Inside and Outside: Italian Guitar Music 1904–1961

Description

The CD programme offers a panoramic overview of nearly sixty years of Italian music for guitar, from Ottorino Respighi to Gian Francesco Malipiero: two leading figures of the so-called Generazione dell’Ottanta “Generation of the Eighties,” a term coined by Massimo Mila in his Brief History of Music to describe those composers born around 1880. Alongside Respighi and Malipiero, the group also included Franco Alfano, Ildebrando Pizzetti, and Alfredo Casella. At the dawn of the new century, these composers chose to distance themselves from the lyrical operatic tradition and sought instead to renew the musical language of Italy. They drew on the heritage of Renaissance polyphony and Baroque instrumental music, while also engaging with the rich symphonic vein then flourishing in Europe.
The other composers featured in this collection, though not members of the Generation of the Eighties either by birth or artistic orientation, nonetheless absorbed some of their aesthetic principles. Goffredo Petrassi, particularly in his early works, was imbued with the “myth of the ancient” (before finding fruitful inspiration in Hindemith and Stravinsky); Giorgio Federico Ghedini engaged deeply with the early seventeenth-century vocal and instrumental repertoire, which he reinterpreted through a twentieth-century lens. As for Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, the works included here, dating from the early 1930s, represent a natural continuation of the neoclassical aesthetic associated with the Generation of the Eighties.

The Variazioni for Guitar, a unique work among the youthful compositions of Respighi, date back to 1904. This unusual piece begins with a theme of utmost simplicity—a quiet succession of broad chordal values forming a kind of chorale—followed by eleven variations and ending with a return of the original theme. The theme is explored from various angles through a series of diverse technical approaches, which, despite their differences, maintain a certain expressive restraint. The harmonic sequence progresses in an unusual manner through pairs of variations descending by fifths (C major – A minor, F major – D minor, etc.), concluding with a pairing in D-flat major and B-flat minor.

The Variazioni attraverso i secoli marked the beginning of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s long collaboration with Andrés Segovia. Their first meeting took place at the 1932 Venice International Festival, where the great virtuoso invited the composer to write a piece for guitar. Faced with Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s hesitance—he was entirely unfamiliar with the instrument—Segovia jotted down its tuning on a slip of paper and sent him two guitar classics: Fernando Sor’s Variations on a Theme by Mozart and Manuel Ponce’s Variations on Folia de España. Castelnuovo-Tedesco set to work, drawing inspiration from these scores to compose a set of variations that left Segovia admiring and astonished. As the composer himself explained: “In Variazioni attraverso i secoli, I treated the guitar first alla liuto (as it was in Bach’s time), with a Chaconne and Prelude; then alla romantica (as in Schubert’s time), with two Waltzes; and finally alla moderna (jazz style), with a Fox-Trot.”
The work begins with a stern Chaconne in D minor (the same key as Bach’s), structured in symmetrical periods and ending with a free-form coda in the style of an improvisation, followed by five variations. The first is the aforementioned Prelude, marked Dolce e triste, a melancholy procession of eighth-note triplets. The two “Schubertian” Waltzes, despite moments of vivacity, also reveal a nostalgic tone, increasingly evident in the second waltz, only to revive in the Tempo del Walzer I of the fourth variation. The final Fox-Trot, loose-limbed and relaxed, resembles a ragtime in common time (Castelnuovo-Tedesco notates it in 2/2) and recalls the dance style that became popular in the United States around 1912.

Segovia, who was deeply impressed by the Variations, returned two years later with a new request for Castelnuovo-Tedesco: “You know that your compatriot Boccherini was a great admirer of the guitar. Why not write a larger work, a four-movement sonata, as an Homage to Boccherini?” No sooner said than done: composed with the composer’s customary swiftness, the sonata was completed in April 1934. It was the first of its kind since the pioneering early-nineteenth-century sonatas of Ferdinando Carulli and Fernando Sor.
This tribute to the great composer from Lucca does not take the form of direct quotations or references to his melodies. Instead, as in the earlier work, it alludes—within a fully neoclassical aesthetic—to certain characteristics of Boccherini’s style: the luminous exuberance of the opening Allegro, and the poised introspection of his slow movements. The sonata, in D major, opens with an Allegro con spirito of playfully serene character. Structured in traditional sonata form with two contrasting themes—the first marked by brisk quavers and interjected sixteenth-note groups, the second more lyrical and flowing—the movement shows an underlying unity thanks to shared connective motifs in both themes.
Castelnuovo-Tedesco takes a few liberties: instead of a conventional development section, he offers an extensive elaboration of each theme, and the recapitulation, though traditional in design, reintroduces the themes in abbreviated form, closing with a gentle coda that fades away to pianissimo.
The second movement, in G minor, is marked Andantino, quasi canzone, with the further indication dolce e malinconico, and is shaped in a simple ABA’ form. A central Allegretto passage, also marked malinconico, enlivens the mood somewhat, while the return of the A section explores new harmonic possibilities drawn from the opening theme. Also in G minor, the following Tempo di Minuetto departs from the eighteenth-century dance, adopting a more measured, ceremonial tone. The central Double, in G major, adds liveliness with its cascading, leggiero e grazioso sixteenth-note runs.
The sonata concludes with a vigorous Vivo ed energico, featuring three sharply distinct thematic areas that alternate in a relentless forward drive. Toward the end, the return of the third theme in the style of a resolute march brings the sonata to a close with a powerful affirmation of strength.

Goffredo Petrassi approached the guitar only in his mature years, beginning with Suoni notturni, composed in 1959 and followed by only a handful of further works: Nunc (1971), Alias for guitar and harpsichord (1977), and Sestina d’autunno for six players (1981–1982). Suoni notturni was conceived in response to a painting dedicated to him in 1956 by the abstract artist Afro Basaldella, entitled Notturno. Having left behind his early fascination with the past, Petrassi was now exploring new paths, aiming to expand the expressive range of an instrument he did not play, but found mysterious and fascinating.
He began to study “the music written for guitar: what had been done, and above all, not so much from a technical standpoint, but in terms of timbre.” The result was a dreamlike piece of “gently unsettling modernity,” as a British critic described it in Music & Letters, dominated by its timbral dimension. Percussive effects like tambora and Bartók pizzicato appear alongside a rich array of harmonics and dynamic shadings that, as Massimo Mila observed, go beyond mere display of novel sounds to become “an invention of vocabulary, even of concrete musical figures.” This is night music—Nachmusik in the Mahlerian sense—raw and elusive on first hearing, revealing its secrets only gradually: a continual swarming of enigmatic forms tracing a path lined with enchantments and anxieties, until it extinguishes itself in the apathy of the closing bars.

Also composed in 1959 is Ghedini’s Studio da concerto, his only piece for guitar. Like Suoni notturni and Malipiero’s Preludio, it was published by Ricordi in 1961 as part of a landmark Antologia per chitarra. Unlike traditional studies, which are intended to develop specific technical skills, this piece is structured in three sections. The opening Molto dolce unfolds in a pensive tone, employing archaising gestures animated at times by sharper accents. The wide-ranging central section, marked Mosso, has an improvisatory character, reminiscent of a toccata. The final I. Tempo serves as a varied and developed reprise of the first section, retaining its introspective nature and concluding with a progressive broadening of tempo and a triple-pianissimo ending.

The final work on the programme is Gian Francesco Malipiero’s Preludio, which returns to the world of Omaggio a Boccherini. A distinguished representative of the Generation of the Eighties and a prolific, eclectic composer, Malipiero, like Respighi and Ghedini, wrote only one piece for guitar. Compared to his colleagues’ works and to Petrassi’s Suoni notturni, this brief composition stands out for its infectious vitality, written in the finest neoclassical style. Characterised by persistent changes in metre (5/4, 4/4, 3/4, 2/4) and a continuous motor rhythm—not unrelated to Stravinsky—the piece brims with unrelenting sixteenth-note figures interspersed with quaver quartets. The impending conclusion of this frenetic motion, seemingly bound to continue indefinitely, is heralded by a series of forceful chords, followed by a whirlwind of notes that closes the piece in a persistent and slightly mischievous flourish, almost translating into music Palazzeschi’s ironic motto: “E lasciatemi divertire!”
Maurizio Giani © 2025