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A few quotes by Angelo Gilardino collected by Reza Ganjavi (through conversations, emails, newsgroup posts, meetings/lessons).
===============================================
[it’s important to be both a composer and a musician... Even the most gifted composers – easy going ones....]
I
am a musician. I am nothing else. I have nothing to tell about myself.
Even the worst of my enemies can not refuse this - i am a musician.
============================================================
"I am not very fond of popular music."
“I am not an improviser. I never improvise.”
It is practically impossible to be a serious musician without having been influenced by Bach.
I
am less busy than when composing, though I work the same time. It is a
being busy that leaves me something. When composing, nothing is left to
me.
I am only an artist, and the paths I follow in my life are very difficult indeed.
Recording is a different job from playing.
If you are satisfied, you have finished your career.
I only pay attention to the music I make. The rest is unimportant. The rest just goes.
...I am taking care of music as usual...
The popularity of an instrument can be supported only by the repertoire written for it...
When playing, use the logic of breath.
Each piece and performance is a story by itself.
I have my own line – I don’t want to be brought outside.
I follow composing. Not for people. For humanity.
When you play a note, it reflects your entire life experiences.
If McDonald's is food, this is music.
I have pupils with different levels of knowledge and other pupils with different levels of ignorance.
Music
is like a triangle. There are three essential elements to its creation:
composer, performer, and listener. The quality of the produced music is
directly effected by the quality of the listening.
If you don't
have music inside, making it on the instrument is impossible - it's
like speaking - if you have something to say you find the words,
otherwise, there are no words that can assist you.
When playing
melody never understate one note. Never allow listener to imagine the
missing note. Playing chords and rhythm is easy on the guitar. Making
the guitar sing (singing with the guitar) is much more difficult”.
The
first secret of guitar playing is to be as stingy as possible in
movement. Do as little as necessary. Never do anything which is not
absolutely essential.
Mistakes often make music sound better.
I need a whole day to decide what to forget.
If you have learned the music you dont have to do the music, you have to be the music.
If
you have an inspiration of your own to follow, you do not need any
other teacher than yourself. Go to a festival only if you like having
long chats about guitarists, each of whom will try to show you how
better he/she is than everybody else.
Avoid effects which are
not essential for expressing. Don't employ an accent if you can get
expression without it. Go to your object with as few means as possible.
Stay out of rhetoric (art of pursuating people that what you say is
important).
Of course one should be perfect. Why not?
There's no reason to be happy unless it's as close as humanly possible
to perfection. Try to be clean, transparent, diamond like. In
composing, if it's not perfect I don't leave it. There are human limits
but don't settle for less.
My ideal is that only my works are
public, and I would like not to appear at all, neither behind my music,
because I think that my life has been in itself a desert and its only
value and significance lies with the fact it is burned for making a
beatiful work. I do not feel at home in this world, with these people
and in this situation, and my music is my only way to express, from one
side my pain for being here, from another side my remembering of my
true homeland and my expectation to be reintegrated with it, in my own
place. Nothing of what happened and happens here is worthy of being
registered.
You can train a good guitar to have the sound you want.
>
Ciao Angelo: > Must finish recording violin & viola today......
she's unavailable for the rest of the year..... please wish me
luck........
No, there is no need of luck, it's enough things go
on normally. Then, have a normal day and a normal recording session.
Ciao. Angelo
I was never a very hard worker in my hands, I
was a hard worker in my mind - as I am now too - repeating the piece in
my mind on the train, etc. - never played more than 4-5 hours a day,
but never measured time." "You walk because you need to get there, you
don't practice walking. You eat, you don't practice eating.... In the
same way, once you reach certain technical maturity, you don't need to
practice technique .... I played pieces and when I had a problem I'd
devise a technical practice.
===============================================
The
art of interpretation has one of its fundaments on the
historical/aesthetical knowledge of the repertoire. Having realized
that this knowledge directly affects your performance - no less than
your technical skills on the instrument - is surely a strong point at
your advantage. A small percentage of guitarists are conscious of this
fact, and many of them believe that giving up for some hours with their
obsessive brushing the very expensive piece of furniture they own (they
say: practicing) is a waste of time.
===============================================
An
ability that is not inborn can be earned. An ability which is inborn
can be developped. There are no exercises for earning imagination, but
abilities can be achieved. For this, we need to know well ourselves and
to device the most efficient exercises: these may change a lot from
person to person. An exercise that is very useful for a student may
cause damages to another one...
I think there are too many
discussions about technique, how to win over difficulties, how to play
fast and powerfully, but all of these discussions are very far from the
core of the problem. We need more thinking and not less doing, but
doing only after thinking.
===============================================
Good art is an elaboration, impression, description of nature - not an imitation.
===============================================================================================================
---Original
Message----- > From: Kyrre Geithus Laastad
<kgeithus@online.no> > > > ...I have recieved and I`m
playing the Violin part with a friend > of mine, really beautiful
music. > Tell Angelo that I love it. >
Angelo loves that
people love what he does not love very much because he loves other
things that people do not love, including Angelo.
Ciao. AG
===============================================
>
This reminded me a bit of your conversation with him [J. Krishnamurti]
> ciao > Reza > Actually it was not a conversation, I did not
say a word, and he spoke for half a minute without even a glance to me.
I have still to understand how he could perceive me and my person, but
he did.
===============================================
Sometimes
I act too carefully toward people who cannot appreciate. I should
learn, but it is too late. Better getting wrong with overevaluating
people's sensitivity than the opposite.
===============================================
Having
a thread entitled to your name but with no reference neither to you nor
to your work is in itself a sign of fame, like having entitled a square.
===============================================
Anyway,
play what you love, or at least what you like, and learn to love or to
like music from the most reliable source: your own reading through all
the scores you are able to place on your stand. Read, read and read
again. Read orchestral scores, string quartet scores, piano music,
harpshichord music - no matter if you cannot play all the notes.
If you haven't new music to read for one day, place on your stand the
daily newspaper of your town and try to make music reading from it.
===============================================
I
do not like music because it is tonal or atonal, but because it has
been written by a clever and inspired composer. Whether he indicated
any key accidentals or not, it is not relevant to my judgement of the
music, it is just an instruction about reading it.
===============================================
I know how to simplify my life, my problem is that people know equally well how to complicate it.
===============================================
> -----Messaggio originale----- > Da: reza... > Inviato: sabato 1 luglio 2000 12.21
>
I am sorry. Does this sort of mail get you more tired? (saying how
wonderful canzoni is, etc.)? Are you tired of hering about > my CD?
:-)) Being complimented for my works is surely the less tiring of my
occupations.
> Are you sleeping enough? Yes, but my problem is that I wake up.
> Stretching? Don't you believe I am tall enough (1.86)?
> Eating properly? I do not think so. For me, eating is unproper by default.
> Maybe taking extra vitamins? But I am not an American, my dear.
> How about a walk around the block.... You are right. I will begin to walk around my desk.
>
Dental work. Challenges of parents. I can't think of more a resolutive
way of challenging parents than biting into them. A bit cruel of you,
but effective indeed.
> And the rest of life's movement.......... For them also, I guess (to the hospital). Ciao. AG
===============================================
10DEC2000
Hello Reza, still in this world and namely in a little town named
Vercelli. Presently swimming the in sea of my Liederkonzert for 2
guitars and orchestra, a work that seems harder than expected to be
brought to an end. Between the conclusion of the 2nd and the begnning
of the 3rd of the 4 planned movements, I took a break and I devoted one
week to "compose" a Sor's work. On March, 1817, he gave a concert at
the Argyll Room in London, performing a "Concertante" for guitar and
string trio. The music got lost. I thought that I could image this
piece and I wrote it taking as a basic material his Grand Solo op. 14
for guitar. I "expanded" its elements and I created a new work. It will
be published by the house whose owner challenged me to do such a work,
Matanya Ophee.
===============================================
>We
had a big snow storm here - now there is snow everywhere - winter is
indeed very beautiful - it brings peace and love to >the mind.
"Nirvana" means "cool" - when the engines of the mind cool-off.
Yes, winter has a beauty of its own. I would like cooling off the engines of my mind, but who will write the music then?
>Have you had snow in Vercelli yet? I assume it stays on the ground..
Yes,
we had it twice already - unlike in the past years - but it does not
stay on the ground. Luckily, otherwise me too I would surely fall on
the ground, and I couldn't do this as lightly as the snow.
Ciao.
AG
===============================================
> Dear Angelo:
>
Anyway, he likes Villa Lobos's Bachianas Brasilieras ?? which I guess
is > done with a > cello octet with voice ?! - he said it maybe
interesting for > guitar. Has it > been transcribed .... ?!
Yes, Reza, the Bachianas Brasileiras in question is the number
5, and it is scored for soprano and eight cellos (the Bachianas n. 1 is
for eight cellos with no voice). It was firstly transcribed for voice
and guitar, for the use of Olga Coelho, a woman Segovia was in love
with, and who was a self-accompanying singer (an excellent one). Since
then, it has been transcribed a hundred times for many different
groups. Luigi has performed it with a soprano, with a flutist, with a
violinist and with something other hell which I do not recall. Anyway,
it is a splendid piece, A-B-A1, where the words of the poem are sung in
the B section, A section is just a vocalizzo (as in my Canzone
Dimenticata n. 7) and A1 a vocalizzo with closed mouth.
Ciao.
AG
===============================================
>
I said in US classical guitar is very popular - there are many
guitarists - but most are amateurs... > He asked why!
Because their God, father and mother is [snip].
===============================================
>How slowly is "Studio Brilliante De Alard" acceptable? Or should it be quite fast? >Thanks, >Reza
It should be "brillante" (brilliant). As fast as it needs to appear brilliant. Ciao.
AG
===============================================
>Dear Angelo, Would you kindly comment on Jazz. Thanks, Reza.
I
could comment kindly, but not competently, Reza. I never listened to a
jazz session or to a record, just some spots occasionally and I did not
feel inspired enough to expand my knowledge. Ciao.
AG
===============================================
>
-----Messaggio originale----- > Da: owner-cgh-l@ga-usa.net
[mailto:owner-cgh-l@ga-usa.net]Per conto di > Paulo Galvão >
Inviato: giovedì 8 marzo 2001 21.22 > A: artis music > Cc: lista
de Cuit. CR > Oggetto: Re: (cgh-l) Carulli - Sonata Sentimentale
> > > Dear Octavian > > Thank you very much for the
information. > I also need to learn about the context of this
programmatic music type > "Sonata Sentimentale" in the repertoire
for romantic guitar. Being more > explicit, I would like to know if
are there any information about the > motivations for this kind of
music. > > All the best, > > Paulo Galvão >
paulogalvao@mail.telepac.pt > www.musicalia.co.uk
Ancient
Greek mythology - as well as Greek and Roman history - were an endless
resource of themes for European arts (poetry, painting, theatre, opera)
from at least the XVth century: the issue from Middle Age was marked by
a strong return to the ancient classical culture, and this line
followed - in different ways - until 20th century: many modern operas
are still inspired by figures like Orpheus, Ulysses, Fedra - so no
wonder that also Ferdinando Carulli felt the temptation of composing an
instrumental piece with a theatrical action on an imaginary background.
A
curiosity: years ago I discovered and published of a curious
"similarity" (identity) between the episode of the Carulli's Sonata
entitled "La chasse commence" and the "Variazioni XI" (Allegro
maestoso) of the cycle "Variazioni facili su un'aria nazionale
austriaca op. 47" by Mauro Giuliani. One of the two authors
kindly "borrowed" that passage from the other.
AG
===============================================
>I've been browsing the NG again - and saw that you have a masterclass. I have many, unfortunately!
===============================================
>If I ever have a lot of money I'll try to make your music more well-known...
My
music is slowly but steadily getting known: it happens in the way these
things happen in this world, but it happens unavoidably. At the end of
April, the Moscow Chamber Orchestra will perform my concerto for flute,
guitar and strings at Moscow Conservatory: I did not know this
either...I received the news by chance. However, to have a lot of money
is a nice idea: get it.
Ciao.
===============================================
===============================================
> > > Would you recommend a technical exercize such as scales by Chiesa?
No.
> > Or is it enough to work out problems within pieces?
It's
enough if you meet no problem when playing pieces. If any problem, then
you need a specifical exercise to solve it, not scales. If you have an
illness, you need the medicine for that illness, not just an
Aspirina.
> PS - Soon I'm going to be playing your
music in the office. And elsewhere > too, I want many people to hear
it. I want my friends to smell this > wonderous perfume.
I am not sure it is a good idea for your survival.
AG
>
-----Messaggio originale----- > > Thank you very much. > >
Because I don't trust my dislike. And I respect you so > much, that
if you say, Reza, this is a great piece, > etc., I will listen again
and again and try to aquaint > it... It could be my lack of
education that is > conditioning my dislike... > > Thanks
again... > You should trust your like and dislike works exactly as
you do with liking and disliking people.
AG
===============================================
===============================================
April
2002 Luigi said Segovia's wife said Angelo is the only guitarist who
can be the artistic director of the Segovia Foundation and can do this
kind of work (editing of segovia's work).
===============================================
===============================================
From: Angelo Gilardino To: 'Reza Ganjavi (www.rezamusic.com)' Sent: Tuesday, August 20, 2002 22:59 Subject: R: Hello
Ciao
Reza, I am pretty well (as far as I know) and I am here at home working
very hardly on several fronts: composing and editing. I did not go to
Lagonegro in order not to miss the continuity of the work I was able to
forward during the six weeks of Muzzano course (which was calm). I have
composed a Sonatina for solo guitar in three movements and I have
written a movement of another Sonatina, likely it will remain as it
stands now, in just one movement.
Ciao. AG
===============================================
When
deciding how many sharps or flats we place in a guitar transcription of
a modal piece from a lute tablature of the XVI century, we do not
necessarily design a major or minor key, but we simply represent, with
an appearent tonal key, the music to be read in the simplest way. In my
reply to Matanya's question, I pointed out that B minor key is a
conventional tonal representation of a modal piece (in the piece in
question, however, there is a strong ambiguity between two modes), and
once this compromise is accepted, then which key is to be decided on a
very simple and matter of fact evidence: which key allows to notate the
piece with the smallest number of accidentals. In the case in question,
B minor is the key, because it reduces the number of sharps to the
least, and not because the piece begins and ends on B, either minor or
major, though it does.
I am sure that, for placing the piece on a stand and to read it with fluency, this is the right way.
AG
===============================================
"Angelo
Gilardino" <> wrote in message
news:RanA9.3081$744.112512@news1.tin.it... > > "Reza Ganjavi"
<> ha scritto nel messaggio >
news:3dd18d41_1@news.tiscalinet.ch... > > "The work of art is
above all a process of creation, it is never > experienced as a mere
> > product". Paul Klee > > > > www.rezamusic.com
> > Reza, this gravestone repeats the typical statement of
somebody who is > dealing with a painter for buying one of his
" mere products". The > acknowledgement of the same as the result of
"a process of creation" > introduces the unavoidable request of a
powerful discount on the requested > fee. As you know, I am a
friend of many painters...and I am also a composer > whose "process
of creation" is widely acclaimed: with consequent, little > regard
for the "mere products" coming from his workshop. > > I would
like very much an even exchange of one of the results of my process
> of creation with one of the mere products by Paul Klee: as you
know, here in > my studio -albeit crowded by paintings - there is
still the space at the > wall for a Klee, and in my mind it
would be easy to find the purest > inspiration for such a passage of
creativities. > > Creatively and unproductively yours, > >
AG > >
===============================================
"Reza
Ganjavi" ha scritto nel messaggio news:3dd42988_1@news...
> Italian, in my humble opinion is a very > powerful
language and my only gauge for this determination is having known great
thinkers, > like Angelo Geraldine, whom you could tell when hearing
or reading them, what their > mother-tongue has done to their
brains! They come up with expressions which are richer > than I've
heard in any language. So, why do I know of great Persian, German,
Indian, and > American philosophers but not Italian?! Must be my
ignorance.
Even mine. My warm and old friendship with one of the
foremost Italian philosophers never enabled me to understand his books
- which I have all with a flattering dedication, but which I was never
able to read after the first pages. I guess he suffers a lot (though he
never said this, too kind of him) when attending a concert where a
piece of mine is featured. But we never fail to feel the same passion
for art (poetry, painting) of any country and for the good cuisine
(than, mainly Italian one, of course).
> And you have the most > impressive collection of paintings -- you don't need Klee :--))
I
would change all my (respectable, I admit) collection in change of just
one of the Klees I like. Unfortunately, museums and painting collectors
(much unlike guitarists) are too well aware of what they have.
AG
===============================================
But
you surely know that there is a difference between preferring Aranjuez
and knowing ONLY Aranjuez, with having never heard or read
Ohana Concierto. This is my point: knowledge, not tastes. I will never
dispute de gustibus. I would like to encourage guitarists (not you, you
do not need) toward a deeper knowledge of their repertoire, this is
all. And it is not a detail.
===============================================
"Reza Ganjavi" < > ha scritto nel messaggio
>
I haven't followed this discussion but when maestro Gilardino writes, I
read! > I have a mixed position: the most important thing is sound -
tone - music - and as I think > Angelo is saying, technique follows
that - when you play a piece that demands better > technique for a
passage, you can develop your own exercize to improve that. I also like
> technical exercizes and find benefit in the -- e.g. the Biscaldi
arpegios or various > scales - but tend to make my own exercizes far
too often (guess I could write a pumpin > nylon of my own one day
:--)) > > Regards > Reza > www.rezamusic.com
Reza,
the reason why I took the freedom of entering a discussion about guitar
technique - it could be piano or cello technique and the matter would
not change at all - is the fact that we are placed in front of a dogma.
Whilst in the remote and in the recent past times, guitar technique has
always been forged individually by masters, each of whom acted within
the frame of a given repertoire (from Sor and Aguado to Pujol) - in
other words technique was a part of an aesthetic - we should now accept
that guitar technique is - too use a Jung label - "a self", something
originated only from a speculation about how human body (and more
specifically hands) can deal with and instrument and its strings in a
way that is "the best" in absolute. I took the freedom of
observing that we simply have no way of establishing criteria according
to which a technique could be evaluated, outside the sounds it produces
and the repertoires it allows to play with all the possible sounds and
effects, and I remarked as an evidence the fact that an accurate
observation of a series of movements "in themselves", considering
fingers and hands as a leverage system, and having as a comparative
term only the strings "in themselves", as phisical objects, may surely
produce a conveniente, basic general approach to playing guitar, but
also that it can very well proof to be uncomplete and unsatisfactory in
presence of an aesthetical need of producing a "different" system of
sounds (nobody will question, I hope, this artistical right), in other
words to treat the guitar in "other ways" in order to get "other goals"
(of course, always withing music! surely a percussive use of the
instrument's body in the sort of discussions as those suggested by a
few members of this group would call for radically different
techniques...but again it is a matter of goals). Historically, we can
see that each author of a method or of a treatise about guitar
technique tended and tends to present his work as "an absolute" (with
some significant exceptions, thank Godness) - when somebody succeeds in
devicing a technique which works for him/herself and his/her friends,
he/she tends that it should be adopted by all mankind: this enthusiasm
is human, even if its expressions can appear often "possessed" - and it
is the task of a reader to understand that in art, music and their
techniques there is no absolute and no arrival points. Careful, we
should not miss the piece of truth that can lie behind the claim of a
master (and especially of his devotees), to have reached the
illumination: our tendency to oppose a refusal because of our
intolerance of dogmas can be dangerous exactly as their divine
possession. As an editor of a major publisher, I receive each week a
book about guitar technique (generally exercises) which begins with the
claim it is a new discovery, etc. I do not throw in in my basket
before having realized that it is an unconscious remake of Matteo
Carcassi: I read it. And sometimes, it happens that something really
new and deserving comes out. The devotion that pushes a
devotee to make himself violent and aggressive (at the end, ridicolous)
has not to be used against the master. Marescot engraved a tribe of
Carullists and Molinists breaking their guitars on the other party
heads, but whatever the difference of outlooks about technique between
Carulli and Molino was, I tend to believe that a meeting among the two
masters would have been a meeting between two educated gentlemen, with
no inspiration offered to Marescot.
AG
===============================================
Thanks
Maestro -- I recall you saying this before -- no-one gives me strings
as gifts so I guess my strings are not the best (laughing).
In fact when I spoke with Stanley the other night it reminded me of what you had said.
I hear you and needless to say respect and revere what you say hugely.
I
like smooth trebles. Guess it's my own fault for practicing with
unsmooth nails sometimes which scratches them. As for basses, again, it
might be my own fault. If I play them strong, I don't need new strings
to get the big sound.
Tried to call ealier but I gather you're at the conservatory.
Stanley,
I had a very nice and very long chat with Deborah. She's out of the
guitar circus but still teaches... the answer to your question is yes.
She sends her regards -- I'll go visit her next month. In fact learned
that she's also a friend of Angelo's ... small world.
Affectionately Reza www.rezamusic.com
"Angelo
Gilardino" <> wrote in message
news:b0qt1s$rjfgo$1@ID-91010.news.dfncis.de... > > "Reza
(www.rezamusic.com)" <> ha scritto nel messaggio >
news:3e30ef8b_1@news.tiscalinet.ch... > > You get a master like
Stanley and he likes old strings because trebles > sing and are not
> > stiff, and basses don't buzz. > > > > You get a
master like Eduardo and he changes his strings before a concert. >
> > > Personally I find something refreshing in new strings
specially trebles, > mainly due to the > > scratch. But if I
am careful and don't practice with rough nails then > scratches are
less > > (sorry Rib about the English there). > > > >
Basses also sound nicer when new but the squeeks are horrible.
Carlavero > (sp?) students > > claim to play with no noise (if
I got it correctly) even on new strings. > Heard a couple of >
> tracks from Angel Romero's CD "Bella" last night and the basses
were quite > squeeky. By the > > way, bought Deborah Marioti's
CD and the sound is wonderful (no wonder, > it's not recorded >
> in a studio). > > > > Anyway, I'd appreciate hearing
from experienced performers on this strings > issues..... > >
> > > > Regards > > Reza > > www.rezamusic.com
> > Reza, all the strings are more or less the same. The best
strings are those > which you receive as a gift, or in change of a
testimonial. Instead of > changing strings, wash them: often, one
throws away strings which are not > gone, but only dirty. If a
string gives the right pitch, do not change it, > unless it breaks.
> > AG > > > >
===============================================
Listening
to Marco De Santi's CD playing Quattro Studi (Angelo dedicated to
Marco) blew my mind away... amazing and great music.
on EMI label.
Regards Reza www.rezamusic.com
> Thanks for the recommendation; I'll put it on my recording to get in the > not-too-distant future GS
>
Unfortunately, that EMI record is no longer available. It disappeared
with > the retirement of De Santi from concert activity. One of the
greatest > guitarists Italy ever had and gave to world decided to
give up with playing > and became a successful business man. Now he
plays for his pleasure, and > when his new job leaves him a bit of
time. > > AG > >
> > > > One of the
greatest guitarists Italy ever had and > > > gave to world
decided to give up with playing > > > and became a successful
business man. > > > > Sounds tragic -- but also funny the
way you put it - sorry! > > No Reza, it sounds honest. He
was a great player and a very honest man: he > felt he was no longer
inspired with a life as a guitarist which offered too > little
reward to him and, instead of forwarding a routine and living upon >
his immense skills, he decided to enter a new activity, which gives him
the > challenge, the sense of adventure and the rewards he needs for
feeling > alive. This is artistic. And with his powers, the
day he decides going back > to perform, he could produce his own
records and manage his own concerts > from much a stronger position
than that of a guitarist. When Jack Duarte > listened to him firstly
(MDS was 17) he commented "Heaven will be his > limit", and asked by
a guitarist to make a comparison with a very famous > player he had
known at the same age, he answered: "No comparison, he is much >
better". What could one expect from such a guy? That he goes around
playing > for guitarists in guitar festivals? > > AG > >
>
===============================================
Ravel
is a great composer and I like his music very much, as showed in my own
music: Studio n. 6 "Alborada" (Omaggio a Maurice Ravel), Studio n. 24
"Suite" (Tombeau de Maurice Ravel). A curiosity: I never saw a photo of
Ravel smiling, except a private one, where the composer is sitting at
the piano with Vaslav Nijinskji: both are smiling.
AG
===============================================
>
Hey Greg, ya know it's just possible that the Gilardino Studi are as
> important a set of musical studies as the Villa-Lobos. Maybe
in the future > CG'ists will use the AG, rather than the V-L,
yardstick! Wouldn't that be > something! > > [Oh, Brave
New World that has such people in it!] > > > JW
HVL
"Etudes" were composed during the 3rd decade of 20th century. They
represented a strongly innovative perspective in the way of writing for
guitar, not only with respect to the current ways, but also with regard
to the preceding Villa-Lobos output: there is an enormous distance
between the traditional writing of the Suite Populaire Brésilienne and
of the Choros n. 1, and the radical updating of the guitar involved
with the Etudes.
Other eminent authors of Studies (however they
are entitled), have been Fernando Sor, Napoléon Coste, Giulio Regondi,
Francisco Tarrega, Antonio Jiménez Manjon, Agustin Barrios, Heinrich
Albert.
When composing the series of the Studi I had clearly in
my mind all the lessons of these masters and honestly I did not try to
imitate any of them: none in fact, of their models, would have been
suitable for composing the sort of Studies I was looking for. A
collection of Studies, either organically presented in a collection, or
spread around the catalogue of a composer (like Barrios), brings with
itself an outlook of the instrument, a new "sound", some new formulas,
in other words it is a symbol: not casually, all the great masters who
have said a new word in the field of instrumental music, have left one
or more series of Studies behind them.
Coming back HVL Studies,
I think his collection shows a genial musical mind, and I also think
that his innovation was great, at that epoque. In order to be equally
innovative sixty years later, it was a matter of sharpening quite a lot
the composer's mind into the idiom of the guitar and to go deeper into
its secrets. I like the HVL sound with respect to the epoque it was
invented, but I do not take into account the guitar music written
nowadays from that perspective. However, there is something in
HVL Studies which I have appreciated a lot indeed: it is their total
independence from the mainstreams of their epoque, both in the musical
field and in the guitar circles: this is quite a further lesson at my
eyes.
May I be more explicit? When composing the Studies, I had
something to tell and something to refuse. About what I had to tell, I
have nothing to tell: it is in the music. About what I had to refuse, I
can tell that I felt I needed to mark my distance from two categories:
the so called avantgarde music written by the students and the
ex-students of the famous European composers (a useless academy ); and
the guitarists who compose guitar music with their fingers as a guide
and with no compositional skill (a court of the miracles). Guitar
music is often regarded nowadays from these two different angles: it
happens that an author can be criticized by the ex-avantgarde circles
(with a doctor in music approach) because his music is too traditional
- or however not corresponding to the various dogmas going around in
the schools of composition - and by average guitarists (with a
leaflet of the last guitar festival in their hands) because it is too
sophisticated, or simply - as it happened recently - because it is
"atonal and dissonant". I am conscious I do not want sharing
anything whith these two "worlds", and such an attitude is the most
important lesson I took from HVL Etudes.
AG
===============================================
>
> > Then on to Studio n. 13 Cancion Triste (Omaggio a > >
> Pablo Neruda). The beginning Andante lento pours out moody
indigo - > > > caliginous tones singing with a sad smile. I
like this piece. > > > > I like it as well (nice
description). The Gilardino I currently look at > > most is
Variazioni sulla Follia (Studi da Francisco Goya), dedicated to >
> Marco de Santi. Great stuff. > > > > Dave Payne, >
> > The Variazioni sulla Follia (Studi da Francisco Goya is one I
haven't seen. > It looks to have come along right after the fifth
book of Studi. > > > JW
I am not sure it is correct of
me to take part in a discussion about my music, but because I do not
aim to express any appreciation (and not even the contrary) about the
quality of my works, I think there is nothing to blame if I offer some
information to sensitive and skilled performers. "Variazioni sulla
Follia" are actually a following of the Studi, and such a following,
besides the Follia, consists of another set of variations (upon
Fortune, known also as the Hanging Tune, by John Dowland) and of
a suite-variations (or whatever it could be) entitled "Musica per
l'Angelo della Melancholia". These three works represent a transition
from the modal, or polimodal, or chromatic (but still tonally or
modally oriented) Studi to the atonal language I adopted all the decade
of 90ties through when composing the Concertos. These three works
represent also the result of my effort to introduce - beyond the
borders of guitar music - a new access to the variation form: in fact,
the Follia and the Fortune are examples of how I deviced the variation,
in my full purpose of avoiding to write copies of the Nocturnal.
One day, I am confident, some gifted and well trained musician - also
helped with quite a knowledge of the guitar idiom - will take the task
of explaining what I did in these set of variations, but I am sure
that, also without such an analitical approach, people like this NG
friends who take the pain of reading through them, have been able to
catch the substance of the music.
AG
===============================================
>
>Given the feel of the music in Sonata 1 by the way, I just took
Allegro > > > >Marziale to mean "marching" or "march-like",
and fast. > > This music evokes in my mind The
Republic of Salo, German occupation, the > Prokofiev War Sonatas,
Mahler's 6th symphony , Clockwork Orange etc...
Prokofiev and
Mahler are surely and steadily in my mind. Add also Bartok, Falla and
Ghedini and the list of my masters is complete. I recall that, when
composing the Sonata n. 1, I was taken by a sense of something
"remote", very distant in my memory, buried, which the act of composing
that piece was in a way evocating. It was a terrible effort - much more
than usual when composing (as you know too well, Mark, it is never a
walk in the park, but that time it was really too much). Now, the
shocking revelation - with respect to what you wrote: a few nights
before the premiere of the piece, which was given not by its dedicatee
(he never played it), but by another forefront Italian guitarist (at
that time the foremost one, then brought far from the music by his
creative personality), I dreamt of him, dressed an officer of the
Wermacht, who, as the commander of a number of German soldiers, had
invaded the big court of the farm where I lived with my family in the
years of the war and for a while after. No connection with the truth:
in fact, the farm had been occupied, since April 25th, 1945, but
by the USA army, which established a friendly connection with my family
and with me especially (it was from Fred, an American officer, which I
received the gift of the first chocolate of my life: in the farm we had
everything to eat, but no sugar, let alone chocolate). My mother, who
is still alive and bright, has been unable to explain me how I could
have built up that dream, though she confirmed that I may have had
several occasions to see German soldiers at that epoque: it was common
to meet them in Vercelli. Needless to say, the first performance had
been outstanding, and I recall somebody had remarked the perfection of
the motoric rhythm of the first movement.
Music is a strange matter. I am asthonished.
AG
===============================================
>
Angelo Gilardino wrote: > > See above. However, not fast. The
quarter note at 108-112? I do not know... > > [the jackal
addresses the lion but what the hell :) ] > > I think even a bit
slower than this sounds better, say 100-104 or > 100-108, and I
think that this is indeed fast (in feel, not in metronome > number).
Imagine being out in the field marching along at this tempo as >
part of a unit, counting left-right-left-right at mm = 104. It is a
> brisk pace that fairly quickly gets out of hand as you speed up
the > metronome, and the march becomes forced rather than fast. The
music goes > through a similar transformation. > > Dave Payne,
> thefool@interlog.com
The truth, Dave, is that I do not own
a metronome - I never did in my life, even when I was active as a
concert player, and then your suggestion is surely more appropriate
than mine.
Thankyou. Ciao.
AG
===============================================
[items above this are from 2002 - 2003]
>
-----Messaggio originale----- > Da: R. Ganjavi [mailto:] >
Inviato: domenica 21 ottobre 2001 4.34 > A: angelo16@inwind.it >
Oggetto: quintet > > > Ciao Angelo: > I am still high by
these pieces... > please tell me the name. is it simply concerto for
accordeon and string > quintet? (quartet + guitar) > > i am
still speechless - but wrote something about it on the train. >
THANKS for being > Reza
No Reza, this is exactly what it is
not - as I told you, had I scored a piece for two soloists and a string
quintet, it would not have been in the form of a concerto. Instead, it
is entitled
Concerto per fisarmonica, chitarra e archi (for accordion, guitar and strings)
where
strings means "string orchestra", in the ratio 4.4.3.2.1 or even
better 8.8.6.3.2. (the numbers refer to 1st violins, 2nd violins,
violas, cellos, doublebasses respectively).
Ciao.
AG
===============================================
>
Yes, some images you can live in -enter the frame and step out renewed,
even > some times, if you're lucky, reborn. It is quite a skill
though to take the > feel and the memory of such an experience and
commit it - "transposed", as > it were -to a sheet of music paper.
> > > JW
It is a skill that you can achieve. The point
is that few people are ready to work as much and as well it is needed
for achieving it. They have too many other pressures in their life.
AG
===============================================
John
Wasak" <mrjw@earthlink.net> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:5T73a.1110$YU4.105177@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net... >
Angelo Gilardino wrote: > > Do you feel any affinity between
Monet's pictures and Debussy's music? > > > > AG > >
> > > I'd say more so with Debussy than Ravel. But when
it comes to > Impressionistic visual art in general, I think the
link between visual and > aural is greater for me in the paintings
that have less specific forms and > details - probably something
like Monet's Water Lillies or Houses of > Paliament are more
Debussian to me than something like The Regatta at > Argenteuil.
Those
Monet's paintings where there is no story, no past, no future, no
narrator, only the magic present, with no cause and no effect, with no
thoughts, and where beauty is transient, almost accidental, this is
much Debussy-like, isn't it?
> When you, Angelo, have
your ommagios to visual artists in your works are you > thinking in
specifics or generalities?
I vividly recall that I was looking
at their pictures as I had been inside them, and invisible. Because you
are a visual artist, and because there is clearly this sense in some of
your photographs I saw - one of them especially - I am sure you know
what I mean and I am sure you have experimented this feel of being
beyond the surface of the picture, and of having entered the life which
goes inside it. The music has been written as a memory of these
"transpositions" (?). Guitar sound is extremely suitable to such
an operation, for its sensitivity: if you are in a true control of the
buttons, you can go where you want.
AG
===============================================
"Angelo
Gilardino" > wrote in message
news:b4k5cv$1vm2vf$1@ID-91010.news.dfncis.de... > > "Reza
(www.rezamusic.com)" ha scritto nel messaggio >
news:3e6d1fc9_1@news.tiscalinet.ch... > > Angelo Gilardino played
a couple of V.L. Preludes most beautifully on his > beautiful
guitar. > > Me? If so, I apologize. I did not that on purpose,
maybe I was lost in > thought. Recently, I am missing the control on
my actions: it seems also > that, in the school where I am a
professor, I have been caught in the act of > working. > >
> > ..indeed one of the most generous, selfless, gentle people
I've ever > known, and needless > > to say, a musical genius.
> > Only that? "A musical genius" implies that I am a genius only
in music. I > feel mortified.
Sorry, that actually occured to me -- but I thought since music encompasses all life that should cover it :-)
>
> using the guitar body as percussion together with a bass solo:
"put also > the rag of the > > lion which comes after --
you're in the jungle doing that - then will come > Tarzan > >
waaaaaaaaa) - so canarios is complete - it will end with tarzan scream
:-) > not necessarily > > with monkeys in the picture.... >
> You have taken note of my lesson with little accuracy. Actually,
after > listening to that arrangement, I highly recommended monkeys.
They should be > called in after the lion and before Mr. Tarzan.
Sorry there was an inaudible word on the tape on this section, such the word "not" got in there :-)
>
> for a collection of quotes you may want to visit the angelo-quotes
file on > > www.rezamusic.com in the quotes section. > > I
will buy a muzzle, Reza...
In that case, I'll give away another secret:
I
played a JethroTull version of Bouree for him thinking he's going to be
disgusted and I was ready to shut it off after a minute -- but I was
AMAZED at how intently he listened to the whole thing. He was actually
impressed by Ian's flute playing and that the keyboardist was fine but
"the bass is hopeless because he has no idea of what he does - he
doesn't play the right notes." (as is the case with many rock
guitarists and bassists -- btw, I am now jamming with a guy (playing
bass on cello) who's classically trained -- it's awesome!)
===============================================
I suppose what Mr. Morris says also holds true for much of today's pop songs which have great broadcast appeal!
I
regularly hear songs broadcasted which in my opinion have zero or
negative value (negative means irritating -- such as almost every
french pop song I've recently heard) and almost all "soul" music with
those horrible scales (or lack of) used for vocal ornamentations -- a
disease that started in American pop music in the mid 90's - and most
french pop songs I've recently heard which were as corny and banal as
you can get. In all these cases the composer was "expressing himself"
to use Mr. Morris's expression, and the output was very
broadcastable. On the other hands, do you think Bach cared
how others perceived the Chaconne? In the case of Angelo, I have heard
works of his played by a computer which is much inferior than an
orchestra, and have several recording of his done by orchestras, which
are absolutely magnificant. They're not crowd pleasers perhaps but then
you're talking a different ballgame -- not that of the likes of Bach,
Dvorak, Stravinsky, or Gilardino. You know a few weeks ago,
the Romeros set the crowd on fire during encores -- four guitars
playing Malaguena. It was funny how an old woman told me after the
concert, "you sounded good" :-)
"Angelo Gilardino" <
> wrote in message news:b31r8q$1h1osr$1@ID-91010.news.dfncis.de...
> > "Tony Morris" < > ha scritto nel messaggio >
news:8fab69d3.0302191818.70098375@posting.google.com... > >
"Angelo Gilardino" <> wrote in message >
news:<b2v8ek$1fnp16$1@ID-> > > > You can either choose
to write music for yourself, and not worry if > > anyone else
likes it or not, or you can write music that is designed > > for
the broadest audience appeal, or if you are extremely clever, you >
> can write music that you feel expresses yourself while succeeding
in > > communicating something with the listener. > > >
Tony Morris
> > Ex-pressing (both in etymology and in
common use) implies the presence of > somebody else: it is a part of
the act of communication. Music with no > expression and no purpose
of communication? Why? But who is the listener? > How many kind of
listeners do we have, at which levels of expectation, > education,
taste? > The fact that music is an act of expression and
communication does not mean > that it has to be communicated to a
passive listener with no instruction > who, sitting at his/her
leisure, expects only to be excited, amused, > pleased, intrigued,
having as a starting reference, for his/her pleasure, > commercial
music. > A composer - if he deserves such a name - has just one way
to write his/her > own music: the one which fills his/her own inner
thoughts and emotions, the > other ones being all unfaithful, and
then wrong. The choice of the language > adopted in a composition -
if this is the case of a composer, not of a > seller of music -
depends entirely from the nature of his toughts and > emotions, and
from nothing else. He composes for communicating something > which
is true from whithin. And if he succeeds doing this, his part in the
> act of communication is done. The rest is a responsibility of the
> interpreters, of the organizers and of the listeners. Each of them
has his > own part in the diffusion of the music. And his own
responsibility. History > of music shows us how many heavy mistakes
have been made, both with refusing > acknowledgement to masterpieces
who had to wait decades or centuries to be > understood, and with
celebrating authors and works who had little or no > substance. It
is not difficult to write pieces which can play a large > audience.
It is difficult accepting to do this, if one is a true musician, >
and this is much more than a matter of being clever. > > AG >
>
===============
Angelo's great post prompted me to
search my quote files on www.rezamusic.com for a few remarks on
greatness. [excuse me for including myself in there -- it's a fact that
I collect a file of one-liners however worthless].
Nothing is more simple than greatness. Indeed, to be simple is to be great. Emerson
He only is happy as well as great who needs neither to obey nor command in order to be something. Johann Goethe
Keep
away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people
always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can
become great. - Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), 19th-century American
humorist, author and journalist The essence of greatness is the
perception that virtue is enough. - Ralph Waldo Emerson,
For
nothing is so conducive to greatness of mind as the ability to examine
systematically and honestly everything that meets us in life. - Marcus
Aurelius
Greatness is anonymity.the great things of life must be anonymous. J.Krishnamurti
Gratitude
is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others. -
Cicero (Marcus Tullius), Roman orator, philosopher and statesman
Greatness is in one's values. Reza Ganjavi
Greatness is to live without fear, without pretense, and without the need to be great. Reza Ganjavi
------
ps
-- The motive of X's comments about honesty and Angelo's music is
probably the most common motive for such remarks: As Cathrine's
grandmother put it: "if you take away jealousy from many people they're
left with nothing!"
"Angelo Gilardino" < > wrote in
message news:SLD7a.247983$0v.6908010@news1.tin.it... > > "Richard
Spross" < > ha scritto nel messaggio >
news:3E5EF145.FDA7F6F8@pacbell.net... > > Angelo Gilardino wrote:
> > > > > Angelo, > > > > Obviously Mr.
Rizza, and you are not on the same page. All great artists, > learn
> > to stay their own course, and not let the views of others (
who exist > outside > > the artist's conscience ) perturb the
equanimity of the pace of one's > work. > > Remember J. S.
Bach was writing his "Art of the Fuge" long after his style > had
> > been dismissed as unfashionable. > > > > Regards,
> > Richard Spross > > Thankyou Richard. I do not know
whether I am great or not - and I do not > care about this -, but I
know for sure I am an artist from birth, and of > course I have
learnt from longtime not let the views of others perturb my > peace.
I am sure you play and teach in a full harmony with yourself, and >
that an adverse criticism could not affect your balance. But if your
work > would be accused of lacking honesty, what would you think?
Honesty has > nothing to do with art: it stands with the ethical and
moral sphere. How is > it possible to detect a lack of honesty in a
piece of music? Would you > accept such an appreciation about
a concert of yours? > > AG > >
"Larry Deack" <
>> ha scritto nel messaggio
<news:b3259s$c6o$1@slb3.atl.mindspring.net>... > > "Angelo
Gilardino" > > History of music shows us how many heavy mistakes
have been made, both > with refusing > > acknowledgement to
masterpieces who had to wait decades or centuries to be > >
understood, and with celebrating authors and works who had little or no
> > substance. It is not difficult to write pieces which can play
a large > > audience. It is difficult accepting to do this, if
one is a true musician, > > and this is much more than a matter
of being clever. > > Your music puts you on my personal list of
top composers who have taught me > about music and playing CG and
not only are you alive but you post to this > NG. I find this most
unusual since it seems that more students of CG would > be dying to
study with you and you would spend all your valuable time > fending
them off as they clamored at your door. I was just playing your >
Sonata n.2 and wondering why I've not heard others playing this
incredible > music. What am I missing here?
Nothing. You can
read and understand music and you can play it, with both the skill of
the professional performer and the pleasure of the dilettante (I use
this term in the sense Tomaso Albinoni was calling himself "dilettante
veneto"), so you are missing only Paradise. As for the Sonata n. 2, it
has three recordings on CD so far: Michael Bracken, Cristiano
Porqueddu, Marcello Rivelli. Yesterday I went to the State Conservatory
where I am a professor with the letter for resigning from my place and
retiring. I entered my class room and there was a boy, 11 years old,
whom I am teaching from 4 months (during which he was capable to
perform with aplomb and expression all the op. 60 and op. 44 by
Fernando Sor), who came to me and said: you cannot do that, please
remain. As far as I will have life, I will follow composing music for
performers like you and teaching students like him. It is very much the
same sort of work.
PS Lorenzo Micheli came here for a visit
three days ago. He listened to the Ponce-Gilardino "Sonata Romantica"
for cello and guitar, and immediately after he took his Friedrich and
played - only from his ear and his memory - several harmonies I had
created in the piece as he were reading from a score!
AG
=====================
"John
Wasak" < >> ha scritto nel messaggio
<news:meA4a.8610$_c6.899916@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>...
> > Can a > composer of music today be considered anything but
old-fashioned if they > write in a strictly Baroque style? To what
degree must an artist "advance" > her/his medium to be considered a
heavyweight - a 'Major' artist? > > > JW
A composer who
follows with honesty a path of his own almost surely receives two
opposite kinds of criticism: of being too advanced and too
conservative. This happens everywhere and always. It happens because
there is a certain confusion between language and style. Here in
Europe, from immediately after the 2nd World War to about 1975, a
composer was judged for the materials he used, not for for the thoughts
he expressed through the elaboration of those materials. If you were
not adopting integral serialism, the police of the avantgarde
eliminated you from the musical world. On the other side, nowadays in
USA a composer can be dismissed from programs because his music is
"atonal and dissonant", at the same time when the heirs of the old
avantgarde judge it conservative. All of this happens because in music
world there are two or three clever people for every hundred operators.
And two or three true artists each half a million of professional
musicians.
AG
===============================================
>
I wish Maestro Gilardino to find himself a crowd pleaser. Better
crowd, that's all. > > Steve
You are right Steve, I like
my music pleasing listeners and I am glad to tell you that this
happened all the times I attended a public performance of a piece of
mine. In my previous comment, I said that I do not think of this as of
a goal when I am composing, because during the work I devote all my
efforts to write exactly what I want. But if doing what I want I write
music that is well received, I am of course very glad. I guess this
happens to everybody in their jobs, then perhaps this message is too
obvious.
Ciao.
AG ===============================================
"Larry
Deack" <cgist@mindspring.com> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:b6tob6$lc$1@slb4.atl.mindspring.net... > "Bob Ashley" > >
That's why in my personal philosophy of art, artists are more like >
> midwives than architects. Art more like a newborn baby than a
shed. > > I think Angelo's constructions are
inspired. His discipline to work out > every single detail so all
the pieces fit is inspired and rare. Lots of > people seem to have
great ideas but few of them can actually do the labor to > bring
their inspirations to life. Most of those brilliant moments of >
inspiration are stillborn without the constant inspiration that helps
the > art make it all the way into this world.
Independently
from my music, I think you have caught the point, Larry. I am not
getting a philosopher, but I would suggest that the aim of art -
especially music - is to create worlds. A world exists if it is
complete, self-standing, accomplished, to as to represent a definite
reality, different from the daily reality we all (artists included)
live in and - forgive me - more believable than such a reality.
Ultimately, I believe that an artist's life depends much more on his
inhabiting his world than living in this one. My life in this world is
unsatisfactory (if any guilt, it's mine, not of my friends), but my
life in the "other" world is nice. I have little or nothing to offer to
people in this world, but I have learnt to understand that many of them
are happy or deeply interested to visit the world of the music I write.
Taking care of its accomplishments it just like to take care of my
house when expecting visits of friends. They will find everything nice
and comfortable.
AG ===============================================
Also
working out inspiration should be inspired. The first "inspiration" can
lead a composer to write two measures, then it is construction. And
construction should have its own kind of inspiration, otherwise
composing would be just a matter of ability and patience (two essential
ingredients, but not enough for the recipe). Inspiration is not just
one power. Like winds, we have many different inspirations and each of
them work at many different levels.
AG
===============================================
"Bob Ashley" ha scritto nel messaggio .. > On Mon, 7 Apr 2003, Larry Deack wrote:
>
It brings up a good point, though, since we can speak of 'primary' or
> 'originary' inspiration, and 'secondary' or 'procedural'
inspiration. We > can wonder, for instance, whether there are types
of inspiration which > differ by degree or differ in kind. So, to
cite your example, we could ask > if 'inspired discipline' or
'inspired construction' is different in kind > or by degree than
'inspired vision', say. For me, I'd offer that the > 'inspired
discipline' would imply a brilliant, original, uniquely creative >
method of realizing 'inspired vision'. Thus, we would look for Angelo
to > be developing his work in an igloo situated in Tahiti while
undergoing a > vasectomy, a pedicure, and psychotherapy all at the
same time.
Being a human - with all faults and limitations -
does not imply one has to live only in this one reality. If one - as an
artist - succeeds in creating a world of his own (a true world, not a
fiction, even if a well-selling one), such a world is steadily with
him, 24 hours a day. Being an artist is not a raptus which changes for
a few seconds or minutes the normal behaviour of a person, with turning
him, for instance, into a criminal - and then he returns normal and
says to the judges that he did not recall of what he did. Currently, I
am not able to compose. I have on my desktop 13 words given to 13 kind
requests of writing a piece, but I am not in the state for composing.
If I were a romantic poet, I would say I am not inspired. Actually, I
do not know what happens or does not happen, but my life is not less
artistic than it was, 17 years go,in the fortnight during which I wrote
at Mallorca my most "successful" piece, the 2nd Sonata. When the power
will return, I will surely be here with a pencil brushing a music
sheet: the initial bang which will push me to write the first idea will
surely be followed by a series of waves which will allow me to
transform the sketch resulting from the bang into a construction: these
are not separated powers, but two segments of the same power - firstly
the idea, and then the ideas about the idea, and all of this is a
unity. We could call it inspiration, if we like this word. Not
necessarily. An artist knows when he has this power, and you may
rest assured than when it comes, the man will be able to make a use of
it. Going under an igloo in Tahiti for a vasectomy, a pedicure and a
psychotherapy all at the same time would simply show - besides
all the other indications that are included in such an uncommon
resolution even for those who do not compose music - that the man
in question is not an artist. When an artist has no power, he lives
normally as an artist who has temporarily no power, not as a man who is
not an artist. Yesterday, I received the visit a friend, a painter, who
brought me a landscape with snow he painted when we were 20. We
discussed about his picture and we recalled those times. It was an
experience lived in the deepest of my life as an artist. Today I will
go to the conservatory, where a student 23 years old will come and play
"Nunc" by Petrassi and another student, 11 years old -exceptionally
gifted - will come and play (after 5 months since when he begun playing
guitar) a couple of Studies of op. 35 by Sor: I will have to take care
of their performance, to address their mistakes (if any), to help them
to shape their performance consistently with the composer's mind and I
will do this an an artist. Then I will have a lesson with a trio
(piano, violin, cello) to which I will give my points about their
performance of Brahms. Tomorrow I will go to the hospital for another
examination of the series I have to submit myself: I will have in my
pocket a blocknote with little music staves (a gift of my publisher)
and, if during the waiting time I will have an idea, I will be able to
take note of it. The session with my students and the trio and the
hospital examinations are experiences given to me at very different
levels of affinity with my being a musician, but I will approach both
them from my inner disposition of being what I am, and not of what I
can appear when sitting in a waiting room of a hospital.
> Truly > inspired discipline if it works. However, if like most
art proletariats he > simply gets up at 7 am, breakfasts, then
spends three hours at the > piano/guitar/score pad, lunches, then
spends four hours at the > piano/guitar/score pad, dines, then does
a short stint before bed, one > wonders what the heck is so
'inspired' about this discipline. It's just > plain hard work.
Inspiration is perhaps the originary motive force, but > not the
carrier signal, because a regular workday is just a regular >
workday. Ho-hum. It's commitment, yes. It's pragmatic, maybe strenuous,
> but inspired? Well, in the igloo in Tahiti, yeah, that's inspired.
This
is the description of a schedule of work, not of its contents. I work,
but I am not a proletariat (respectfully said): I am not this
genealogically and I am not this in my soul. I live alone and I
need an apartment of 180 mq. because of my loneliness, and because I am
an artist. Mikhail Bulgakov describes this sort of need (though not of
an artist, but of a special kind a surgeonist) in his novel "Hearth of
a Dog". I believe you have read it, if not please do.
AG ===============================================
I didn’t dislike anything, so it’s ok.
The job has to be done well. This is like any other job in this world. Either you don’t do it or if you do it you do it perfect.
First great man to act as a freelancer was Beethoven. He was poor – he spent all his life renting house.
Violin(or flute for more colored treble) Viola Cello Guitar is excellent (do paganini)
Da: Reza Ganjavi Inviato: martedì 27 maggio 2003 13.09 A: cd2@team.etc Oggetto: Status Update on CD Project
>
Dear All: > A quick status of where we're at. It
would be useful and fascinating to have not only this war's
history, but also the maps of the various battles with a graphic
description of the movements of the troops in the ground and the list
of death and wounded people and of the medals. AG
=================================================================
"John Wasak" <mrjw@earthlink.net> ha scritto nel messaggio news:BKP5a.570$cD5.67951@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
>I've just spent a cold grey, rainy morning in the company of the Gilardino
>Studio n. 26 Trenodia (Omaggio a Illdebrando Pizzetti). Its dole beginning
>'Lento, con severita liturgica' perfectly mirroring the weather. Very
>processional in feel. Almost medieval, like it might not have been out of
>place in Ingmar Bergman's 'The Seventh Seal'. It also reminds me a bit of
>Arvo Part's "Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten" the harmonics at the end
>of this opening section reminiscent of the bell in the Part piece. The
>'andante tranquillo' in 15/16 makes the guitar sound great especially at the
>change into the minor pattern and 3/4. The 'lento, intensamente declamato'
>section had me a bit confused at first but I think I've got it now. All in
>all, a very intriguing piece of music, and not the sort of thing one usually
>hears on the guitar!
I
can recall only of a landscape. Early in the afternoon, three-four
o'clock. I do not know how I know this, but it is Sunday. I see before
me a green field, along whose borders on the background there is a row
of cypress sweetly touched by a breeze. I know that beyond these trees
there is the sea (which I cannot see). There is nobody and only the
wind is heard: the rest is in a perfect silence. I am there as a
person of the imperial court and I perceive an air of mourn because,
the day before, Antinous died. I am not painful, but I am moved . I
feel inside something deep, nice and gentle as the young heroe who left
this world.
Actually, I skecthed the piece on a Tuesday, during
which I was totally unavailable. After I was told by people who tried
to get in touch with me that I did not answer at their phone calls and
at their ringing up to my door. I can vividly recall of the landscape I
saw and of the situation I was called in, but nothing of the day I
spent at home with working at the piece. Also the sketches are written
in more an accurate way than I usually do.
> I'm
wondering if the sound of the piece and the hommage to Pizzetti is >
related to or inspired by Pizzetti's Requiem?
Out of the scene
described before, and after having composed the piece, I thought of a
certain affinity with the "Trenodia per Ippolito" from "Fedra", one of
the most famous Pizzetti's operas. Since then the title.
AG
================================================
>The whole affair is getting clear now. Everybody who has a knowledge of the
>authors who revealed the use Tarrega did of other composer's works (the list
>begins with Domingo Prat, 1934, and follows with the various Abloniz, Ophee,
>etc,, until the recent revelation of Suarez and Rioja) can see that I have
>not added one word to their statements, and that I have only (incidentally)
>reported them here. Still, there is just one thing that makes your object:
>to attack my reports as they were the statements, and as I were in one
>person all the exponents of the line Prat-Suarez, and as I had invented all
>these statements and I were the guilty of all of them. It is too clear that
>you haven't read any of the sources which I referred to. If one looks for an
>example of ad hominem attack, here it is. Your attempt to separate my
>witness from the facts and from the witness of those who firstly brought
>those facts to public evidence, will receive all the attention,
>appreciation and cares it deserves, with no need on my side to defend my
>integrity as a musician and as a musicologist: you are not the only person
>in this world to assign ratings to the level of musicologists, and perhaps
>you have still to learn that also giving marks as you do is an action which
>goes itself subject to a rating, because you are ultimate no ultimate judge
>in no musicologial cause, and you are exposed for each single word you
>write. Beginning from this NG, whose members - be sure - will be able to
>pick up their judgements: I submit them what I wrote and what you wrote, and
>I follow leaving in a productive peace as I did so far, in spite of your
>attempts to make my life heavier.
>
>AG
Dear
Angelo: You've been around longer than I and surely you know that the
world is full of people who are quite eager to make your life heavy.
I've always wondered about that and sometimes think, well, no thanks,
you can continue carrying that load or you can drop it, but to impose
it on my shoulder, I could live without. It's not easy to investigate
this aspect of the psyche, but my experience has been that those who
attempt to load another with burden are burdened themselves -- carrying
loads -- perhaps without even knowing it -- and when they see a light
donkey (speaking about myself :-)) they're like "how could it be?" --
so that indicates jealousy which is such a deep rooted human condition
-- and vanity which often due to fear, takes that jealousy offline,
behind the person's back and makes it into gossip... what do we do?
Happy light journey. Reza
===================================
From: "Angelo Gilardino"
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.guitar
Sent: Saturday, October 04, 2003 21:16
Subject: Re: Ze pros versus the Amateurs
There
are various levels of work when composing a piece, and for each level
of such a work there is a tool which works better than others (of
course, the individual preferences are out of question). Sketching an
idea is often a quick operation - just a pro memoria - for which the
fastest and safest way is normally a music block notes, also because
the idea can arise when the composer has not his computer at hand.
Generally, for the first draft of a piece, pencil and music paper work
very well. I write all my first drafts of a piece in the way I was
educated: no instrument, no audition, except the inner one, sitting at
my desk before a music sheet and with just a pencil. But then it would
be a pity to give up with all the advantages offered by computer and
software programs. Before a piece written in a first draft reaches the
state of a final version, one hundred corrections will be needed. Doing
all of them on paper is a fuss. Before learning computer and Finale, I
used to spend an enormous amount of time with erasing and re-writing a
piece many times, and often it happened to me to complain to have
destroyed a preceding version of a passage with layering a new one upon
it. With a computer you can keep alive in parallel no matter how many
versions of the same piece with just a few simple operations, and
correcting each of these versions and exchanging passages from one to
another is a very simple task indeed: you will never get desperate with
opening holes in the music sheet after having erased ten times the same
measure. All becomes clean and easy, no frustration! And if the music
you write has to be published, well, here the matter improves quite a
lot: you send to your publisher the music with no mistakes, because
proof correction can be done with the powerful help of playback
function. Checking up prooofs only with eyes is a very unsecure
operation, often you see the right thing where there is the wrong one,
whilst your ear can easily detect all the discrepancies between the
music you have in your mind and how it sounds from the playback (how
you have actually written it!). Besides, you have no longer to deal
with three or four round of proof corrections, with engravers who
correct one mistake and do two new mistakes on the same measure they
correct, you can create the look, the layout, the housestyle you want,
without having to ask for them to anybody. I believe that Finale has
helped me to compose the same things I would have composed anyway, but
in a simpler and easier way, and I do not know any composer who
believes the contrary, except those few who were too old and/or too
lazy when the music softwares appeared. They have not been able to
learn them, and they tell they prefer following to write just by hand...
Of
course, if one writes just a few solo pieces, the difference may not
result as relevant as it does when having to write scores with one or
two dozens of staves.
AG
=================================================
Scott,
here in Italy we are taught solfeggio from an early age. My class at
the conservatory if full of students who, from the age of 10, can
"speak" the note names and the durations as robots, and all of them of
course know perfectly the guitar fingerboard from the first lessons.
This is taken and given as obvious. But it does not enable to
sightread. In order to sightread one has to bypass all of this and to
connect instantly the visual detection of the notes, the inner
perception of their pitches, their location on the fingerboard and
their fingering. This happens on other channels.
AG
>
-----Messaggio originale----- > Da: Reza Ganjavi (www.rezamusic.com)
> Inviato: lunedì 9 febbraio 2004 20.05 > A: Angelo Gilardino
> Oggetto: Re: Angelo Colone > > Thanks a lot Angelo -- I hope
I can talk with him soon.
He's a nice guy, a solid, powerful player and a person with a strong goodwill.
Today,
a miracle: I wrote all the first theme - 25 measures - of the new
Sonata for solo guitar (I cipressi). 45 seconds of music in fast time
with no repetitions in one day! - and not an easy day. It's a very nice
piece and it is also bright, windy, spring-like. Until yesterday, I
couldn't place two notes in a row.
AG
================================
Inviato: giovedì 8 aprile 2004 9.37 A: angelogilardino Oggetto: I cipressi
Dear
Angelo: How is this piece going? Ciao Reza This piece is
finished. It is the title of the first movement of the "Sonata
Mediterranea" for solo guitar, the other two are entitled respectively
"Ninna nanna" and "Pini sul mare". I finished all that about 20 days
ago. Now I am composing another work of the same weight, entitled
"Sonata del Guadalquivir", and I have finished the first
movement. Ciao. AG
=====================================================
Dear Reza,
Of
course, be my guest you may quote me there but I cannot imagine that it
has any authority because I am just an amateur musician a pure nobody.
Maybe
it is best to explain it a bit. Some while ago I had sequenced a little
intro of a composition of Angelo in a midi file for publication at the
website and since I had no recording at all of the piece at all so I
was very curious if the music was a bit close to the intentions of the
composer.
Well, Mister Angelo Gilardino heard the intro of
the piece and he did not react with lots of clues what the tempo and
rhythm should be as any normal human being would do to indicate his
intentions. No nothing of a kind.
He just answered that I should
absorb the music and follow the natural pace of the music. That was an
extremely nice thing to do. He was not putting his intentions in the
front row, no he was trying to give all the space and creativity by
someone willing to understand. So he puts the student in the centre of
things and than it became obvious to me that the tempo of the piece was
almost twice as high as would be natural. So it was a lesson I learned
a lot from. First of all how to behave as a human being, that it is no
shame to be a bit humble and trying to give space to someone else
instead of giving instructions how to deal with things. Secondly not
only how to look to that particular composition of Angelo Gilardino,
but it is a way of encountering music \ in general. How is a piece of
music related to your inner expectations and how can you master or
reject a piece with awareness. Yes that was a more technical eye-opener.
Besides,
mister Angelo Gilardino was so kind to send the sheet music all the way
from Italy just for free to a nobody as me just because I showed
interest in his work.
So I could not help when I was reading
your webpage where you mentioned your affection for this teacher and
maestro of the guitar, to let you know that he made a profound
impression on me too although I had hardly written with him he gave me
a lot of positive thoughts to think about. best
wishes, Paul Gabler
========================================
Leo
and me, we share an old, warm friendship. This goes beyond the fact
that he is a composer and I am a composer. He knows music, I know
music, he knows my music and I know his music, for what his music and
my music are, but when our ways cross - too seldom, unfortunately - all
of this goes on the background, because I understand his humanity and
he understands mine. This is great, you know.
AG
----- Original Message -----
From: "Angelo Gilardino" <aliceposta.it>
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.guitar
Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2004 5:37 PM
Subject: Re: Aryeh plays Gilardino (work in progress)
"Aryeh
Eller" <bandoneon1800@nyc.rr.com> ha scritto nel
messaggio > > AG > > Thank you very much
Angelo, I really appreciate the kind words. I really > love your use
of the phrygian scale in this piece, it reminds me of the > same
mood that Stravinsky uses in the opening of his Neo-Classical >
ballet Orpheus with the harp playing a descending line in the phyrgian
> mode. Are you familiar with that work of Stravinsky?
I am familiar with the whole output of Stravinsky, Ariel! I have read and listened to everything he wrote.
>
When I was listening back to my recording this afternoon, I felt that I
> broke and separated too many chords and that it sounded very
uneven in > the way the voices lined up with one another as a result
- it seems to > me that the music - even though modern and
essentially lyrical in its > use of the phrygian mode - really
recalls the chant and church choir of > medieval times and in order
to maintain and preserve that pure polyphony > I think it will be
better not to break as many chords or maybe none at > all. I will
strive to practice just that and make the polyphony stand > out more
clearly on my next try at recording the piece.
Perhaps you could
also consider to take it slower, and then comparing the result with the
tempo you have taken, and then deciding which one suits your taste
better.
> > Thanks very much for sharing this wonderful
music, I will very soon > record the whole, complete piece this time
and hopefully there will be > improvement as I become more familiar
with the music.
Prior to this piece, I have written two
full Sonatas this year, diatonically oriented. After years of
chromatic-atonal works, I have turned to a modal style, who knows
why. As soon as printed, I will send them to you.
AG
==============================
Thanks to all. I wrote "La tecnica della chitarra - fondamenti
meccanici" on 1980 and, after its 3rd reprint, I decided to re-make it
at new and it was replaced by "Nuovo trattato di tecnica chitarristica
- principi e fondamenti" (1990) which is still in the Publisher's
catalogue. This is why the former book was not reprinted. Nowadays,
there are so many good teachers all the world over that it is
unnecessary to write and to read books about technique.
AG
=============================================================
> Often we discuss the important connection between the technique and the music > itself.
Yes,
we should. Music is built up with a technique. Writing a piece is like
building up a house. Firstly, it should stand up, and then it should be
nice to see and to live in. At the beginning, one learns a series of
techniques which lead to build up a house. A good way of learning is
copying. Copying literally, note by note, helps to understand. Then,
copying in a broader sense of the word: writing a Sonata in the style
of Scarlatti, with running along the same paths he used in his Sonatas,
or a Schubert Lied...These are very good times. They do not produce
anything valuable, but they are full of hopes. And then, finally, one
begins to write music of his own. Technique here is altogether a
different thing. You can see that, in order to have the music coming
really from inside, you have to forget the techniques you learnt with
copying. There are "mistakes" which you need in order to be yourself.
They become your rules and, if you have really a strong word to tell,
the canons that will be copied by generations of students. There are
few rules in music which have not been mistakes in the past.
AG
================================================= > Angelo does not play the guitar!
You
are right, I do not play anymore (since 1981), and I have little or no
title to give tips about technique. I told that to Alain because he
seemed especially worried about that Sor study and I thought I might
have been helpful to a fellow. Actually, since 1981 to March of this
year I was active as a professor in a conservatory and - even without
giving concerts - I followed learning a lot about guitar, due mainly to
the excellence of students who have cooperated with me. But, I confirm,
you are right, I am no technician at all - my work with players has
developped in the area of interpretation. I have taught people who
could play much better than I did even when I was a concert player.
Namely, this technique of shifting with a uniform pressure when playing
double notes was offered to my attention, quite spontaneouly, as it had
been the most natural feature in the world, by a student who never
suspected those passages could have been played otherwise.
>
> This makes no > > sense: Angelo is here in this forum, you
go tell this to him and > suggest he > > should instead defer
such matters to Carlevaro. > > I'm sure he already knows this.
Surely.
Abel Carlevaro and me, we were good friends in spite of the difference
of age. I have all of his publications and he had all mine - an
exchange based upon mutual esteem and friendship. I have gone as deeply
as I could in understanding his approach to playing - something broader
than a technique in the traditional sense of the word. A great man.
AG
==================================
Scott,
do not feel intimidated and shake the bottle. You can drink all of it
contents, if you like, right now. Measures are like stairs in a
staircase, an ordered, logical division of the space, which can be
reasonably walked one stairs at a time. But when you run a staircase
with a special purpose and feel, you may group three or four
stairs in a jump, can't you?
The same with music, if doing this works for a result which you like more than the ordinary one.
Rules
are just tools, it is a pity not knowing how to use them, but even a
greater pity to use them only according to the instruction book.
AG
=========================================
Listening to great interpreters (conductors and pianists, mainly) you
can clearly perceive that they re-bar the works, either grouping
measures or dividing them into smaller measures, depending from the
situation.
=========================
Yes, I agree, but I
have to confess that I do not care for "the future of our instrument".
I write music because I need, and because this music needs me for being
written. Guitar can go to hell. Again, I realize that the piece I am
writing comes from a visual suggestion. It is entitled "Iconostasis". A
Passacaglia with a 7 measure ostinato, 12 Variations and a Finale. I am
thinking of Russian icons, and for the first time in my work I use a
scordatura: DGDGBD tuning, a mess for my mind used to think guitar
music without touching the instrument. I like this piece. Stanley is
the designed victim for editing and firstly performing it.
AG
====================== "Philip Smith" <ps@mordent.demon.co.uk> ha
scritto nel messaggio news:cb7pe5$rdd$1$8300dec7@news.demon.co.uk...
> Angelo Gilardino wrote: > > The score of "Heavens" is now
available for free download (PDF format) at > > > >
http://www.angelogilardino.com/ita/freescore/freescoreHeavens.htm >
> > > > > AG > > > > > > Maestro
Angelo > > Thank you for your generosity with the score of
"Heavens" - I've > just read it through and look forward to learning
it better, to > make a more musical performance.
> Just a quick question - in bar 22 should the A
be on string 2 > or string 1? > > Philip
You found a misprint, the A is on string 1.
Thankyou!
AG
=================================================
I
forgot to acknowledge the skilful student guitarist who taught me such
a technique: his name is Ariel Elijovich, an Argentinian who lives in
Italy since 6 years, studying interpretation with me and from whom -
like from many other students who can play much better than I do and I
ever did - I learn about the guitar technique. They invent every day a
new machinerie...
AG
========================
My
innocent proposition did not deal with composers who haven't a
university degree, but with people - and there are so many around -
who, one morning, decide on the spot they are composers and write
pieces. Because they can write, not because the can compose. They write
mostly for guitar (it happens much less with piano, organ, etc.)
I did not suggest to blame them - on the contrary, they demostrate a
lot of skills in the art of fooling themselves and people into
believing they are what they aren't - but, taking example from their
success, I suggested to promote another category of recipients of
miracles, by featuring as guitarists composers who never played the
instrument. It would be the same thing the other way, though, I am
afraid, the same evidence could be perceived in a different way. In
fact, in this list for instance, guitar technique is often the subject
of discussions which seldom are concluded with agrements upon even the
most elemental points, but which have at least a point in common: a
player needs a technique. When we come to composition of guitar music,
this point is no longer requested. Nobody discusses here about a
technique for composing music, about the different levels of skills
that are shown in different pieces. Everybody can compose - just do it
and you are a composer. Here in Italy, a composition course in a
conservatory calls for ten years of studies, at the end of which you
are not a composer, but just a technician of the composition. What are
we doing during these ten years, if elsewhere they can be reduced to
five minutes? These are not urgent questions. They are, as the title of
the thread I proposed, innocent ones.
AG
-===================================
asked
angelo to recommend guitar. He: it's like suggesting a wife, she maybe
a good person but you don't like her, or a terrible person and you fall
in love with her.
=====================================
"Angelo Gilardino" <aliceposta.it> wrote in message
>
All of this is false. "Concierto de Aranjuez" was composed by Joaquin
> Rodrigo after a commission given by Regino Sainz de la Maza,
assisted by the > Marquis de Bolarque, who provided the funds.
Regino premiered the work on > November 9th, 1940, at the Palau de
la Musica, Barcelona, with the Orquesta > Filarmonica de Barcelona,
conductor César Mendoza Lassalle. > Segovia at that epoque was
living at Montevideo, Uruguay, he was totally > unaware of the
existence of the piece, Rodrigo did not send the music to > anybody
- having been payed by Sainz de la Maza and dedicated to it, the >
work was kept under an exclusivity for several years. Segovia attended
a > performance of the Concierto at about 1946 or 1947 in New York
and he > immediately expressed his reserve about the texture of the
guitar part. He > never owned a score of the composition and his
judgement about it was formed > just upon listening. He said vaguely
that he might have considered the work > only if the composer would
have accepted to change the key, and Rodrigo > answered with writing
for and dedicating to Segovia the "Fantasia para un > gentilhombre"
- conceived in a style that might have pleased the guitarist, > as
in fact happened. Ida Presti performed the work in Paris on 1947. >
> AG > >
=====================================
I don't like music that's sentimental - expressing fears, moods, frame of mind, thoughts, is ok.
=====================================
----- Original Message -----
From: "Angelo Gilardino" < >
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.guitar
Sent: Monday, January 19, 2004 9:21 AM
Subject: Accepting commissions
>
> "Peter Inglis - TWG"
>
> I've just posted a review of Reza Ganjavi's first album which features the first recording
> of variants on "Romance" for different instruments with guitar by Angelo Gilardino.
I
am glad you correctly called them "Variants" - as they were actually
conceived - and not variations, as they aren't. Independently from your
review, I would like to point out something here, and I apologize for
taking your writing as an occasion: nothing of what I have to say is
directly related to your observations.
I wrote those seven
melodies upon "Romance anonimo" as an amusement, of course, and I wrote
them ironically, with a clear reference to the sentimental manner
running along the Italian romanzas of the end of 19th century, like
several 20th century writers did with writing pages in a deliberate
kitsch. May I point out that, in spite of the unaccountable (from an
artistical viewpoint) purpose, the task is not easy at all, firstly
because, even when writing as a divertissement, a melody is a melody -
as such, in no matter it becomes easy to forge - and especially in the
given case, because the imposed harmonic ground, "Romance Anonimo", is
a very strict and stiff path, which obliges the composer of a parallel
melody to squeeze blood from a stone. From a strictly academical
viewpoint writing melodies on given, compelling harmonies, is a hard
exercise for any composer or composition student.
If taken as
they were given, OT from my true search as a composer, and written in
response to a commission from a guitarist who described exactly what he
wanted - pieces to play in duo with his friends, members of the
symphonic orchestra of the Swiss town where he lives - I take my
responsibility of having written them, and my excuse is just one: I
wrote them because I can, and my further excuse is that I can doing
this not only in the manner of "Musica proibita" (a famous sentimental
Italian romanza), but in the styles of a dozen of composers, such as
Grieg, Schubert, Albéniz, Tchaicowsky, etc.
I am sure I would
have not written such a cycle on my own, but I am not sure I would not
repeat such a kind of divertissement if another good commission were
offered to me. As a composer, I have mainly something of my own to
tell, and I am telling it in my works, and a very hard price of efforts
and with looking for a reward which will be fully payed only much later
the border of my life. During the hard running of this very daily life,
I can accept sometimes - not always and not at any rate - a commission
for writing "easy" music, as the melodies on "Romance Anonimo (not
unlike from my accepting to write notes for a colleague CD, or an
article about a book written by another colleague) - a professional
committment for which it happens to me to feel ready: please do not
make of this a target for zooming your judgement about my music. I have
written, and I write, quite something else. After all, the majority of
currently famous composers of guitar music write even cheaper music
from the fullest core of their Art.
AG
> ==============================================
“I think you sold more records than any other guitarist in the world.”
[note:
I believe Angelo made this statement based on his observation of the
number of CD's of mine that were produced and sold as compared to other
classical guitarists who produce CD's these days. And I think he
is probably right . Please see listener comments below just to get a
feel for the scope of the public reception these CD's got which is
quite rare for a classical guitar CD that is produced these days.]
============================
David
Norton, who is a keen music reader, made some observations after
looking at some of my works he just received, ordered by him from
Bèrben. I gave all my attention to his remarks and In answered
yesterday in the evening. This morning, I thought there is nothing
wrong publishing my answers here in my LJ this exchange - they may
interest our common friends.
------------------
Ciao
David, "compositional style" is quite a correct expression and it does
not call for any better label. In fact, style is distinctive
achievement of any true artist. Style is a series of personal gestures
tied by a personal series of connections. At the beginning, one has
character. Studying one achieves personality (a series of achievements
learnt from teachers and models and individually assimilated, from out
to inside). Normally, here the story ends. Arts are full of people who
have personality. Then, a small percentage of artists who have achieved
a personality succeed in elaborating all its elements in a higher
selection: this is style. A seal which belongs just to one man, and
which makes his works recognizable among all the other artist's works.
Going backward, and remaining in the realm of guitar music, Villa-Lobos
had a style, Sor had a style, Giuliani had a style.
I write
basically in a contrapuntal style. I write horizontal lines. I can use
either a diatonic or a chromatic "step", depending from the kind of
expression I am looking for in a certain moment: Annunciazione is a
diatonic piece, Variazioni sulla Follia a chromatic piece. If I write
diatonically, I use either modal or polimodal ground, almost never a
tonal ground. If I write chromatically, I use an atonal ground, with
rare serial passages. Either moving in the space of the octave with a
diatonic or with a chromatic step, I use counterpoint. I use "chords"
only in a few points. I tend to "sing". I am an Italian, and even in an
atonal ground I lead voices with a basic song-like purpose.
I
come from: 1) teachers: Giuseppe Rosetta (the Italian "Generazione
dell'Ottanta": Respighi, Pizzetti, Malipiero, Casella); 2) influences:
Ghedini (I am considered in the Italian dictionary of music a natural
heir of Giorgio Federico Ghedini), Bartok, Prokofiev, Berg, Ravel and
Falla. These masters make my background. As for guitar writing, I
interpretate the line Sor-Villa-Lobos in a new way and I have forged a
guitar language of my own. I am not attracted by popular music and, of
the enormous mass of guitar music coming from Latin America, I do not
like more than 2%. I hate Piazzolla (whom I respect) and his followers.
Almost all the Latin American music is boring to me.
Actually I
do not care, when composing, about difficulty. I follow only a purpose:
the given, basic material must grow up to the right point and it must
be elaborated according to its inner potential. Then, for me the main
concern if form. Shaping the right form is a path to discovery: this
goes itself, and whether the resulting music is easy or difficult for
the player, it is not my concern. I have no other issue. Clearly, I
work always with a definite control of the instruments I write for:
this is a part of the formal process. So, my music can be difficult for
the guitarist, but it is always difficult in the right way: it is real,
not only on the paper, for each effort it demands to the performer,
there is a correspondent result in sound. It is never deaf music, music
which looks well on paper but doesn't sound.
==============================================================
Mar. 15th, 2005 01:10 pm - A new CD
The
release of a new recording of his music always represents an event for
a composer - though not always a happy one. I am observing with a
healthy (I hope) detachement the growth of the list of recordings of my
own works, and I do not use to comment my interpreter's job - unless in
some very special case, like the enormous entreprise of Cristiano, who
is recording a series of no less than five CDs with the complete series
of my 60 "Studi di virtuosità e di trascendenza".
Today I break
once more my rule of silence for spending a word about a special
recording. The young guitarist from Rome, Angelo Colone, has recorded
with the Melos Ensemble my concerto for guitar and orchestra "Lecons de
Ténèbres". It is relevant to the list of recording of my works, because
it is the first time one of my (seven) concertos with orchestra is made
available in a commercial recording, and this fact goes beyond comments
about the quality of the performance and of the recording. Because the
concerto is pretty long, but not enough to fill a whole CD, Colone had
added some of my Studi.
The producer of the CD, Reza Ganjavi, has set up a website for the occasion.
===============================================================
2005
Actually,
I have yet to understand what is this thread devoted to, however I have
to say no, there is no danger that I could misunderstand your words as
an attack to me and as a lack of respect.
As an editor, I have
to be - this is a professional care which I am committed to and payed
for - careful and well informed about what goes around in the so called
guitar world. The ideas, the opinions, the tastes of the members of a
populated newsgroup, as this one, are a source of information
which I have to keep in touch with, because the publisher which
produces my editions works for guitarists, and ignoring what they
think, tell, look for, would be a mistake.
I might add that this
is a side of my work of which I am not enthusiast, but this would not
reflect completely my thoughts. In the newsgroups I have found exactly
what goes around in the guitar world and in all the other fields I got
acquainted to: gentlemen and slobs, clever persons and idiots, gifted
artits and second-raters, honest witness and mythomaniacs, honest guys
and rascals. I have to learn something from all of them, because all of
them buy music, and I work for a firm which produces and sells music,
and my personal feels are less important than my professional
committment. I am not superior to the work I do.
As a composer,
my situation is totally different. I am represented by my works, which
are all published - I have more requests of my music than those which I
can respond to - and they speak for me. I have nothing to add if not -
occasionally - informations about their availability, recordings,
performances: news, data, nothing else. Each day it happens to me to
read a favourable comment about my music. As a person, I may feel happy
or flattered, or indifferent, but as a composer I do not feel involved.
Yesterday I read a warm review, a few enthusiastic messages, and the
day before I had read a negative assessment written by a fellow
composer whose music I had rejected for publication in my role as an
editor. I do not enter in these discussions, it is not my task. My task
is writing the next piece, and it is a hard one: I have a customer to
please (the one who pays me), but also a judge to convince: myself. If
I earn my approval, then I will also get the fee for the work,
otherwise I will miss my own approval and the fee. Most unhappy
man. If I succeed, my game is finished. Since then, it is a matter of
the world: performers of today and of tomorrow and ever, reviewers of
the present and of the future, people who like or dislike, people
who say "great" or "bad" after or without having read and listened to
the music, were I concerned about them I would turn into a window
watcher, and my next composition would never arise.
The
composers who need to add their words to their music are to be
suspected. Vincent van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo: we can speak
only with our paitings.
With works around, no word. Words around with no work shown: likely, the works do not exist.
AG
============================================================
angelo
A
composer deserving such a name uses the language he needs for
expressing his thoughts and feels in the most faithful way, not for
laboratory experiments. These - if needed: a composer normally ends
with experimenting when he finishes his studies - are made at home,
privately, not in the music one writes. I have written seven Concertos
and several other works for and with guitar in an atonal language, and
the last thing I had in my mind when composing them was they were
experiments and that I was a scientist. They work instead, from their
first to their last note, to express directly something that comes
exactly from the same source where other pieces of mine - composed in a
modally oriented language - come: they are just different in their
moods, are they are different because they needed to be faithful to
their expressive needs and purposes. If a composer, by using an atonal
language, does not express anything, it is not because of the
a-tonality, but because either he had nothing to tell or he did not
succeed with "how" he used such a language. To label atonal music
as non-music is - forgive my being outspoken - a typical
self-protective behaviour of persons whose musical intellect is not
developped enough to absorb a language which demands a more elaborate
perception than the tonal language. Musical intellect should be
developped not only by composers and performers, but also by listeners.
AG
============================================================ size=2 width="100%" align=center>
Why
on earth should such a silly (sorry, forgive me, it is not addressed to
your person) thing happen? Albeniz is a magnificent composer of piano
music (and, to less a successful extent, also of operas), his cycle of
12 piano pieces entitled "Iberia" is for sure the greatest solo piano
piece ever composed by a Spaniard, and one of the sharpest peaks of
late Romantic piano music in general - not to mention his minor piano
compositions, which are more often heard from guitarists than from
pianists. Getting acquainted with piano music written by later
composers, at the borders of tonality or beyond these borders, from
Debussy to Boulez in France, from Schoenberg and Hindemith to
Stockhausen in Austro-Germanic ground, etc., will only help to
increase and to further your appreciation of Albéniz music. Spend one
week with the score of "Ludus Tonalis" by Hindemith for piano, and with
a good recording of it, and at the end go back to listen to "Iberia",
it will shine at your eyes more than before, because you will have
become - through Hindemith - a better, more qualified, sensitive,
perceptive - may I say it with no offence to your present state: more
intelligent listener. Place on your CD reader the Sonata for piano
written by your great countryfellow Samuel Barber and listen just to
its slow movement. It is atonal, almost-serial music. Then tell what
you feel: emotionally, on your skin. I expect reading here your sincere
statements.
As for Tarrega, he did not write music of the height
and power of Albéniz, but most of his original solo guitar piece are
exquisite and masterfully written for guitar. I am a composer who works
quite often out of the borders of tonality, this did not prevent me
from realizing an expansion for orchestra of some Tarrega's works for
solo guitar, which I like, because they are graceful and inspired. You
can listen to them at
http://www.angelogilardino.com/inglese/mp3.htm
They
are - as you will be able to listen to if you want - completely free of
any poison: my habits as an atonal composer have not corrupted me and
my sympathy to Tarrega.
Me too, like you, I do music for living. This is why, sometimes, I write music with no key, with no tonic and no dominant.
AG
Give me art to deal with, and I will have no pain.
============================================================
I don't want anybody doing any effort to promote me.
============================================================
If
a person wants something from you and he/she makes a pressure, you may
fell urged, or even anxious to fill his/her request and writing the
piece, the essay, the article, the liner notes, the letter he/she asked
you with suggesting you should do it within... Everybody who wants
something wants it under a deadline: there is always somebody - a
superior entity - who cannot wait. And then you feel stressed and you
work under such a stress. But you have to learn your lesson. When the
pressures are two, five, ten, twenty, and you perfectly know that you
cannot fill all the requests, especially those given under an imminent
deadline, you learn to work in a perfect peace, like if you had no
requests and you were working for your own pleasure. One request, a
pressure. 20 requests, no pressure at all.
AG
=================================================
> -----Messaggio originale-----
> Inviato: giovedì 27 gennaio 2000 17.24
> A: cguitar-list@eskimo.com
> Oggetto: Elogio de la guitarra
>
>
> Hello List!
> I want to post a question for all of you:
> Would you share with me what you know about Rodrigo's Elogio de
> la guitarra
> (1971 Berben). I've heard Angel Romero, Marco Socias and Eduardo Isaac's
> recordings, and David Russell's performance of this piece. I also
> play it, or
> at least have been trying to for the last year or so...
> I want to get your general impressions, but also if anyone knows anything
> specific about the circumstances of its composition, that would
> be great. I
> know that Mr. Gilardino is a frequent poster to this list, and it
> would be
> wonderful to hear from him too. Rodrigo doesn't say much about it
> himself, at
> least not in the famous memoirs. Was it a commissioned piece? Did
> he have a
> specific guitarist in mind? I also wonder about the title:
> "Compliment from
> the guitar" did he elaborate on that?
> Thank you all very much.
> Daniel Bolshoy
The origin of Rodrigo's "Elogio de la guitarra" goes backward to my
friendship with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco.
On 1967, one year before his death, in our almost daily correspondence
between Italy and California, he confessed me his disappointment about the
fact that Segovia never played his 2nd Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra,
which he considered superior to the first one (a battle horse of the great
guitarist). This is why - he told me - I never put into being my project for
a third guitar concerto. I still have his letter where he describes his
project for this work: it should have been a three movement concerto,
entitled "Elogio de la guitarra", each movement being devoted to one face of
the guitar soul: 1) La guitarra en el palacio (to celebrate the noble side
of the guitar art); 2) La guitarra en la catedral (the religious poliphony);
3) La guitarra en el campo (the popular vein of the dance). At that epoque
all my activity was centered upon playing concerts, and then I took the
permission of telling Mario that I felt capable of paying honours to such a
concerto, had he decided to write it for me. His answer was a very promising
one, and in the meanwhile he payed a sort of advance to his promise with
composing one of his "greeting cards" upon the connection between the notes
and the letters of my name ("Volo d'angeli"). You can easily image my
despair when I received, on March 1968, the news of his sudden passing away:
his last letter reached me just when the Italian television was broadcasting
the sad news.
Two years after I was in chief of the Bèrben's series of 20th century
guitar music and I felt that such a marvelous project should not have left
fading out, so I asked Joaquin Rodrigo whether he would have realized the
work, taking inspiration from Mario's idea. He said he was glad to accept my
request, and we agreed for a three movement Sonata for solo guitar, which in
fact he composed with respecting the three characters of the original
project - with some exception perhaps in the first movement, which is rather
rhapsodic. Rodrigo preferred anyway to retain only the general title and not
the single movement titles, because he was very fond of how he had managed
to create a Sonata form for guitar and he did not want to use for it too
many literary suggestions.
"Elogio de la guitarra" is one of the some hundreds guitar works written for
and dedicated to the player I was, before my inspiration turned me toward
becoming an almost full time composer. Surely, it is Rodrigo masterpiece
among his works for solo guitar and there is no surprise with the fact so
many players have performed and/or recorded it.
Angelo Gilardino
Composer and Editor
The Artistic Director
of the "Andrés Segovia" Foundation of Spain
------
Editor of the Series of 20th Century Guitar Music
Edizioni Musicali Bèrben, Ancona, Italia
============================================================
Paganini
arrived in Turin from Parma on July 1836. In Turin, he attended a
concert by Luigi Legnani at the Teatro Carignano. He (Paganini) was
recognized by the audience and he received a long applause. He declared
that he listened to Legnani's with "sommo piacere". He planned to give
a concert with Legnani, but then he gave up with such a project -
likely, due to the deteriorating of his health - and, in order to avoid
consequences, the two artists signed a contract where they agreed they
would NOT give any concert together "per reciproca convenienza". Such a
peculiar contract reflects Paganini's diffidence about lawyers
and legal issues (he had learnt at his own, hard expenses).
AG
=========================
Tarrega's
knowledge of the guitar tradition before him was negligible. This is
not my guess. Domingo Prat, who was in his youth a student and a friend
of Tarrega, has openly confessed which the situation was. His words
leave no doubt: Tarrega and his students-followers were totally unaware
of the great guitar music and didactic works written before them by
Sor, Giuliani, Coste, etc. A guitarist-composer whose works Tarrega was
acquainted with, was Julian Arcas and, to a lesser extent, Tomas Damas.
Domingo Prat earned his knowledge and appreciation of the classics of
the guitar - and a remarkable capacity of understanding how superior
their works, if compared to Tarrega's ones - by his own means, whilst
we have also evidences that Miguel Llobet was at least aware of
Fernando Sor, Matteo Carcassi and Napoléon Coste.
AG
=========================
Ø
I can't recall who was the author who wrote a letter to a friend
beginning > with: "Please forgive me if I am writing you a long
letter, but I have no > time enough for writing a short one". >
> AG
=============
Fading away is not in itself a weak way of ending a composition
============
"David Raleigh Arnold" <darnold4@cox.net> ha scritto nel messaggio news:pan.2004.01.04.05.35.10.944132@cox.net...
>
I read somewhere that Tarrega was a great admirer of Chopin, > but
guitarists don't usually see the similarity because > Tarrega had
his own voice. When a composer writes a piece > entirely with
dotted rhythm he intends that those notes be > played. Segovia
butchered that prelude because he didn't > understand it. All
he saw was melody and chords. He > missed the dramatic feeling
of the piece completely. It > is a revelation to play it as
written. daveA >
You have the privilege of
understanding what Tarrega meant, and you can play it. Also, of making
of your playing of it a revelation. Why then - from such a
privilegiated position - bothering to dismiss the performance of one
who couldn't understand what is revealed to you and by you? Segovia
nowadays is evocated mainly for the magnificent works he missed to
play, or for his wrong way of playing the works he played. Wouldn't it
be shorter and simpler to play everything perfectly and to give up with
blaming that poor player, who either missed or misunderstood everything?
AG
========================================
It
is customary of a kind of Sonata forms to have four movements, the
first with a three section structure
(exposition-"development"-recopilation), the second movement as an
Adagio or however slow movement, the third one as a light Scherzo
(formerly a Minuetto) and the last movement of a Rondo, or a Theme and
Variations. Sometimes the third movement is missed. However, the
definition of Sonata refers to the form of the first movement. We have
many other structures of Sonata, depending from the epoque and the
style (Italian, Viennese, etc.) For instance, Scarlatti's Sonata
have ordinarily two sections only, and just one theme.
….
The
title Sonata designes a series of musical forms which changed from
epoque to epoque, and which referred to different musical forms within
the same epoque. I warmly recommend you to read a book entitled "Sonata
Forms" by Charles Rosen published by W.W. Norton, NY ans by
Stoddard in Canada. It is a pleasant, useful, clear exposition of the
many Sonata forms, which - your strong interest for the subject (which
I applaude) will lead you across its 344 pages in a few days and at the
end you will be left with no question about the Sonata. It is not a
book for composers, but for all musicians. As all this kind
books, it has its strong and less strong points, but a good reading of
it will make of you, in a short while, a better reader of Sonatas. A
tip: he is not too complimentary about one of my best antecessors,
Luigi Boccherini, whose use of the Sonata form suggested to
Castelnuovo-Tedesco his guitar Sonata "Omaggio a Boccherini".
AG
===============================================
I
use to tell to my students that a classical sonata form is, at the end,
a very articulated expansion of a simple succession I-V-I, where
V includes of course a lot of other keys. If a criticism can be
addressed to XIXth century guitar Sonatas, it is that they are too
little dynamic, harmonically, in their central sections. Actually,
working within a strictly tonal ground it is very difficult - not to
say impossible - to create a development which is, at the same time,
thematically based, harmonically adventurous and idiomatically
sounding. In my two Sonatas, I have attempted to solve the problem with
opening the harmonic spectrum of the I section, so as not to be obliged
to strictly tonal ground in the V section. Actually, in the 2nd Sonata
I played the game more dangerously, closer to the tonality.
A
composer usually does not know what he does when doing it, he learns
what he did after doing it. It is not important, when composing, to
know what you do from an analytical viewpoint, whilst it is essential
to know HOW you do what you are doing.
Also, for an interpreter,
it is not important to be able to express his analysis from an
"academical" viewpoint (whatever this means). It is essential to be
able to read works with an analytical device, so as to represent it to
one's mind beyond a simple reading. Incidentally, nowadays we are far
from having an analytical method universally accepted. I have created
my own method, because I need it for explaining works to my students,
who are
performers. So, I need a very practical method, where the results of
the analysis are immediately converted into a concrete use on phrasing,
articulating and, finally, fingering.
AG
===============================================
" r e z a m u s i c . c o m" ha scritto nel messaggio
news:3fe17865$1_3@news.bluewin.ch...
> A master played makes it seem easy.
>
> Michaelangelo and Bach said they worked extremely hard.
All the true artists work extremely hard. They have to squeeze the best from
themselves, and this is not possible without giving one's maximum.
>
> Angelo, can you please elaborate on "hard work" in composing / artistic
creation?
It is mainly connected with the form. An accomplished form calls for a lot
of elaboration. Theoretically, this is an endless process. Practically, an
artist decides - at a certain point - that he has brought the work at a
level of elaboration which is satisfactory enough, and calls this point the
end of the work.
> The master who makes it look easy has worked hard hasn't he, to obtain
mastery. You see
> Eduardo Fernandez play, like a breeze, perfectly, effortlessly. He must
have woked very
> hard.
I have private tapes of him when he was a student (perhaps he does not know
I have them), and it was already clear that he was great.
> No clear question. perhaps it's not so clear, on one hand, hard work and
creativity go
> together, on other hand, mastery and effortlessness go together. Any
insights?
The effort is called in the process, but it should not appear in the result.
If, attending to a recital, you are brought to appreciate the skills and to
believe that he is good, he is not good enough, because the perfection
absorbs all the efforts and the visible signs of a player's abilities, and
you are called just to listen the music. When you look at a beatiful
landscape from an open window, you appreciate the landscape, not the window.
A performer disappears in the music he does in the measure he does it well.
If you see him in between, he has yet to attain perfection, even if his
presence can be appreciated. At the highest levels, a performer can live
within perfection at such a height so as to feel totally identified with
what he does, and forget the audience. I believe that the best players in
this world are not the most famous ones going around, and likely the very
best guitarist on this globe does not give concerts.
AG
============================================================
"David Norton" <numa@xmission.com> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:btcv06$huj$1@terabinaries.xmission.com...
> I'm wondering, what sort of musical relationship did these two Polish
> gentlemen have with each other? My question is prompted by a scathing
> review of Tansman's "Cavatina" suite, penned by Mairants, published in
Vol.
> I of the Graham Wade "Segovia" biography. It seems Mairants can't say
> enough bad things about his countryman's composition. The context is a
> review of a 1955 London recital by Segovia; other pieces are highly
praised
> but "Cavatina" is dismissed purely on compositional grounds.
>
> Any info on this is appreciated!
>
> DN
I think we pay too much attention to reviews, David. A review is just an
opinion of one single person, respectable as such. Mairants did not like
Tansman's "Cavatina"? Sorry for him, I believe it is a very nice piece of
music and, within the borders of traditional 20th century guitar music, a
masterpiece. A review is not the ultimate judgement about a piece, a
record, a concert: exactly like all of them, it is a performance, and the
reviewer can be judged for what he wrote and for how he wrote it. Half a
century after, what would we - people capable of reading music - dismiss,
Tansman's music or Mairant's review of Tansman's music? I am sure nobody
would have doubts at the subject...
The unique, true problem which may affect a good piece of music, David, is
the fact (not uncommon, unfortunately) that it can remain buried and
unavailable to readers for longtime or, even worse, lost for ever. When a
piece is published, all its destiny is made. It will have a good reception
and even a celebration from somebody, it will leave indifferent somebody
else and, unavoidably, it will attract negative criticism. Favourable or
unfavourable reviews can be given in a good faith, from those who actually
believe a work if good or bad, and in a bad faith, because the author is the
object of a personal speculation, of a passion, of a revenge. All of those
which express in public an opinion about a piece, are exposed to
responsibility exactly as composers and performers are. When you, a
composer, have your stuff published, sleep and do not worry: tomorrow or one
century after, you will be acknowledged for your real merit. In guitar world
such a process can be slower than elsewhere, but it goes on however: nobody,
individually, is a perfect judge, but the sum of the judgements of these
unperfect individuals makes a right judgement, with the time. History
teaches us as even the work of a genius, such as Bach, can remain misjudged
for a long while, but then the truth comes out. And - more modestly - within
the circle of guitar music, not even killing a composer can be enough to
prevent his work from coming in a full light: Antonio José was murdered, and
his Sonata for guitar reduced to silence for more than half a century, but
then it was discovered and published, and nowadays it is regarded as the
highest guitar Sonata in the first half of the 20th century.
I knew Alexandre Tansman very well. He was a first class musician, inspired
and very well trained - not surprisingly - a very good person. This is the
truth, known, shared and acknowledged by many people, enough to make up a
historical judgement. As for Mr. Mairants, our respect to him. Did you ever
read a piece of his own? I did and I will not review it.
AG
============================================================
If the idea you have is really great, do not bother to write it down. It is
not yours, and three minutes, three hours, three days after writing it, you
will discover where you borrowed (or stolen) it from. Take care of notating
only those ideas which do not appear especially great to you, but rather
uncertain, still invinting, promising: this is the beginning of a
composition, something which appears from afar in the midst, and which you
have not to invent, but to discover, note by note.
-----------------------
It was not directed to any individual person, but to everybody, including,
and mainly, myself. I have never learnt how going after the 2nd barline
with the sense of dominating the situation, and each note I write is often,
not the best one, but the less unsuitable among the 12 available ones.
Composing is sometimes the result of refusing many options for saving one
which we are not very pleased with, but we cannot replace for better.
AG
------------
All of this is a wealth, of course, but using it musically, within the
logic of a construction, along a true musical thought, is not easy. A
compositional problem cannot be solved with an effect. An enormous
percentage of guitar music is incredibily cheap, from this viewpoint. But
of course also the contrary problem can be found in our repertoire. Pieces
which are well constructed on paper, but do not "sound" on the box. These
are usually written by non guitarist composers. A simple rule: a piece
written for guitar should sound on the guitar better than in any other
instrument. A piano cannot challenge a guitar with a Villa-Lobos study. When
your fellow the pianist or the harpsichordist can read your guitar piece
making it more fluent and better sounding that you can do on the guitar, the
composer has not accomplished his job. Sometimes, a guitarist has to work
hard as a pianist which performs the Liszt Sonata in B minor, for
producing, at the end of such a battle, a bagatelle. For each "work" a
player is committed to to by the score, a significant result must be
produced in sound, otherwise the composition has something wrong.
-----------------
Exactly. The greatest example of musical form are found in Beethoven. He
never wrote a melody in the true sense of the word, his harmony has nothing
special and his orchestration is often normal. But what he does with the
musical idea is absolutely genial: everything which happens in a piece of
his is absolute, unavoidable, essential, stone engraved, and you feel that
it couldn't go otherwise. But then you go back to the theme, and you see
that it was nothing special: he invented everything starting from nothing.
Study his piano Sonata op. 106 - Hammerklavier: only A God could do that.
AG
---------------------------------------
If the idea you have is really great, do not bother to write it down. It is
not yours, and three minutes, three hours, three days after writing it, you
will discover where you borrowed (or stolen) it from. Take care of notating
only those ideas which do not appear especially great to you, but rather
uncertain, still invinting, promising: this is the beginning of a
composition, something which appears from afar in the midst, and which you
have not to invent, but to discover, note by note.
------------------------------
All the guitar pieces written by everybody begin well, with two nice
measures. The problems start with the third measure...Elaboration deals with
the form of musical thinking as with a construction, and leads you to make a
wise use of the material you gave yourself (the theme, the series, the
motive). The stature of the composer, his talent and skill, are shown in the
way he elaborates the material, not in the material itself. Composition is
the way of derivating from a given material the maximum of its potential.
One has to study the material and the way to develop it in the fullest of
its potential. Begin analizing a simple study by Sor, observe where he
starts from, and how far he goes with the basic, small elements: he is a
master in the little musical form, he never adds or misses a note. Check up
why he did not push his development beyond the point at which he stopped:
you will unfailiningly discover that he brought the basic elements to the
right point, not one step "before" of "after", and this will be a lesson to
you. With such a criterion, you will learn to understand from the
battlefield the laws of musical construction. And you will become capable of
understanding the art of the most powerful music builders of the history:
Johann Sebastian, Ludwig and Johannes. As well as appreciating the genius of
all the other ones - from Franz Joseph and Wolfgang Amadeus to Claude,
Maurice, Igor and Bela (the list of masters is a very long one indeed). We
can learn, however, only from the music written by amateurs - especially the
pieces written by guitarists who believe to be composers because they can
find pleasant sound combinations on the fingerboard and notate them. They
often create beatiful effects, but with no cause. Take note of the effect,
maybe one day you will have a deserving cause for it.
-----------------------------
Of all the musical studies, composition is the one that less suffers from
self-teaching. A clever person can get wrong habits with his hands and
fingering on an instrument, but using his intelligence for studying the
disciplines of compositions will hardly leave him alone. Copy the masters.
Observe how Scarlatti builds up his Sonatas, and write some Scarlatti
Sonatas, how Schubert writes Lieder and write some Lieder.
-----------------------------
If you have reached the end of page one without doing nonsenses or
banalities, you have already reached a good point. The problem with most
guitar music is that it should not have reached measure three.
--------------------------------
Here is the man who wins or looses, the musician is the expression of the
man.
Work hard and believe in what you do, you will be the best of your teachers.
AG
It's
a Sonatina, thank Godness, but pushing it to an end is more difficult
than having a pair of oxes in a flight over the town. Now th first
movement is finished - except the eternal question of the phrasing
marks in the flute part, each phrase having a dozen of different, and
equally correct, phrasing curves - and the second one seems to be on
its right way. Friend flutists ring up. How does it go on? The answer
can be just one: slowly. Now I understand Ravel when he said that,
before writing a note, one must be sure that none of the other eleven
could be better at that point. Composing is a funny job. There are only
some essential notes, all the other ones are needed but not essential.
Writing the essential notes is difficult, writing the needed notes is
even more difficult. An essential note is perfect. No needed note is
perfect, all of them are unsatisfactory. Eleven of them are highly
unsatisfactory, and one of them is moderately unsatisfactory. I am
working like a mad to earn myself a moderate unsatisfaction.
Yesterday
people organizing a picture exhibition came to collect two paintings
which borrowed from me for the event. The walls in the concerned room
clearly show, now, the form of the absent pictures. It is expressive. I
should be able to compose something like the absence of a piece of
music in my mind. Perhaps it is what I am doing since ever: I am
writing many pieces to try to recover just one piece I have lost before
becoming a composer.
AG
If you have talent and you produce good art works, you have enemies
everywhere. Ciao. AG
This is impressive to me. I have always been an admirer of Berg's music, and
his violin concerto is at my eyes the best work for a solo instrument and
orchestra of the 20th century.
AG
Jan
2006 Lecuona's piano Suite entitled "Andalucia" (six pieces: Cordoba,
Andalucia, Alhambra, Gitanerias, Guadalquivir, Malagueña) has now also
a version for four guitars, which I have just finished to elaborate for
the Italian Guitart Quartet (Matarazzo, Bellomo, Pulzone, Allocca). It
has been a pleasure working closely at the music of such a gifted
composer, whose mind was so imaginative and whose style so clean and
elegant. I am sure that the excellent performers of the Guitart Quartet
will display all the charme of the work in their next concerts.
AG
============================================================
I apologize for entering this discussion with a delay and with no direct
connection to its main subject, but because of your question, Scott, I would
like to point out - with no purpose of imparting lessons to anybody - that
writing key accidentals is needed and proper for a piece which the composers
has conceived in a definite tonal ground, exploiting tonal functions, and
not for a piece which is not tonal, even if the frequent use of the same
accidental(s) would make convenient, from a notational viewpoint, to write
them as key accidentals. The movement of the Sonata you mention is basically
a bi-modally oriented piece, and it would have been unproper to mark
accidentals in its key. Now I couldn't tell you whether marking accidentals
would have been also convenient from a notational viewpoint - I guess it
wouldn't, but actually I do not know.
On the other side, when giving "Ikonostas" to Editions Orphée for
publication, I had written no key accidental, still Matanya suggested I
would write two flats in the first half of the piece, to make the reading
(and the engraving) simpler, and I did, in spite of the fact that I did not
mean that part to be referred to G minor or - let alon - Bflat major. So,
key accidentals in modal pieces shouldn't be understood as indications of a
tonal ground.
AG
============================================================
suffering is much less worse than getting involved in banality.
============================================================
To
such a student, whose right hand has deficiencies, it would be rather
droll to teach tremolo. Firstly, repair his basic problems with
correcting his faults, and then you will teach him tremolo. I cannot
see how it could make sense to repair a general problem with working on
a single application. When a student has correctly learnt how to move
fingers across the strings, he will be able to apply his movement to
all the applications - arpeggios and tremolos as well as chords and
scales - and the nuances that each single application calls for its
peculiarities. Of course, those who declare that tremolo is just an
arpeggio on one string say the truth, and they could also tell that an
arpeggio is a tremolo on different strings, and that a scale is an
arpeggio with more than one note on each string, and that a chord is an
arpeggio with all its notes played simultaneously...These are just
obliquos statements of a unique evidence.
AG
===============================================
If
properly (artistically) used, guitar ensemble works as a solo guitar
with expanded possibilities. There is no need and no room for
four, five, ten, solo guitars playing together. There is room for
one virtual guitar made with the addition of several actual
guitars employed not as solo guitars, but as fractions of a
virtual solo guitar. Composers can forge a repertoire exactly as they
did with solo guitar. No problem.
ag
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%EVERYTHING ABOVE THIS LINE IS VERIFIED %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
From Angelo's Blog:
Learning how to do it will lead you to know what it is.
Likely, I am more the creator than the recollector of such a world, but it is true, alive, and I can give a musical form to it.
viola&flute: lighter, recreative, not as dramatic as string quartet. String quartet is superior.
-------
I can disappear from the whole scene from one day to the other --
----------------------------
History
of 20th century music has been written - as you know - under the shadow
of Th. W. Adorno philosophy of music, thus giving a legitimation only
to the authors of the Wien School and, consequently, to the members
affiliated to the Darmstadt Ferienkurse. All the other voices have been
either minimized or silenced. French, Italian, Spanish, British authors
who have not followed the mainstream have been emarginated, and even a
composer of the strenght of Bartok is considered a secondary figure
with respect to Webern. Composers like Falla or, later, Britten or
Ghedini have been scarcely tolerated, let alone authors like
Rachmaninoff, which have been demonized.
Still nowadays the most
recent Italian history of music - published less than one year ago - is
largely dominated by this ideology...
In the little field of
guitar music, an article written about my Studies, years ago, on a
major Italian music magazine, started with justifying their existence
at the light of Adorno's permission, which allowed instrumental music
written with didactic goals to use repetitions - otherwise considered
sons of the devil.
The consequence of such a system is that
contemporary music is generally considered impossible to listen by 90%
not of common people, but of common concert listeners.
========================================================
My
secret - if any - is to avoid as much as possible contacts with my
siblings: most of them are useless and dangerous. Staying quietly at
home, working at music, seeing a few friends, reading good books:
that's all. No affiliation to clubs, parties, lobbies, etc. No love
stories, they are always an unnecessary mess to say the least. Sleeping
a few hours, and always alone: bed makes a person stupid, sharing the
bed makes stupid as twice as much. Avoiding places and events with many
people. As a musician-guitarist: avoiding to play scales and tecnical
exercises, avoiding to change strings - unless they break -, avoiding
to deal with parents of prodigy children, authors of new methods,
girlfriends of male guitarists and widows of composers.
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