Duo Imperial - Music for Viola & Guitar - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The Nashville Guitars - 30 Guitar Classics Unplugged [COMPACT DISCS] date 01/01/2013

Mario Gangi (1923-2010) was among the pre-eminent Italian guitarists of his generation. Born in Rome to a professional jazz-musician father, Gangi graduated from the city's Accademia della Santa Cecilia and soon followed in his father's footsteps as both an orchestral bassist (with the local radio orchestra) and a guitarist. This latter career took off in the 50s Gangi gave several important first performances of concertos by the likes of Petrassi and even the 19th-century Giuliani. His teaching method became an essential study for young guitarists, and he edited the music of Sor, Tarrega and J.S. Bach for modern guitar editions. With this recording, the Duo Pace Poli Cappelli present Gangi's music for two guitars, comprising a trio of suites - the Suite Italiana, the Suite Spagnola and Suite Barocca - and a pair of standalone rhapsodies in a more contemporary idiom, the Fantas and Fabulae. The three suites evoke their titled points of inspiration. An Andalusa, Fandango and Sevillana capture the idiom of Spanish folk-music; a Saltarello, Adagio and whirling Tarantella present musical snapshots of Italy; and the Minuet and Gigue of the Suite Barocca return to the courtly world of the 18th century without parody. The Fantas and Fabulae plough a more modern furrow still essentially lyrical in style, rhapsodic in form but more flecked with dissonance and less dependent than the suites on the specifics of a national idiom. The influence of modern popular styles imbues the Fantas in particular with sunshine and contemporary energy.

John Duarte (1919-2004) was educated at the Manchester University Faculty of Technology. He worked as a professional chemist until 1969, then abandoned chemistry in favor of full-time dedication to music, after having been persuaded by Len Williams, father of John Williams. His only formal musical education consisted in jazz guitar lessons with Terence InchTerryInch Usher, the rest he learned by self-instruction. He also worked professionally as a player of the trumpet and double bass, and regularly worked as a jazz musician, among others with Coleman Hawkins and Django Reinhardt. Duarte taught at the London-based Spanish Guitar Centre, which Williams senior had founded and where the young John Williams studied with him. Williams acknowledged the early influence of Duarte by including his works and transcriptions in his first recording. Duarte was in close contact with many of the great guitarists of his time, notably Andrés Segovia, Alexandre Lagoya and Ida Presti, for whom he wrote new compositions. Duartes work shows an exceptionally wide range of styles. Some works reflect the Renaissance style of court lutenists such as John Dowland, other works alternate in style between aleatory, atonal and graphic, contained within a conventionally notated framework and allowing spontaneous reaction between the performers. In many other works he employs a tonal language, often colored by the folk music traditions of various nations, and romantic in mood. InchThis versatility puzzled some commentators, who found difficulty in perceiving the true Duarte. But this was, in fact, the true Duarte, never easy to categorize, always unpredictable, his agile and fertile mind able and willing to leap without apparent effort from one area of music to another.Inch ('Colin Cooper in Duarte's obituary in The Independent').