Italy’s great musical archaeologist and one of today’s outstanding improvisers, Gianluigi Trovesi indulges his love for the drama and beauty of Italian opera with Trovesi all’opera – Profumo di Violetta. Accompanied by a fantastic “banda”, the large wind orchestra with percussion heard in the on-stage-music of many operas by Donizetti and Verdi, the reedman takes us on a humorous journey through the history of the genre, enriched with light and playful improvisation. Both titles carry double meanings: the Italian expression for “Trovesi at the opera” is equivocal with “Trovesi at work”, while “Profumo di Violetta” simultaneously alludes to the protagonist of Verdi’s “La Traviata” and to the flower’s sweet perfume – while more religious and erotic associations linger in the background.

The importance of the Banda in Italian provincial society can hardly be overstated. These orchestras which played at all major civic and religious celebrations served as melting pot for the social classes. Traditional Banda repertoire, consisting of popular marches, waltzes, Neapolitan songs and – most important – operatic tunes served as a kind of cultural memory that handed on popular musical treasures from generation to generation. Trovesi grew up listening to his local village banda near Bergamo and it inspired him to take up the clarinet as a boy. Like most Bandas today, Filarmonica Mousiké have shifted their focus to original contemporary compositions, so developing into a concert orchestra. It was Trovesi’s idea to revisit Italian opera from an unconventional angle, juxtaposing famous and lesser known tunes and including orchestral excerpts that enhance the symphonic design. In Trovesi’s ingenious work the popular and the sublime, irony and unrestrained pathos meet with an improvisational spirit conveying the pure joy of music making.

Gianluigi Trovesi came to ECM with the Italian Instabile Orchestra on Skies of Europe, then issued three further discs under his own name: two with accordionist Gianni Coscia – In cerca di cibo (543 0342), Round About Weill (982 4131) – and one with his octet (Fugace – 066 5832). On his most recent, Vaghissimo ritratto with Fulvio Maras and Umberto Petrin (170 9774) he pulled together melodies from all manner of sources: Palestrina, Orlando di Lasso, Monteverdi, Josquin Des Prés, Jacques Brel, Italian pop singer Luigi Tenco, as well as pieces by the group members, plus collective improvising.