ITALIAN MUSIC FOR GUITAR AND PIANO - Lapo Vannucci | Luca Torrigiani

ITALIAN MUSIC FOR GUITAR AND PIANO (CVLD275)

Lapo Vannucci (guitar) - Luca Torrigiani (piano)

Available in: HD File, CD

Mario Castelnuovo -Tedesco
Fantasia op.145 - Tot. Time: 9'14"

Production: Velut Luna
Executive Producer: Marco Lincetto
Recording Engineers: Marco Lincetto
Editing Engineer: Mattia Zanatta
Mix and Mastering Engineer: Marco Lincetto
Photo: Marco Lincetto
English translation: Lesley Burgon
Graphics and Layout: L’Image

Lapo Vannucci plays on Guitar Masaki Sakurai Model Maestro-RF, especially made for Lapo Vannucci.
Luca Torrigiani plays on Steinway & Sons D274 Concert Grandpiano.

ITALIAN MUSIC FOR PIANO AND GUITAR
The common belief is that the combination of piano and guitar is a complicated enigma for both composers and performers: the sonorities and approaches of the two instruments are too distant, their blend too unbalanced, the volume produced too different, and the way of ‘thinking’ or constructing harmonies divergent. In short, put together, piano and guitar tend to reveal themselves as almost incompatible. Furthermore, if the guitar is not even minimally amplified, the piano will be forced to play almost always ‘on tiptoes’. Despite this, and despite the common belief, several composers, especially in the twentieth century, have managed to achieve splendid results through skillful work on the ‘fulls’ and ‘empties’ of the respective instruments, a particular attention to unconventional dialogue, filigreed writing, and, of course, a good dose of instinct, which never hurts. This album is a testament to these outcomes and features a collection of original works for guitar and piano composed between 1950 and today by well-known and lesser-known Italian authors.

The journey begins in 1950 with one of the composers who, whether he liked it or not, has most associated his name with the guitar, namely the Florentine Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968), who wrote the Fantasia op. 145 in two short, flavorful movements, dedicating it to Andrés Segovia and his pianist wife Francesca ‘Paquita’ Madriguera Rodon. A miracle of balance that is influenced by inescapable French elements but also shows an extroverted and personal lyrical inspiration, always hovering between Spanish atmospheres and an entirely Italian, or rather, Tuscan, cantability.
Another ‘conjugal’ piece that bears the title of Fantasia is the single-movement work that the Brescia-born composer Franco Margola (1908-1992) wrote in October 1979 and dedicated to the duo formed by guitarist Guido Margaria and his wife Emilia. It is a quiet work with neo-baroque movements in which the writing, however, shows a happy hand in making the two instruments converse, shrewdly seeking a constant alternation rather than actual superposition.
Another piece dedicated to the Margaria duo is the short Improvviso, composed between November 1979 and spring 1980, which differs little from the atmospheres of the previous one.
Another Fantasia – and another piece dedicated to the Margaria duo – is the composition that the Piedmontese composer of Transalpine origins Carlo Mosso (1931-1995) wrote in 1980. A meditative and restless, wooden piece, full of archaisms and at the same time bearing a resigned modernity, deliberately stark, built around a few melodic cells developed through a modal path that in some points recalls both the language of the Swiss Frank Martin and the beloved Gian Francesco Malipiero.
The Divertimento a due by the Paduan Adriano Lincetto (1936-1996), composed in 1981 and divided into three movements (Molto lento. Poco mosso – Allegro molto – Finale. Molto moderato e cantabile. Allegro vivo), is undoubtedly a less enigmatic work, far from any modern or postmodern complication, woven with a modal language in which numerous seventh chords are counted.
This rich anthology concludes with two pieces written expressly for Lapo Vannucci and Luca Torrigiani and dedicated to them. Il silenzio del tempo by Turin-born Luigi Giachino (1962) dates back to 2015 and is a four-movement suite tinged with jazz veins and almost impressionistic flavors.
Quite different is Winter Time by the Sicilian Giuseppe Crapisi (1967), which in an incisive six-minute piece blends repetitive and stubborn gestures typical of minimalism with a more elegiac vein. In this case, the two instruments rarely alternate, often weaving their now delicate, now rhythmic textures mostly simultaneously.
Ennio Speranza

Lapo Vannucci and Luca Torrigiani:

Since 2010, Lapo Vannucci and Luca Torrigiani have formed a duo born out of a deep friendship, with the aim of exploring new realms of music for guitar and piano.
Both graduated with honors from the "Luigi Cherubini" Conservatory in Florence, they continued their studies at prestigious musical institutions such as the "Incontri col Maestro" Academy in Imola, the Fiesole School of Music, and the École Normale de Musique de Paris "Alfred Cortot".
In parallel with their intense solo activities, they regularly perform as a duo in Italy and abroad, receiving unanimous acclaim everywhere. Critics praise their great communication skills and constant attention to the beauty of sound. Particularly active in contemporary music, they have premiered pieces dedicated to them by composers Luigi Giachino and Giuseppe Crapisi. With the "Ion Dumitrescu" Philharmonic of Râmnicu Vâlcea and the "Mihail Jora" Philharmonic of Bacău, they performed "Tre Paesaggi": a concerto for guitar, piano, and string orchestra written for the duo by composer Francesco Di Fiore.