Paolo Bacchetta - Egon's (2015)

It was during a visit with my wife at Mart in Rovereto that I discovered Schiele and Austrian expressionism. Although many of the Austrian expressionists were part of the exhibition (together with Klimt), I was deeply impressed by Schiele's work and finally decided that I had to write something inspired by his story and production. Since I had to start a new year under Stefano Battaglia's direction in Siena, I thought that I couldn't have a better chance to test my ideas. I started collecting every type of material I could find about Schiele, and in a few weeks I wrote some of the music you can listen to on this CD. Despite all of the effort I put in it, I only managed to finish the whole job a year later. The music in the meantime changed, as did the group: new musicians gave my music a new and different life and it was thanks to them that I could bring the “Egon project” to a (hopefully) joyful end.

Egon is a sort of concept, strictly related to Egon Schiele's life and production. Besides the more or less obvious suggestions related to Schiele's works (you can spot some of them in the titles of some compositions), Schiele has always had a sort of magnetic attraction on me, both because of the urgency you could feel in every line he drew, and because of the historical and artistic implications that marked his career and life. Humanity and sensuality in his paintings and scratches bring a thoroughly new perspective to human life. Everything seems to be framed in a sort of virgin and primordial state; even eroticism is not “discussed” as either immoral or moral, but rather, it becomes a fundamental part in men and women's life.

Ideally, all the compositions try to expose my personal sympathy for Schiele, and although I cannot yet tell what that link is, I can tell that it is and always will be.