Giovanni Allevi
Joy

Giovanni Allevi, Joy (2006) or Much Ado About Nothing.

IN THE NAME OF THE ITALIAN (MUSICAL) PEOPLE

Given, as a matter of law:

- that there already exist on this illustrious site two honorable reviews of the same work, which would advise against my intervention on the matter;

- that however, the Allevi argument has recently returned forcefully to current relevance, due to the querelle between the promising and young (?) pianist and the member of the Establishment (?) Uto Ughi;

- that ultimately, I would like to say two things on the subject, so who cares about the presence of the two previous (most reverberated) reviews;

Given, as a matter of fact:

- that, since I have been playing the piano (with uncertain results) for years and I am passionate about it, I can no longer say it publicly without receiving the response, "Ah, so you like Allevi? What, you don't know him? No, you MUST listen to him, he's a genius!"

- that a quick Internet search reveals it is not possible to find a balanced opinion on the subject, as the crowd is divided between those who acclaim him as a new Mozart and those who wish for him to meet the same (premature) fate;

- that the most famous album by Our Man seems to be this Joy, released in the year of Our Lord 2006, after which (according to the website http://www.giovanniallevi.it/) he was described by the international critics as "the Italian piano genius" and "the Mozart of 2000" (goodness gracious!);

Therefore:

I have decided to proceed with a direct, unbiased listening of the aforementioned magnum opus to form my personal opinion on the matter, and to share it with the kind users of Debaser (who, I imagine, were hoping for nothing less).

Track no. 1, "Panic". Plink, plink-plink. Plink, plink-plink. Plink, plink-plink-plink, plink-plink-plink-plink. Plink-plink. Well, this melody is nice. Graceful, light, sweet. I wonder how he will develop it. Here...no, now he's just repeated it the same, he'll certainly develop it now...no, this is another melody...quite nice...now back to the previous one...now the other one again...finished. Kind of a typical pop song structure: verse, chorus, another verse, another chorus, bridge, etc... AH I GET IT: this Allevi plays light music on the piano! Well, I see nothing wrong with that, it's a good song, nice melodies...with all that the world of light music offers us today, it certainly doesn't make a bad impression, it would be nice to often hear songs like this at Sanremo. But let's move on.

Track no. 2, "Portami via". Nice rhythm, nice flow, perfectly rendering that idea of a light flow suggested by the title...nice...but there is something amiss...what could it be? Suddenly, I recall Rubinstein's words about the piano: "Do you think it’s an instrument? It’s a hundred instruments!". Here lies all the fascination of the piano: it has the most abstract sound, less sensual than the others, but has a versatility unknown to others, allowing it to evoke a hundred and another hundred sensations, worlds, situations, COLORS...And then here's what was amiss: the sound is not captivating. Here, of colors, not even a hundred, just two, three at most: the plink-plink, the plink-plink a bit louder, the plink-plonk. Stop.

Track no. 3, "Downtown". Flat arpeggio, flat melody, flat harmony. Tonic, subdominant, dominant. "Well it goes like this, the fourth, the fifth...The minor falls and the major lift..." sung (and played) Leonard Cohen in Hallelujah. In other words: the basic (and therefore also predictable) chords (and their progressions) of tonal harmony, which has dominated Western music for over 400 years, and whose questioning has been a guiding line of classical music from romanticism onwards (namely over 150 years ago)...not bad, for being the New Advancement.

Track no. 9, "Back To Life". OOPS, but what about tracks no. 4 and following? Well, it is annoying to admit, given the precise commitment I made to the Debaser users, but...I think I actually fell asleep! And what is strange about falling asleep in this disarray of plink-plink tunes, where everything is programmed, where all the elements of the composition (rhythm, melody, harmony, structure, sound) are scientifically polished, where every roughness, every thrill, every deviation from the track, every punch to the stomach, basically anything that could shake the listener and distract them from that sensation of sweet rocking, of relaxation (comparable to one felt in a wellness center, an expression I found in many Allevi reviewers—coincidence?), which the distracted listener identifies with classical music ("Ah, classical? Yes, I love it...it relaxes me so much!", how many times have you heard this phrase, maybe holding back a smile, thinking back to, I don't know, Beethoven's Fifth, or Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain), but which, to those who really listen to classical does nothing but come across as SOPORIFIC? Without anything offensive in this, I repeat: it is music that induces drowsiness because it was PROGRAMMED to induce drowsiness, because it is completely estranged from the intent to represent dramas, anxieties, passionate outbursts, strong joys, and equally strong pains, the true feelings of man in short...a purpose that is instead the precise task of Music, classical or not, but with a capital M. Honest music, this of Allevi, always pleasant, at times inspired, never complex (contrary to what many say), NEVER virtuosic (I am the first to care less about virtuosity, but even this has been said), but which flows light, too light, slipping without leaving evident traces in the soul, where Great Music (again: classical or not, it doesn’t matter) is capable of leaving you with bleeding grooves, or alternatively of healing existing ones.

On this point, a note, which is also a conclusion: Maestro Allevi responded to Uto Ughi's criticisms by self-defining his music as Contemporary Classical (!!!???). Blessed boy, this is a wrong expression from the start: classical is not a musical genre, it's the music that has traversed the years maintaining its ability to express, thus becoming ABSOLUTE. Therefore, only posterity can give us the hard verdict: tell us, that is, whether your music will have the ability to become CLASSICAL, or TIMELESS.

As for me, not possessing a crystal ball to answer this question, I reiterate my verdict, stated at the beginning of the review, which can be less elegantly reformulated here:

Giovanni Allevi, Joy or All this fuss for this little disc?