The Italian Job

ANTONI O'BRESKEY is a man with a mission. He's so adamant about the pronunciation of his name that he allows it to undergo a ferocious mutation of spelling - just so that us remedial linguists will manage to get our tongue around it. Christened Antonio Breschi, he's sick and tired of the bastardised versions he constantly encounters in Dublin, his adopted home.

And meeting this son of Florence, Hibernophile, multi-instrumentalist, composer and ethnomusicologist, it's easy to see why our determined inability to address him properly is enough to drive him back to the deed poll. O'Breskey (how that hybrid spelling grates on the sensibilities) is a real doer, and not given to lolling around while the rest of the world gets into step.

He reckons that even if Pavarotti were reincarnated three times over, he still wouldn't be able to get his larynx around a sean nós song. He is a romantic who views Ireland as his spiritual home, a place where he feels somehow "normal", no longer a genius or an imbecile, as he does in Italy. This is a man who has an opinion on everything from national identity to the schizophrenic driving skills of the Irish.

Hot on the release of his latest album (his 11th), My Irish Portrait - Celtic Piano: Irish Colours (on the aptly monikered "O'Music" label), O'Breskey has taken to the boards with a vengeance. Intent on showcasing his many unlikely partners in crime (to wit, Ronnie Drew, Mairtín O'Connor and Neil Martin, among others), he takes his keyboards and percussion boldly where nobody has gone before.

O'Breskey himself is nonchalant about the circuitous career path he has chosen in recent years. "I know very well that my music could be very commercial," he avers, "but I want to control it, and that's why I've started my own small label. You know, I'm just glad I found this place (Ireland), because whether I'm a genius or crazy, it doesn't matter - everybody's a crazy or a genius here anyway!"

But aren't Italians renowned for being crazy too? After all, a common perception of Italians is of a nation of Chianti-quaffers, with a penchant for style and a canny eye for things of beauty?

"There is a connection between Ireland and Italy," he nods, "but at this moment, I think that Ireland has all the good things, and Italy has all the bad. People go to Italy expecting to find the Mediterranean and the beautiful life, and all they find is maybe some good wine, but lots of problems. There's less humanity, less culture than you'd imagine. Now that's crazy, but if there's craziness when there is no creativity, it's better to be very rational. I'd rather be Swiss or German."

magnetic attraction

Although he's previously lived in Switzerland and Spain, it's the strength of Irish music and dance that has caught O'Breskey's imagination in particular. This is in stark contrast to his experience of the "preciousness"' of Florentine life.

"Florence is a museum," he insists unequivocally, "a place to go and look. Musicians are cleared off the street by police. It was colonised long ago by the English and now it's an English cemetery where all the famous English people go to die!"

The magnetic attraction that saw O'Breskey shuttling from Spain to Ireland didn't surprise him all that much, since it was firmly rooted in the shared musical history of the two countries, albeit a musical history that's not well known.

"The Irish are a mix between the Basques and the Celts," he declares, with a sweep of his hand that seems to carve a path in mid air. "The Irish travelled to Galicia in the Basque country so the music mixed and fused long ago."

Although O'Breskey's albums haven't been hogging the top of the charts, he's more than comfortable with the place he occupies in the Irish music scene. "I haven't had commercial success," he admits, "because I am not good in business, but I have the honour that the best Irish musicians are playing with me not because of the name, but because they want to play with me. I mean, Mairtín O'Connor is a genius. And Ronnie Drew is a poet who should be in films. I can't believe that he's not cherished more. You have Sinéad O'Connor and Bono, but what about Ronnie? When he recites a poem, he's wonderful."

Antoni O'Breskey's been playing what's now called "world music" for the best part of 25 years now. Is he peeved that suddenly meddling ethnic styles is de rigeur, yet his name doesn't trip readily off most punters' tongues?

"Years ago, I would have had Mairtín O'Connor playing with a flamenco musician, and that was simply my way of getting musicians together," he says. "I think now it's fashionable and I'm not collecting much royalties, but my biggest hope is that when this fashion will pass, there will still be people who believe and understand this music. Fashion is welcome, but I'm sceptical. I hope it's not like rain that falls and afterwards the land is dryer than before. I hope there will be some water left in the well!" n