The artist writes about this work: (Highlighted titles are MP3 samples)

Musica Obliqua is a record that presents the peaceful (and sometimes less peaceful) coexistence of my musical thoughts about ballet, cinema or simply about dreams.

Don Miguel s'en va t'en guerre is a Tango blown to a thousand pieces. At the end of the piece, where the Tango fragments become more evident, some of the dance's wreckage floats to the surface.

The melody of "Parlami d'amore Marił" can be discerned in the central part of the piece (which is divided in five movements), first broken down into a series of fourteen sounds and then exposed in its original form, framed in a rhythmic tissue that sounds like bells tolling/pealing/chiming in the distance. Il musicista segreto is a suite written to commemorate that Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801) died two hundred years earlier. It is based on themes by this composer fron the town of Aversa, near Naples.

I have used a couple for Cimarosa's sonatas for fortepiano, formaly and harmonically counterfeited, as well as a duet taken from the "Pittor parigino" and some themes I composed myself and employed as connective tissue.

Le vieux et la mer, on the other hand, is one of the rare pieces I have written without tinking of a specific purpose. The original was written for solo piano. Later, the piece was used in two theatre productions to accompany pantomime performances.

On the whole, the three orchestra pieces are an obvious tribute to the historical composers of the 20th century, in particular to Schoenberg and Stravinskij.

The first of the three, La Zeza, is an instrumental version of an original composition of mineI wrote to the text of a popular representation from the tradition of the Campaniaregion called "La Canzone di Zeza".

The second one, "Antoniello", is based on a mirror canon (Canone a specchio) followed by a trio and a "da capo" (listen).

The recording bears the sign - even though not immediately evident - of the popular roots of the music - and not just those of the Campania region. The third of the three orchestra pieces, for instance, is based on the "expanded harmonical structure of a song by Raffaele Viviani, transfigured beyond recognition.

The last movement of "Il musicista segreto" features the chitarra battente, a typical instrument of the tradition of Southern Italy, underlining - in so far as necessary- the importance of the popular tradition iin every creative act.

In addition, Don Miguel, as outlined above, is linked to the tradition of South America and between the threals that make up Le vieux lies hidden a taste for the melodious not unlike that of pop music. - Antonello Paliotti (English translation by Mike van der Vijver)