Azio Corghi - "Intermedi e canzoni" for solo trombone

The first thing that came to mind is: if I had been part of the audience, I would have been ashamed, because no matter how much one (at least one like me) settles into listening without any prejudice (truly, tonight I feel that the approach is right), one remains indifferent, or wonders why a person with a level of culture otherwise superior to mine and who is undoubtedly aware of what they write, finds themselves part of or president of juries in numerous composition competitions and above all sees works like these being performed, which except for some sparks (I may be cliché in saying this, but anyway, to bother the performer and the audience seems too much to me), are only useful to him.

I think that for certain things one does not need to be learned or steeped in experience regarding concerts; music (an object of always subjective evaluations, but in many cases objectively criticized by those who know where to go to find the thread of the matter) should in any case be pleasant, even better if it moves or arouses interest. A work of this type does not leave me indifferent regardless; I mean that if I perceive it as a person and not as a musician (which I am not) or composer (specifically, and I am not even that), I identify it as a succession of expressions delegated to the instrument, whether they be ironic, ridiculous, sarcastic, or contemplative, thus music "reduced" to descriptivism at the expense of the aesthetic sense which, at least in part, should, could, not be sacrificed.

Now the nice thing would be to listen

Divertimento Ensemble - Luciano Berio - Sequenza V for trombone

for due considerations.

Open content (youtube)

Now I am listening to it.

In the meantime, I went looking for something by Corghi (to evaluate better); I found a work that I liked at first impact (I haven't listened to all of it yet, but the first 5 minutes positively "struck" me), it is the Symphonic Poem, scenes from Blimunda.

Ouch, I can already see it going "badly" here, who wrote before?

I am listening and the two works already seem very similar.

I don't know exactly why, but this one by Berio seems more interesting to me—perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, but that was my impression. He used fewer sections, fewer fragments, but managed to produce a work with (in my opinion) more substance; again, a bit of an exaggeration, but that was the feeling. I don't think it has anything to do with having "broken the ice" by listening to the Corghi piece, but rather it is a perception regardless of that.

The fact is that Berio was a Musician with a capital M.

As you can read and understand from this snippet

http://www.lucianoberio.org/node/1465?893703771=1

while remaining in a very sophisticated realm, there is a strong relationship with the shows of the last great clown: Grock (Adriano Wettach).

The solidity of a piece can depend on many factors, not least retracing the dynamics of a theatrical show that works.

... and what about Corghi?

In effect, the meaning is present; the fact that performing certain things on a wind instrument is not easy, and the meaning hidden behind a work can make the latter more or less credible, and in works of this kind it is easier to fall into the ridiculous. The sensation was, precisely, that Berio succeeded in being more credible, while Corghi was grasping at straws.