DIEGO CONTI (b.1958): Music for Violin and Piano: Aral, Erasmus’ lambs, Fuga, Veracini restyling, Notturno per Vittorio.

Description: Conti came to music via progressive rock, investigated the usual suspects of 20th-century concert music first, then moved backwards through music history, learning and absorbing as he went. He explains his idiom as freely incorporating that multiplicity of styles ad libitum, and claims distrust of artists whose stylistic horizons he sees as too limited. The polemical notes for this disc would probably be more effective were it more readily apparent what point they are trying to make; presumably some sort of defence of the composer’s polystylism, if any were needed. Anyway, Conti is a violinist-composer, so these works explore a wide range of violin technique, while notably treating the piano as an equal partner. So, stretches of atonal flamboyance may suddenly give way to a pulsing, tonal passage, or a kind of classical pastiche to a piece of whispered folk-rock, then a post-minimal propulsive episode, then some percussion played on the bodies of the instruments, leading to some more raucous rock'n roll, then an episode of ethereal simplicity. Then there’s that quarter-hour pointillistic quasi-fugue for solo piano. You get the idea. Have fun! Daniela Cammarano (violin), Alessandro Deljava (piano).