Meaningful Pop is a collection of original works for two guitars that represents the 20th century repertoire where the popular sources merge into classical musical language. In a period of great evolution of thought, creativity, originally linked to canons of perfection and beauty is now built on the personality and sensitivity of the Artist in an expressive divergence that is unprecedented. But the 20th century was also the century in which, alongside avant-garde research, currents such as neoclassicism coexisted, a completely new language such as jazz was born and a systematic assimilation of the immense ethnic heritage of humanity was carried out. Starting from the second half of the 20th century, all these elements flowed smoothly into the creative font of composers, developing a rich, intellectually unscrupulous language of great timbral charm. A new stylistic mélange, made up of distant or closer references and citations, but which to some extent is always familiar to the listener. The research and emotional proposal of Meaningful Pop is based on this fertile ground.
Comme des grands
Roland Dyens (1955-2016) was a French composer and guitarist who, through stylistic crossover, developed his own highly successful guitar and musical icon. His familiarity with jazz and popular repertoire – especially Brazilian – in addition to his solid classical training, make his style original and sensitive. Comme des grands can be counted in the genre of descriptive music. Dyens’ predilection for coloristic research is evident starting from the first movement, Gloomy light, with a nostalgic and veiled character, with suggestive overlaps and harmonic resonances that recall Claude Debussy. The alternating sections in the minor-major-minor modes emotionally describe the sudden bright light in the clouded mood that characterizes the entire piece.
Il funghetto (little mushroom in Italian, as Dyens specifies in the score notes) is a piece with a sad tone that immediately involves the listener. The simplicity and spontaneity of the melody is enriched by the passionate dialogue between the two guitars. Centrally, a more animated section is placed, while the reprise of the first theme with even more nostalgia leads to the coda where Dyens requires the performers the creation of a fade, that is, a slow fade until the total disappearance of the sounds, a common practice of pop music discography.
The last movement, Clown blanc, is a playful piece which, through the alternation of different meters – measures 2/4, 3/4 with sudden inserts in 5/16 – and a light melody which is always rhythmically different, gracefully describes the clown stumble. A sudden calmed central section with elegance uses melodic-harmonic dissonances, building a suspended and mournful expressive climate, recalling the listener to the romanticism and sentimentalism of the French Pierrot. After the lively recapitulation, the piece ends with a Molto ritmico dynamic with a circus taste.
Toccata
Pierre Petit (1922-2000) was admitted to the Paris Conservatory in 1942, studying analysis, harmony, counterpoint, and composition.
In 1946 he won the Grand Prix de Rome for composition – a prestigious prize awarded in the past to artists such as Berlioz, Debussy, Gounod, Dukas – with the lyrical scene The Game of Love and Chance.
He mainly composed operas, ballets, chamber, and symphonic music. In 1963 he was appointed Director of the prestigious École Normale de Musique de Paris, a long position he held until his death. Having become passionate about guitar thanks to his acquaintance with the legendary Presti-Lagoya Duo, in 1959 he composed for them Toccata and the Tarantella, followed by the Concerto for two guitars and orchestra in 1964, as well as his Perpetual Movement for solo guitar in 1984.
In the virtuosic Toccata, his background, eclectic and rich of influences from every musical genre, is fully represented with quotations and stylistic clichés that emerge during the performance. Thus, in the first section of the cyclical structure of the piece (A-B-A-C-A-coda) dissonances, rhythms and accents appear that immediately recall Stravinsky’s Sacre du printemps and ironic inserts with transfigurations of children’s nursery rhymes; in section B, the horizon turns abruptly to jazz-derived music and to Gershwin in particular; in section C the rhythmic frenzy is completely watered down in a poetic and hallucinated climate which dissolves in the final pianissimo; the last repetition of section A trespasses on the coda, where all the rhythmic elements presented so far seem to go crazy and explode in a paroxysmal rush.
Rhapsody Japan
Shingo Fujii (1954), Japanese guitarist composer and native of Osaka, is the author of Rhapsody Japan, expressly composed in 2008 for a tour and recording that Fujii himself and the American guitarist William Kanengiser made together in Japan. It is essentially a medley of Japanese popular songs, reassembled by the author into a new composition of great charm and harmonic refinement. The song presents a variety of moods, colours, and atmospheres, evoking an authentic representation of this suggestive source material. The suite of popular themes is preceded by an Introduction, first an ethereal oriental setting with a reminiscent use of harmonic sounds and then a whirlwind sequence of patterns in the minimalist style. The famous Sakura opens, dedicated to cherry blossoms; then Hana, with a serene and flowing theme that describes the landscape that runs along the Sumida river; followed by Touryanse-Kagome, an ancient melody that celebrates the passage of children from early to middle childhood unharmed; Hamabe-no Uta, characterized by a sweet melody and a peaceful pace, describes the happiness and sense of peace you feel when admiring a beach along the sea; Zui-Zui, subtitled by Fujii as Tango allegro, is instead a children’s nursery rhyme used for an elimination game, in which the participants arrange themselves in a circle with outstretched fists; after a quote from the Introduction, the suite ends with Furusato describing the nostalgia for his native home. The entire suite is influenced by the character and compositional refinement of Shingo Fujii, a skilled creator in the use of harmonies, rhythms, and musical sequences, with a great ability to make the most of the timbre and effects resources of the two guitars.
Suite Italiana
Mario Gangi (1923-2010) was a pioneer of the classical guitar in Italy. He graduated in harmony and double bass at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome, cultivating the study of the guitar as a self-taught person, since at the time there were no guitar department in Italian conservatories. Mario Gangi himself, at the beginning of the 1960s, established the first guitar department in Italian conservatories, holding a double position in both Rome and Naples. A versatile musician, he was the official guitarist of the Italian Radio and Television and an absolute reference for the instrument, thus having to acquire skills also in other stylistic fields and collaborating with distinction with important figures: from the virtuoso violinist Salvatore Accardo to Franco Cerri for jazz and the singer Fausto Cigliano for Neapolitan popular music. He has always maintained a significant concert activity, performing throughout Europe, America, and Asia. In 1989 he composed the Suite Italiana dedicating it to the Hill-Wiltschinsky Guitar Duo, well known internationally for their virtuosity. The Suite features three popular themes from different Italian regions. The first Allegro Vivo is inspired by a Roman saltarello, a fast dance in 6/8: Gangi strongly personalizes the piece, with captivating harmonization together with entire sections originally composed. The second movement, Adagio, is based on a song from Abruzzo: the catchy melody and innocence of the theme are respected and enhanced through a delicate elaboration. The third and final movement, Allegro spigliato, is the famous Neapolitan tarantella from the opera La Festa di Piedigrotta, composed in 1852 by the Neapolitan Luigi Ricci (1805-1859), in whose original version the text speaks of a young man who courts his girlfriend: it is said that the success of this opera was so great that it was performed 364 times. The spirited flow of the piece prompts Gangi to write equally dazzling and virtuosic; the elevation of the instrumental resources and the dense concertation between the two guitars close the suite brilliantly.
Six Friendships
John William Duarte (1919-2004) was an English guitarist, composer and writer, born in Sheffield and lived in London. Self-taught, his musical experience as a performer is mainly linked to the world of jazz. In this context he played the trumpet and double bass until 1953, also collaborating with figures of the calibre of Coleman Hawkins and Django Reinhardt. His bond with the father of the then prodigy guitarist John Williams greatly influenced his career as a composer, giving him the opportunity to establish important relations with musicians such as Andrès Segovia, Ida Presti, Alexander Lagoya as well as John Williams himself, to whom he dedicated some of his main works for guitar. Six Friendships is a collection of 6 short songs that are stylistically very different: listening to them one has the perception, in a more or less obvious way, that each of the songs refers to as many famous songs from the guitar and musical repertoire, “friend” songs because somehow familiar to Duarte in his path as a composer.
The first piece Point counter (Sor) Point is a counterpoint over the Study in B minor n.22 op.35 by Fernando Sor, where the original for solo guitar is not altered at all but simply joined by a counterpoint of the second guitar. The second piece Ostinato develops nimbly over a bass that acts as a bourdon, recalling the Anglo-Saxon popular style and the expressive methods of the bagpipe. The arpeggiated chords at the opening of Cantando and the passionate and intense melody, developed first in the medium-low register and then in the high register, appear as a true reference to the second movement of Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez. Gavotte, the fourth piece, is a step back 300 years, a revisitation of this baroque dance also practiced by J.S. Bach: Duarte’s homage maintains the rhythmic and formal structure of the dance, characterizing it elegantly with light and a dense counterpoint between the two guitars. Chanson presents a highly expressive melody, developed on a series of chromatic and diatonic appoggiaturas: the impressionistic climate and the harmony full of jazz references further embellish the piece. Offset closes the series of six songs with irony and virtuosity, developing a pressing concertation that is always harmonically and tonally iridescent, completing the circle of the stylistic excursus of Six Friendships.
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