Bellanöva – Bellanöva (Felmay Records, 2020)
Italian label Felmay Records released Bellanöva in 2020, a collaboration that brings together the traditional piffero-and-accordion duo of Stefano Valla and Daniele Scurati with western classical musicians Nicola Segatta (cello) and Marcello Fera (violin, composition).
The project centers on the music of the Apennine “Four Provinces” area, where Alessandria, Genoa, Pavia, and Piacenza meet. This region maintains a long-standing tradition of dances, songs, ritual festivals, and seasonal rites, habitually driven by the pairing of piffero (a popular double-reed oboe) and accordion. Valla and Scurati rank among the leading exponents of this repertoire, which includes pieces of notably archaic character.
On Bellanöva (“good news”), Fera writes new string parts that surround, mirror, or gently disrupt the original lines for piffero and accordion. The exquisite string writing ranges from fully new material that converses with intact traditional parts, to complete rewritings that leave only the piffero or the voice, to almost transparent arranging where his intervention remains deliberately neutral.
The album documents a working process as much as a finished score. Valla and Scurati seek fresh directions for a living oral tradition that they embody and transmit, while Fera and Segatta act as partners in dialogue. Their quartet forms a single ensemble in which reed and strings negotiate a balance between inherited practice and individual creativity.
Musicians: Stefano Valla on piffero, vocals; Daniele Scurati on fisarmonica (accordion), vocals; Nicola Segatta on cello, vocals; and Marcello Fera on violin, vocals.
Track list
Polca di Ernesto 4.14
Alessandrina in re 3.26
Levar di tavola 7.37
Angiolina 4.13
Occhi neri 1.08
Mazurca di Borgofornari / Mazurca D’Doro 5.39
Alessandrina in la 2.59
Valzer dei disertori 4.37
La neve va con il sole 2.19
Marcellina (pianta verdolina) 3.15
Piana bella 3.20
Bella nova 5.49
Author: Iliana Cabrera
