ITALIAN MUSIC FOR GUITAR AND PIANO (Remastered) (CVLD377)

Author: Various Authors
Performer: Lapo Vannucci (guitar), Luca Torrigiani (piano)

Available in: File HD, CD Gold

Track list

01 - Andantino. Un poco mosso e scorrevole. Più mosso, danzante. Sempre mosso e festoso. Tempo I - 5'21"
02 - Vivacissimo - 3'53"
Franco Margola
03 - Fantasia - 7'11"
04 - Improvviso - 3'02"
Carlo Mosso
05 - Fantasia - 6'08"
Adriano Lincetto
Divertimento a due - 9'35"
06 - Preludio - 3'00"
07 - Danza - 3'01"
08- Finale - 3'34"
Luigi Giachino Il silenzio del tempo - 11'22"
09 - Incosciente - 2'52"
10 - Ineluttabile - 2'47"
11 - Viaggiando - 2'10"
12 - Congedo - 3'33"
Giuseppe Crapisi
13 - Winter Time - 5'59"
Tot. Time: 52'35"

24bit/88.2 kHz original recording made at Magister Area Studio, Italy, on September 14rd-15th, 2015

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.

New remastering of the CD

ITALIAN MUSIC FOR GUITAR AND PIANO

ITALIAN MUSIC FOR PIANO AND GUITAR
It is a common belief that the combination of piano and guitar is a complicated enigma for both composers and performers: the sounds 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 too divergent. In short, when put together, piano and guitar tend to immediately prove almost incompatible. Furthermore, if there isn't even minimal amplification of the guitar, the piano will be forced to play almost always ‘on tiptoe’. Despite this, and despite common belief, several composers, especially in the twentieth century, have managed to achieve splendid results through a skilful work on the ‘fulls’ and ‘empties’ of the respective instruments, a particular attention to an unconventional dialogue, filigree writing and, of course, a good dose of instinct that never hurts. This album is a testament to these results 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 wanted to or not, most strongly linked his name to that of the guitar, namely the Florentine Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968) who wrote the Fantasia op. 145 in two short, insightful movements, dedicating it to Andrés Segovia and his pianist wife Francesca ‘Paquita’ Madriguera Rodon. A miracle of balance that reflects undeniable French influences but also shows an extroverted and personal lyrical inspiration, always hovering between Spanish atmospheres and an all-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, cunningly seeking a constant alternation rather than an 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 work.
Another Fantasia – and another piece dedicated to the Margaria duo – is the composition that Carlo Mosso (1931-1995), a Piedmontese of transalpine origin, wrote in 1980. A meditative and restless, wooden page, full of archaisms and at the same time a bearer of 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 Adriano Lincetto (1936-1996) from Padua, 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 sibylline work, far from any complication, both modern and postmodern, woven with a modal language in which numerous seventh chords are found.
This rich anthology concludes with two pieces written expressly for Lapo Vannucci and Luca Torrigiani and dedicated to them. Il silenzio del tempo by Luigi Giachino (1962) from Turin dates back to 2015 and is a four-movement suite tinged with jazz inflections and almost impressionistic flavours.
Quite different is Winter Time by Giuseppe Crapisi (1967) from Sicily, which in a striking page of about six minutes mixes repetitive and stubborn gestures typical of minimalism with a more elegiac vein. In this case, the two instruments rarely alternate, often weaving their delicate or rhythmic textures mostly simultaneously.
Ennio Speranza