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It is quite difficult to find a
CD on 20th Century flute and guitar music in the variegated
panorama of record industry. Just a few examples of this interesting repertory
are included in anthologies of various kinds, whereas a systematic
compilation of the most important flute and guitar works ever written, has
never been made. These two instruments, which have been quite popular in
our century, are much appreciated by composers. They had been confined to
the fringe of musical production and unjustly employed only for musical
genres of minor importance in the 19th century, but they
experienced a true revival when music began following new paths, leaving
aside more traditional ones, both from a formal and expressive point of
view. The potentialites of flute and guitar have been thoroughly analyzed
through innovative and sometimes avant-garde approaches to composition and
the two instruments have often been used in chamber music. Flute and guitar
duos are much prized by listeners and musicians alike, thanks to the
charming tone-colour they create by playing together.
Marko Feri and Ettore Michelazzi
present an anthology ranging from the Entr'acte by Jacques Ibert to
another well-known piece, the Sonatina op.205 by Mario
Castelnuovo-Tedesco. The former was written in 1936, the latter almost
thirty years later, in 1965.
Jacques Ibert's work is a short,
charming and evocative musical piece, which is at first characterized by
very quick, almost aleatory figurations; such figurations later turn into a
sequence of sound suggestions and at the same time enframe a very intense
theme with flute music standing out because of its melodic character. This
was the typical way in which composers from the French school used the txo
instruments, since they prized the flute's melodic potentialites and the
guitar's soft accompaniment. Jacques Ibert, who was strongly influenced by
the Impressionistic school at the beginning of this century, greatly
appreciated the precious tone-colour and the opportunity to follow simple
and linear formal paths offered by flute music. The French Maestro used to
say that the most important thing in music is its quality, and in this way
he stressed the fact that he wanted to grant powers of communication and
the capacity to mirror "the needs of sensitivity" to his works.
We find completely different
world in the Sonatina by Castelnuovo-Tedesco, who wrote an immense
repertory, including many guitar pieces. The Italian composer, who
emigrated to the United States during World War II, emphasizes the unique
traits of his style, which is characterized by a cross of neo-classical
stylistic features and melodic suggestions of different origin; many come,
for example, from the world of jazz and consumer music which
Castelnuovo-Tedesco was very fond of. Being remote from the postwar
avant-gardes, because of his critical and detached approach to them, he
followed very plain formal paths and often highlighted melodic elements.
The Sonatina op.205 is emblematic from this point of view. After the
initial Allegretto grazioso, a lively and vivacious piece of music
with dotted figurations, we find a Tempo di Siciliana, a graceful
and melancholic andantino pervaded with extremely soft nocturnal
atmospheres. The final Rondň evokes a sunny radiance that is typical
of the classical civilization which Castelnuovo-Tedesco loved and is
characterized by his unique personal style.
The remaining musical pieces in
the CD show different approaches to composition and offer a survey of the
many tendencies peculiar to music production in our century. First of all
it is worth to mention the research on popular idioms which began at the
end of the 19th century, when national schools boomed in different
areas in Europe, and involved many composers and most part of guitar
literature. Music opuses by Joaquin Rodrigo, a Spanish composer who devoted
his famous Concierto de Aranjuez to guitar, include many typical traits of
Spanish folklore together with a few traces of his stay in France and
suggestions coming from schools he attended in this country. The colourful
folklorism and the influence of Dukas's music left an indelible mark on
Rodrigo's works. We find this typical tendency to mannerism, description
and easy communication, which is sometimes about to fall into naivety, also
in the Serenata al alba del dia.
A fancy for popular music
underlies John W. Duarte's poetics too. Duarte is a composer who
"loves to play with folk songs from all over the world", using
them as a thematic base in many of his compositions with different
approaches which are quite intelligent and effective, although often
bordering on parody. Duarte explores different geographical areas and takes
up traditional Greek, Catalan and, obviously, English themes that he
subsequently elaborates according to his personal style; he tends to
complete melody with colourful chromatism (like in the Sonatina op.15)
and to adapt or vary thematic elements with humour. Duarte's musical
training is characterized by eclecticism and this led him to try musical
genres of different origin over and over again, and even to perform in many
jazz bands.
Willy Burkhard's music shows
typical border-culture traits. The Swiss composer, who lived between Munich
and Paris, oscillates between depth and austerity, which are typical of the
German school, and the easy fluency of the French school. This explains the
originality of many works of his, where the colouristic sonority preferred
by French musicians joins the formal patterns created by Hindemith. The
flute and guitar Serenade op.71 n.3 was written in 1944.
Stephen Dodgson followed quite a
different path, and therefore he looked for much more original solutions;
he was quite effective in rendering stylistic modes of European 20th
century tradition which he had assimilated with deep awareness. His
experiments with rhythm remind of composers from the Eastern European
schools. He worked in the fields of theatre, motion-picture music and
divulgation and he became famous in Great Britain thanks to radio
programmes and guitar music. He wrote
his Capriccio in 1980.
Roberto
Calabretto
Pavle Merků (1927), a
many-sided, extremely learned and cultured Triestine artist, slavist,
philologist, ethnomusicologist and essayist, is one of the most important
present-day Slovenian composers. His vast repertory includes more than 200
orchestral, vocal and instrumental compositions, as well as concert and
chamber music pieces; the most prominent ones are the Concerto per violino
e orchestra (1970, Preseren Prize), the two-act opera La libellula (1976),
the string rhapsody Alt sijaj sijaj sonce (1977), the Requiem "Pro
felici mei transitu" (1987) and a great number of choir pieces
characterized by rare suggestiveness, intensity and charm. Merků starts
from the atonal Expressionism of Kogoj, Berg or Dallapiccola without ever
falling into the trap of an aleatory experimental avant-garde, and develops
a unique sound language that often plays with elements of the rich popular
Resian end Benecian melos and brings together tradition and modernity in a
steadfast, hard search for his own absolute in music: truth as the essence
of every art.
In his Due pezzi per flauto e
chitarra, 1960, Merků adapted two excerpts from the stage music of Jean
Anouilh's Antigone, which was written in the same year. The
neo-expressionistic language is peculiar to the author's mature style.
The Due canti popolari per
chitarra, 1961, are two very popular oral tradition songs, the former
from Slovakia, the latter from Croatia. They were adapted for Bruno
Tonazzi, who played them for the first time and they have often been
included by many guitar players in their repertoires.
The Canzone e danza per
flauto solo was composed in 1979 and is one of the first solo melodic
instrument monologues. Merků devoted a great care to this genre, trying to
be expressive in the highest degree with quite limited means, and giving
soloists the opportunity to show their virtuosic and expressive skills.
Giulio Viozzi (Trieste, 1912-
Verona, 1984), a generous man and prolific composer, piano-player, teacher,
music critic and cultural operator, wrote his Dialogo per flauto e
chitarra the year he died. The fluency of the melodic ductus and the
great imaginative freshness that are always to be found in Viozzi's works,
are supported by the interplay of rhythm and counterpoint that never curbs
their momentum but exalts their vitality. Harmony is often sharp, as it
usually happens in neoclassicism, personal and new, but it never causes
tension or conflicts, like in avant-garde music. Viozzi, who helped many
avant-gardists to work their way, remained free from their defects. In his
Dialogo one can notice the masterly skill resulting from his intense life
and the ability to highlight the clients' virtuosity.
Miran
Košuta - Pavle Merků
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