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Kugelf​ö​rmigkeit

by Francesca Gaza

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  • Streaming + Download

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  • Kugelförmigkeit Compact Disc (Ltd Ed. of 140)
    Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Comes in a beautiful gatefold card case, with artwork by Vieri Cervelli Montel based on Raffaello Sanzio's "Le tre Grazie" and a 24-page booklet in which the writing of the music and the thought behind it is explained as in a little book to read.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Kugelförmigkeit via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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1.
D’oro crespi capelli e annodati da sé e da verde frondi e bianchi fiori, un angelico viso e due splendori simili a stelle, e atti non usati veder fra noi, vezzosi e riposati, e un cantar di più gioiosi amori soave e lieto ben tra mille fiori del primo tempo, insieme radunati in un giardino nato ad un bel fonte, pos’Amore in amare alla mia mente libera ancora, semplice e leggera. Né pria, dal canto desto, alza’ la fronte, che tutte l’accerchiar subitamente e presa a lui la dier, che vicin era. - Giovanni Boccaccio (La caccia di Diana e le Rime, anno 1334)
2.
“You’re all I think of in this vast delusion of the constitution of silence, and I want to get by.”
3.
Carattere 04:14
4.
Ride, il tempo ride senza fretta di morire Ride, per amare ciò che accade quando scorre e vuole osservare per capire se va male da morire Il tempo ci accompagnerà alla soglia della verità - ci abbandonerà Ride, il tempo ride
5.
I lost a song in the hill I lost words but not my will I lost heaven but now I’m in hell and I like it very well I lost a role in the plot I lost him but I went abroad What a stupid screenwriter I am, I hope people can’t tell - Slow rotation suggesting permanence My equation drowning innocence - What makes my lost role content is technique and not sentiment In the stillness the dancer’s aware of the need to overshare What’s youth, what’s loss, what is spring? My blanket of comfort is thin - Slow rotation suggesting permanence My equation drowning innocence
6.
7.
“So I too enrich the dark horizon with vibrant tremors of sacred secrets, and everything that is uncertain changes to even greater uncertainties.” -Lucian Blaga (Poemele Luminii, 1919)

about

Kugelförmigkeit establishes a particular relationship, a sort of counterpoint between a modernist distrust arising from the consciousness of the passage of time, and a romantic yearning for the repose that can be found in unity and stasis.
The unusual configuration of instruments is woven into an imaginary spherical space where the proximity of present, past and future is explored.

The concept of “Kugelförmigkeit der Zeit”, the spherical shape of time, was firstly used by the German post-modern composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann around the 1950s, who used this image to describe the inexistence of timely distance between historical eras and styles.

It gave me the impulse to combine what is perceived to be stylistically afar by proving the actual proximity of it.
The question for what is consonant and what is not, what is coherent and what is a pastiche.
Might merging contrasts give life to something aware of the past, respectful of the present and impatient for the future?
The music I wrote wanted to reveal a sympathetic connection between seemingly disparate principles, fusing instruments and techniques from Renaissance, Baroque, Jazz and Experimental Music into a coherent genre-defying musical microcosmos. The individual sound character of each instrument with its historical density is crucial for the body of sound as a whole and the criteria to decide what would influence the music lied in the affect (affetto) that the techniques and structures convey.
The cohesion and symbiosis that occurs by letting different forms of art be influenced by each other, is mesmerizingly rich and included several artists,
Consequently, other artists, apart from Zimmermann, who have addressed the complexities of the form of time in their way, have influenced the body of work, such as T.S. Eliot, O. Messiaen, G. Boccaccio, O. di Lasso, G. de Machaut, L. Carroll, G. Klein, L. Blaga, A. Pärth, C. Gesualdo, and others.
What has led to the musical understanding we have nowadays?
Gaining an understanding of the development of harmonic rules, counterpoint and form throughout musical history was a focal point of interest. The question for what is consonant and what is not, and the fight for acceptance of new methods, is an ever-present concern. The more we move away from the Renaissance and early Baroque era towards the more traditionally classical era, the less the form stays malleable and fluid and becomes more structural but also enriched by the other parameters. What is the content and what is the container? Which one stays, which one is replaced? The periodicity with which musicologists and critics where condemning either the abandonment of certain criteria or encouraging the renunciation to the security of the past for future-loving dynamism is inspiring and still a very contemporary concern. Through the reiteration of historical periods, one earns more solidity in the ocean of variables that one encounters as people and hence as musicians with such strong historical conditioning and baggage of the past that we all carry with us. It is not my intention at all to make a break with the compositional traditions but to observe, as tradition is carried forward to produce something new and assure the continuity of creation.
Kugelförmigkeit was born out of natural sympathy for the body of melodic tendencies, for the vocal style and musical language which I came to admire more and more in the periods of Renaissance and Baroque and combine it with my rooted background in Jazz.
The music was composed against the background of this year's global pandemic as a meditation on the relationship between time and men.
The main themes are the preoccupation and ongoing effort about time and its relation to what is timeless as well as how the individual relates to the past and the future and the impossibilities that arise once one gains consciousness of time. There is a young moment where one literally "lives in time" before gaining an awareness of its passing but despite the moment of disillusion, we are still able to believe in the poetic surprise that lies in the mystery of tomorrow.

credits

released June 25, 2021

Musicians :
_________

Francesca Gaza : Voice and composition
Eleonora Biscevic : Baroque Flute and Recorder
Kira Linn : Bass Clarinet
Giulio Tanasini : Viola da Gamba
Martin Theurillat : Guitar
Nadav Erlich : Double Bass
Adrian King : Trombone
Ignacio Laguna : Theorbo
Iannis Obiols : Harpsichord and Piano
Mattia Galeotti : Drums

Team :
______

Mixing & Production : Daniel Somaroo
Label : Whales Records
Mastering : Alexandr Vatagin
Visuals and artwork : Vieri Cervelli Montel

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Francesca Gaza

Francesca Gaza (*1995) is an Italian/German singer, composer and pianist with romanian roots currently living in Basel, Switzerland.
As a bandleader, sidewoman and arranger she is working extensively in Jazz, Antique, Classical, Pop and Theater music and is part of both Basel's and Florence's vibrant art scene, regularly performing and collaborating with musicians from across Europe.
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