.novantiqua.net
Also thanks to this eclecticism combined with a preparation and competence resulting from years of study, Ivano Leva imagines the album as a sort of modern piano suite that puts the perceptive range of autumn rain in contact with the interior world of author and listener, in an ideal journey through chiaroscuro, fragrances, epiphanies and intimate reflections on memory, time and life. "Each of my compositions is born from an initial very precise auditory suggestion that suddenly, out of nowhere, makes space in my mind; it is a glimmer of color in embryo but with already clear somatic traits, which from its very first appearance communicates to me without any shadow of a doubt what instrumental organization this musical cell wants to be directed towards. In this sense, I can assert that there is no dimension in which I prefer to move, everything depends on what the object in question is. The Rain Of October is inextricably linked to the sound of the piano, to the nuances of timbre it can produce and to its evocative capacity, so there was no better dimension for this album than that of the solo piano”.
The Rain Of October comes out in the aftermath of the lockdown that has brought musicians and entertainment professionals to their knees, but Leva works in other directions, referring to other sensibilities, which are independent of the needs or difficulties of the moment: "My listeners come to my music through very specific paths, dictated by a need to feed their own personal taste and certainly not by advertising inducements or by circumstances of sudden precariousness in the usual daily dynamics. Indeed, genres of music like mine usually require - to be metabolized - several re-listenings spread over a vast period of time, free from momentary contingencies. It's music that you come to out of sensorial curiosity, you would never find it thrown to the four winds on social networks, combined with a hypothetical photo of me playing the piano with bare feet, while with a languid eye I try to ensnare a female audience with the improbable manner of a baboon from the detergent aisle of a supermarket".
See also: www.synpress44.com
THE RAIN OF OCTOBER
1.Dawn
2. Autumn Rainy Morning
3. Through A Windshield
4. Words In The Rain
5. Light Gleams
6. Crystallizing
7. To My Soul
8. Thoughts
9. Fragrances
10. Raindrops
11. Deafening Silences
12. Endlessly
Article published on 2 July 2020 - 14:41
