This CD compiles all my works for solo guitar, masterfully interpreted by the excellent guitarist Fabrizio Proietti. They span a period of over 15 years, from 2006 to 2022, and consequently, they feature a certain variety of styles and composition techniques. I hope the listener will forgive this heterogeneity and interpret it as a testament to an endless journey of exploration.
Despite my background in classical guitar, the pieces I have written for this magnificent instrument are indeed few. Over the last twenty years, my creativity has been primarily dedicated to composing for other instruments, for various ensembles and orchestras, as well as soundtracks and music for dance and theater. I have nonetheless often felt the need to return to my first love, the guitar, and write intimate, personal or didactic pieces for it.
Fabrizio Proietti has perfectly understood both sources of my inspiration: he grasped the nostalgic and profound nature of pieces like Un petit rien or Cadenza, the technical challenge hidden behind each of my 12 Studi per chitarra, the humor in the Suite-on-BACH, and the lightness of the Capriccio tonale.
I thank him for his commitment spent in the many hours of recording, and also thank DaVinci Edition for believing in this project.
Marco Giannoni
I had the great pleasure of recording Marco Giannoni’s entire work of original guitar music. it was a long and intense journey in which I had the opportunity to interpret and bring to life every single work, discover a different way of understanding a didactic approach (such as the 12 Studi per chitarra), a concrete search for modern sounds still coherent with classical writing (Capriccio tonale). It was a pleasant journey of exploration in which I directly experienced contact with those who wrote what I set to music. I wanted to thank Marco for entrusting me with an this entire project, for his patience in welcoming me into his music and his kindness in wanting to collect my interpretations.
Fabrizio Proietti
Marco Giannoni
“COMPLETE WORKS FOR SOLO GUITAR”
Capriccio tonale (Tonal Caprice, 2019) was chosen as the opening track for the CD due to its bright and virtuosic character. The title succinctly but clearly explains the composer’s intentions: it is meant to be a technically challenging piece with a free form, while also being one of the few compositions by Marco Giannoni in a purely tonal style.
The 12 Studi per chitarra (12 Guitar Studies, 2014) were born out of the need to introduce students to the language of modern and contemporary music, attempting to fill a publishing gap that, fortunately, other authors have also tried to address in the last decade. Thanks to the beauty of their composition and their artistic value, these twelve pieces have found success not only as study materials but also as concert pieces, becoming a stable part of the repertoire for many young guitarists, frequently performed in public.
The collection of the 12 Studi per chitarra is currently used in various conservatories and music schools in Italy, France, and Germany. Almost a decade after its publication, it still maintains its effectiveness in preparing new performers for the challenges inherent in contemporary guitar music.
The Suite-on-BACH is a true divertissement, a suite of five pieces commissioned by the BB Quartet in 2005. Originally written for a low brass quartet (tenor flugelhorn, Bb euphonium, Bb trombone, and tuba), it was later transcribed by the composer for flute and piano, guitar, guitar duo, and, more
recently, for chamber orchestra.
Following in the footsteps of many composers before him, Marco Giannoni takes the four notes derived from the name BACH as a starting point and creates a short and entertaining series of pieces with a strong rhythmic character, lively and playful in nature. These include a ragtime, a blues, a piece in quintuple meter, a samba, and a tango.
The guitarist Fabrizio Proietti is the dedicatee of the transcription for solo guitar.
Preludio e Danza (Prelude and Dance) was born in the summer of 2022. It consists of two seamlessly connected pieces: a brief prelude with a meditative and almost improvised character introduces the listener to a nostalgic and serene world. The absence of a recognizable rhythmic pulse and the elongation of melodic fragments create a mood of lulling temporal suspension in this short section. The Preludio is followed by a dance with a sweet character, subtly weaving into the listening experience with a delicate and sensual melody emerging from a quick and tight arpeggio in the low register of the guitar.
In the fall of 2022, Marco Giannoni dedicates himself to the composition of the Quattro pezzi coreutici (Four choreutic pieces), a series of four short pieces (Tempo di marcia, Adagio, Valse, Andante ben ritmico), conceived as distinct choreutic episodes. They are not necessarily intended to be danced but rather aim to be a metaphorical meeting point between the two artistic disciplines.
They bear witness to the composer’s long-standing involvement in the world of stage music. Throughout many years as a resident composer for various dance companies and in the dozens of shows for which he has composed music, Marco Giannoni has never used the guitar. These pieces are therefore unique in his body of applied music.
The Quattro pezzi coreutici have recently been transcribed by the author for a string quartet.
Cadenza was born in 2016 and is dedicated to the famous Italian guitarist Massimo Delle Cese. Apparently, it is a peculiar cadenza without a concerto, an orphaned and isolated cadenza coming from nowhere and without a clear destination. However, it is a piece of great technical challenge for the performer, and for the composer, it is an opportunity to explore the expressive and timbral possibilities of the guitar, almost entirely examined: harmonics, rasgueados, muted sounds, glissandi, slaps, percussion effects, etc., are all included.
A theme of a few notes makes its appearance at the beginning of the piece, as a statement of intent, and then it is developed, elaborated, and varied throughout the composition. Five years later, building upon this work, Marco Giannoni composed the Kristallkonzert for guitar and chamber orchestra, finally placing this cadenza in the central part of a true concerto for solo instrument and orchestra.
Un petit rien (2020), dedicated to the guitarist Cristiano Porqueddu, effectively concludes this overview of the guitar works of the composer Marco Giannoni. Among the 25 pieces on the album, it is certainly the most intimate, almost autobiographical. It stands in stark contrast to the opening piece, both in creative impulses and compositional technique. Capriccio tonale and Un petit rien are truly emblematic of the artist’s compositional trajectory, and between these two extremes, one can trace a path, a journey towards essentiality, a meditation on the nature of sound and creative processes, with the goal of achieving an extreme simplification of the initial material, a crystalline purity of development, and perfect adherence to the primordial idea.
In Un petit rien, the melodic motif is truly reduced to the essential: only two notes set the stage for a piece of small dimensions but great emotional intensity, a composition rich in lights and shadows, sudden tremors, and relaxations, where the thematic material seems to stir calmly but without rest.
A piece that moves, agitates, soothes, and consoles. A piece that sounds like a promise.