The Blanket Of The Dark (A Study For Lady Macbeth)

Tracklist

1. Miserere5:28
2. A Letter5:08
3. The Golden Round2:20
4. Flower And Serpent2:21
5. Daggers4:12
6. Lacrymosa2:17
7. Piano Interlude1:43
8. Lady Morley2:20
9. Lady Tango5:23

Personnel & credits

• Marco Micheli (2)Acoustic Bass
• Marco RemondiniCello, Alto Saxophone [Alto Sax]
• Alle BenassiClarinet [Clarinets]
• Roberto BonatiConductor
• Tony MorenoDrums
• Riccardo Luppi (2)Flute [Flutes], Soprano Saxophone [Soprano Sax], Tenor Saxophone [Tenor Sax]
• Francesco BossagliaFrench Horn
• Vincenzo MingiardiGuitar
• Mario ArcariOboe, English Horn [Corno Inglese], Soprano Saxophone [Soprano Sax]
• Roberto Bonati ParmaFrontiere OrchestraOrchestra
• Fulvio MarasPercussion [Percussions], Percussion [Electronic Percussions]
• Stefano BattagliaPiano
• Roberto BonatiProducer [Produced By]
• Beppe CarusoTrombone, Tuba
• Michael GassmannTrumpet, Flugelhorn
• Paolo BottiViola
• Lucia MinettiVocals

About this record

Genre

Jazz

Style

Contemporary, Avant-garde Jazz

Discogs

View on Discogs ↗

Press

“the normalcy of treachery and violence are all realised but with macabre humour rather than melodrama”All About Jazz ↗

“warmly acclaimed in Italy and abroad”Roberto Bonati (official site) ↗

“mad and enchanted kaleidoscope”Roberto Bonati Bandcamp ↗

Reception

Coverage exists but is concentrated in one substantial English-language feature/review and the artist/label's own descriptive material; dedicated Italian-press reviews were not surfaced. The principal critical source is Duncan Heining's All About Jazz feature "Roberto Bonati: Macbeth and the Whale" (AAJ returned 403 to direct fetch, but search snippets carried evaluative text). Heining treats the work seriously as a through-composed jazz-orchestral meditation on Lady Macbeth, drawing the play's dreamlike inevitability and "normalcy of treachery and violence" with, in his framing, macabre humour rather than melodrama. He singles out concrete passages: a section opening with Stravinsky-like accents that moves into a Latin-jazz episode (Paolo Botti on viola) echoing "Giant Steps" and "Caravan," before a fragmentary closing featuring Alessandro Benassi on bass clarinet. The artist's site states the composition was "warmly acclaimed in Italy and abroad." The label/Bandcamp text frames the concept rather than reviewing it: Lady Macbeth's interior collapse rendered as a "mad and enchanted kaleidoscope" of memory, blood and guilt, built from a Gregorian 11th-century Miserere, Thomas Morley viol fantasias, and Verdian quotation (the Requiem's Lacrymosa and the scala enigmatica in the sleepwalking scene). No AllMusic, JazzTimes, Down Beat, Musica Jazz, or Swiss/German press review of this specific title was located.

Recognition

The composition has institutional/festival recognition through its source festival (ParmaJazz Frontiere) and a notable later revival: in 2024 "The Blanket of the Dark: A Study for Lady Macbeth" was programmed at the Festival Verdi in Parma (Teatro Farnese), with Bonati conducting/performing his own composition, paired with a screening of "Omaggio a Luigi Nono" — confirming continued standing of the piece within Parma's contemporary-music and Verdi programming roughly two decades after release. No formal awards (DownBeat/Musica Jazz polls, etc.) for the album were found.

Background

Recorded live 23 December 2001 at Teatro Due, Parma, during the ParmaJazz Frontiere festival; mixed and mastered February-March 2003 at Tala Recording Studio, Milano; released 15 September 2003 on MM Records (MM43033). Total running time ~64'26", organized as 24 short "events" across three sections (The Blanket of the Dark / La Danse / Somnambula). Roberto Bonati composed and conducted the 14-piece ParmaFrontiere Orchestra; copyright Jazzprint Edizioni Musicali, 2003. The work was conceived around the 2001 Verdi centenary, originally as a study of Verdi's Shakespeare-derived female characters (narrowing from Otello/Macbeth to Lady Macbeth), and its score quotes the Verdi Requiem's Lacrymosa, an 11th-century Gregorian Miserere, and Thomas Morley's fantasias for two bass viols. Michael Gassmann is credited on trumpet within the orchestra (confirmed on the artist's official discography page), alongside Lucia Minetti (voice), Mario Arcari (oboe), Riccardo Luppi (sax/flute), Alessandro Benassi (clarinet), Francesco Bossaglia (French horn), Beppe Caruso, Paolo Botti (viola), Marco Remondini, Vincenzo Mingiardi, Stefano Battaglia (piano), Marco Micheli, Anthony Moreno, and Fulvio Maras. This is the jazz trumpeter Michael Gassmann (Discogs 780297), not the classical musicologist; the credit is verified by name on Bonati's own site rather than inferred.