Clementi, Aldo / Ives Ensemble – “Madrigale ” – [Hat Hut Records Ltd]

How does one articulate the unspeakable? How, given a means of communication, does one impart that which it was never meant to carry? Voice alone is not speech. Words carry only a fraction of the meaning that is imparted through them. Likewise, notes, lacking context, are not music. Reading reviews and biographies of Clementi, I encounter musical terms I do not know, references to a histories I never learned. Yet the spark that has been ignited in the authors is unmistakable.

Picture an illiterate yet sensitive mute before you: gesturing wildy, almost dancing, always looking directly at you as he struggles in near-futile effort to bridge the gap between you. Such a soul is Aldo, striving all his life to speak, both with instrument and composition, that which words could not say, and even I, with my uneducated ears, can hear distinct murmurings. Many reviewers say that the songs are downbeat and pessimistic, and I cannot refute such comments, only point out that he spent his entire life trying to communicate using the expressive but awkward tool of musical composition, which is itself a powerful statement of optimisim. Somewhere in there lies a message, if only I could understand it…

-LouN