Review of Blu by Arturo Tallini, Tempi Moderni, 2005

Italian Translation

Guitar is an instrument of infinite possibility, and if it’s played by a performer who has sensitivity and imagination is capable of providing light and inspiration to contemporary repertoire, freeing itself from the usual tradition and demonstrating its validity as a "nomad" instrument over time and space.
In this record Arturo Tallini plays several pages of music of avantgard’s authors, who have confront themselves about guitar reaching brilliant and, at the same, different results. The musical path of this cd propose an interesting walk between Britten, Petrassi, Scelsi, Nicolau, Dall'Ongaro and Cresta demonstrating the absolute need to overcome barriers and fences, going beyond stereotypes consolidated around the classical guitar’s world to highlight the contemporary role of the instrument and its sound , sifting all the possibilities and trying new dialectical perspectives.

The absolute top of the disk is the performance of Ko-tha by Giacinto Scelsi, performed here for the first time in its full and complete version: the sound takes all the space, the guitar is transformed into a rhythmic, resonant instrument becoming the basis and the starting point for new resonant geographies.
If “the map is the territory” the music interpreted by Tallini draws unusual, almost metaphysical geographies where it would not be strange to see appearing in the distance one of the trains of De Chirico, mysterious echoes, shoadows’ games and Japanese chimes in a suspended and dancing atmosphere. An intensely lived path, performed with great technical skill but at the same time free from mannerisms and cold virtuosism, who invites the listener to not to simply stop listening to this disc, but to overcome it, to deepen it, to go beyond the surface and metabolize the lessons that these composers have given us. How to search further definations about this disc? Simply a disc of contemporary music, excellent contemporary music!