“Bach would have enjoyed his Passo Avanti, we are sure of it,” says BR Classics, and NDR culture reports enthusiastically. “The Quartet Passo Avanti re-negotiates the musical parameters of existing pieces – an exciting blend of classical and jazz comes out. (…) Their transformations are funny and full of ideas. (…) The fun of arranging and improvising is in the foreground, which is also transmitted when listening.”
Passo Avanti breathes new life to classics, with unrivaled playfulness and virtuosity; classics that were unbelievably modern back in their days. The so-called old masters, composers such as Bach, Brahms and Verdi, were all musical avant-gardists, keen to experiment and open to new ideas.
Which music would they write today? Passo Avanti gives us a hint of it. The quartet translates well-known works into a modern sound language and reforms them without distorting their original spirit. On the contrary, by their fresh arrangements the pieces are as exciting as they were at the time of their creation. They never sound artificial, nothing seems forced, but there is a fundamental naturalness to them. When the four musicians play, there is a lively dialogue between the individual voices, teasing out the wonderful new nuances from the originals – radiating in a new splendor.
This splendor is also reflected in the ambiguous title of the Quartet’s second album, which can be traced back to the tracks, genres, and musicians: Finest Blend, yes, indeed.
Julia Bassler / Mario Korunic violin
Alexander von Hagke clarinet, bass-clarinet, flute, piccolo-flute
Vlado Grizelj guitar
Eugen Bazijan cello
