Mario Giachino

Mario Giachino

The music I love is not always what I draw my inspiration from, of course, but is what I like to listen to the most - except for the person who wrote the music that I like the best: Antonio Vivaldi. In general I appreciate all classical music but in my opinion Vivaldi has that something else that few other great musicians can boast of.

Moving forward in time we find another great musician capable of interpeting best the changes that composers such as Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Mussorgsky and Ravel had introduced: George Gershwin. Despite his short life, he modified the very concept of music permanently.

Music had another important turning point during the 1960s and 70s and, in my opinion, those who gave the strongest, the most convincing impulse were Led Zeppelin. Everything that came afterwards had to take into account what they did.

If I were to make a list that would help you to understand my tastes (though not of course a list of the all-time best), in addition to the great Jazz and Blues musicians, from the beginnings of the genre till today, I could not fail to mention some other big names, known to everyone, who I believe belong to the group of great writers of contemporary music, those who, in my opinion, are destined to leave their mark: David Bowie, Freddy Mercury, Jim Morrison, J. J. Cale, Leonard Cohen, The Who, Pat Metheny and, in Italy, Gianna Nannini.

The situation today, of course, is ever changing. Every day new names, new talent, even completely new music are discovered. Only time will tell if they will change the face of music, as did Mozart, Gershwin or Led Zeppelin. For the moment, we must limit ourselves to stating whether we like this music, we find it interesting or it gives us what we consider to be new sensations. Among the new names I would like to mention groups like DeVotchKa and Calexico because of their originality and Sondre Lerche, for his fresh sound and class.

In music, most experimentation is the fruit of the mixing of musical genres, from which, every now and then, new genres are born. My appreciation of Arabic music has led me to get to know a Tunisian musician who mixes this with the right dose of jazz, with very interesting results. His name is Dhafer Yussefand, with his voice and his Oud (Arabic lute), he creates compositions with a traditional Arabic base but tinged with pure American jazz.

Finally there are the contemporary composers who, more than others, have conditioned my way of understanding and writing music: two of them are connected with the cinema: the writer of the best musicals, Andrew LLoyd Webber, and the man who wrote one of the best soundtracks, Ennio Morricone. I would also like to add Lluis Llach, a Catalan singer-songwriter, to this list, who in terms of poetry I would liken to our Fabrizio de' André and who has also written what I find are very interesting musical operas, such as Itaca and Verges 50.

Ennio Morricone