There is more in the world of music than the three minute pop song and cellist Daniela Savoldi highlights that with her album “Trasformazioni”. It is an intelligent album that easily exceeds the often modest expectations of modern day quasi-classical instrumental music.
With these six songs, Daniela Savoldi – although it would be more accurate to call them themes rather than songs - allows the atmosphere to build steadily with each song having enough similarity to its predecessor to achieve unity and yet still make the result more than the sum of the individual parts. Hints of the rock song do creep in from time to time, especially in “Cavalcata”, and this serves to reinforce the fact that this is a work of today rather than just a reinvention of times past.
Emotion is the key to her performance though and there is indeed something moving in her fluency and precision with “Viaggi”, in particular, stepping forward as if to offer itself for inclusion in the soundtrack to a Paolo Sorrentino film.
“Trasformazioni” exudes maturity and that is a rare thing these days.