Alessandro Esseno
La terra non finisce all'orizzonte

LA RECENSIONE

The figure of the composer is vastly different from that of the performer, who most of the time, even at the highest levels, is not blessed with the gift of composition. Nowadays, there are not many cases of composers capable of touching the strings of the soul while at the same time being excellent instrumentalists. One such case is certainly Alessandro Esseno, a composer, pianist, and keyboardist, who manages to explore the new territories of the composition of the century we are living in, along with an absolutely impeccable academic technique.

As noted by specialized critics, Esseno's musical art is not easily categorizable; the classical background has been sublimated into absolutely original sound forms. A distant piano comparison might be to a certain Anglo-Saxon school of pianists like Keith Tippett or Americans like Lyle Mays, but such comparisons do not do justice to Esseno, who manages to be, above all, himself. An arduous artistic journey, as the composer himself is keen to let us know in the preface of the booklet inside this CD, published in 2006, with the usual problems especially in our country: incompetence, lack of professionalism, bad faith, which delayed but did not ultimately prevent the publication of this and other records, thanks also to the label Rai Trade-Videoradio.

The album moves between hypnotic samples and post-modern string sections where grand melodic lines draw imaginative and grandiose scenarios, as in the opening track "Viaggio nell'anima," or in "Battiti," which manages to make us imagine Vivaldi living today and dealing with samplers. Then abruptly changing course in "Riflessi in uno specchio scuro" and "Il cielo sopra," with their extremely complex arrangements and chamber-like sounds, which seem to recall some frames of Kubrick. Pauses are often entrusted to the piano, with a crystal-clear sound perpetually reverberated, as if it were placed atop a canyon, played by Esseno always in search of pure emotion and never conditioned by technique for technique's sake.

The 21 tracks of the album flow like water, sometimes pristine, sometimes radioactive, depending on the abrasive force of the pieces, culminating in the final track "L'orgia della guerra," a curious and unprecedented mix of Bronx drums and choirs borrowed from contemporary music, where apocalyptic sounds overwhelm us along with modern man's madness and his worst primordial instincts. A complex artist, due to the multiple interpretations of his music that possesses a special visual quality, often cinematic in nature, a composer who, knowing he has much to say, has chosen the silence of a solitary and unpretentious path in his professional journey; no national-televised appearances, no festival glitz, no political bandwagon behind him, for once the only absolute protagonist: the music.