Gianluigi Trovesi/Stefano Montanari - Stravaganze consonanti (ECM)

Though he’s established himself as one of Italy’s most important improvisational voices, clarinetist and saxophonist Gianluigi Trovesi has long kept one foot in the world of classical music. Teaming with conductor and concertmaster Stefano Montanari and an ensemble that includes strings, bassoon, oboes, harpsichord, and lute, he immerses himself in that world on Stravaganze consonanti (“Consonant Extravaganza” – make of that what you will). The program consists of compositions by Italian luminaries like Giovanni Maria Trabaci, Andrea Falconeri, and Guillaume Dufay, plus several pieces by Henry Purcell and a few from Trovesi’s own pen, allowing the woodwinds wielder to pay tribute to his own country’s masters and one of their British contemporaries, while still keeping current. Indeed, he sometimes merges his own tunes with those of his predecessors, including a seamless mash-up of his “L’ometto disarmato” with Dufay’s “Kyrie I.” He also engages in a pair of duets with percussionist/electronicist Fulvio Maras that might seem like disruptors, but instead slot right in. Romantic at times, martial at others, with a sense of whimsy lightening the mood, Trovesi and Montanari come up with a series of expertly arranged, beautifully performed cuts that don’t so much stretch the boundaries of orchestral music as fold in new wrinkles. Stravaganze consonanti will appeal to those inexperienced with classical music as much as those regularly immersed in it.