In questo primo numero della collana sono presenti il secondo quartetto di Giovanni Pacini ed il primo quartetto Op. 4 di Salvatore Pappalardo. Si tratta di due opere abbastanza lontane per stile, architettura e coloratura musicale (cosa che si è voluta evidenziare anche con differenti riprese sonore delle due opere). La composizione di Pacini, il suo Secondo Quartetto in Do maggiore, è degli anni della maturità (1862) ed evidenzia una raffinata condotta polifonica e armonica delle parti; di prodigiosa precocità è il Quartetto in Do maggiore Op. 4 di un undicenne Pappalardo, se si crede alla data del manoscritto del giovane musicista che ancora nella Catania del 1828 studia Haydn, Mozart e Beethoven nella biblioteca di un principe suo mecenate. Il Quartetto viene dato alle stampe solo nel 1844.

La collana “Quartetti d’archi in 3P”, il cui titolo deriva appunta dalle iniziali dei cognomi dei tre musicisti prescelti, includerà nelle prossime pubblicazioni anche composizioni per quintetto e ottetto d’archi. Un progetto discografico di altissima qualità inteso ad offrire per la prima volta, a tutti gli appassionati di musica da camera, una prospettiva su una stagione creativa tutta italiana che li vede tra i principali protagonisti.

“This CD begins with my very first work involving guitar (April 1976) and finishes with most recent one ( December 2020 ). It will take a complementary disc (in the works) to cover quite all of the “Music with Guitar “ I wrote in between. The two bonus tracks are encores that Sciuto and Sciacca prepared for a recital in Bologna in December 2019, in which they gave the Italian premiere of my Tango Nuyoricano [track 14], I am glad that I bestirred myself to attend. At this writing (July 2021) it is still the most recent live performance of a work of mine I was able to supervise.”

Victor Frost

1–5  Sketchpad:  Five Little Pieces for guitar, op. 4 (1977)

             A jaunty Caprice, mostly in two parts, sets things in motion.  Toward the end of the meccanico Music Box Waltz, the unit runs down, until given a new twist by the owner.  The Deutsche is of course counted in a plodding three, but the accompaniment to my German Dance clashes, rather, in two!  The Circus Waltz that follows evokes various sections of a typical circus band, even the percussion.  The concluding Cuban Bolero was written for my friends in Miami's Little Havana.

6–8  Sonata classica for guitar, op. 6 (1977)

            I was also in grad school in Miami when I was given an assignment to write a piece adhering to classical style.  Inspired by Ponce's Sonata clásica, I chose guitar as my medium.  On my own, I went on to develop my materials into this fully fledged work.  Allegro subsists in sonata allegro form.  Tempo di minuetto, in standard ternary form.  As often happens in Haydn, the rondo theme in Allegretto un poco moderato sounds a bit different with each return.  At the end, it sounds as though the movement will be ending softly with a pensive new motive, but a final boisterous variant on the dactylic opening theme breaks through to close things out.

9–12  Concertino for guitar and chamber orchestra, op. 17 (1993)

            Certain ideas for this composition date back as well to the turn of the 80s (hence the early opus number).  But I was writing in short score, and only completed the orchestration in the year you see.  The movements are played without a pause.  The slow Intrada introduces a tactus which obtains for the entire work, whether in 3/2, 4/4, 5/4 or 6/8!  The influence of the popular Spanish concertos is felt in the Bolero as well as certain parts of the finale.  A contrapuntal episode led by the bassoon toward the middle of the Bolero is largely ignored by the guitar.  The latter simply picks up again, unperturbed, from the point it was interrupted!  It proceeds thence to a hardy Cadenza, from which it charges straight into the concluding Rondo.  The main rondo tune, however, actually does not feature the guitar through most of the movement.  Finally, though, it adds a layer of counterpoint to the theme's very last iteration.  This imparts a climactic effect, which leads to the work's infectiously optimistic conclusion.  

13  Intermezzo for guitar, op. 58a (2021)

            My opus 58 proper is a piano sonata dating from 2012, whose middle movement I arranged for guitar early this year.  It is in A–B–A form, but with the final A highly condensed.

14  Tango nuyoricano for flute and guitar, op. 74 (1999)

             This work was commissioned by flutist Laurel Zucker toward a recording project that was also to include several Latino works (e.g. Piazzolla's Libertango).  My contribution refers to the famous Nuyorican Poets Café, a few blocks from where I lived in Manhattan's East Village.  Materials are unfixed, and variation rules.  Compare the long intro to the section leading to the main tune's recap.  The accompaniment on guitar is the same, but the melody on flute is utterly different!  And even in the recap itself the flute plays everything in a different octave, higher or lower.  I cannot think of the coda as anything but an affectionate wink at Albéniz.

15  Oliva e lava (remix) for guitar and electronics, op. 87a (2021)

            Davide has promised to record my op. 87 proper, for the traditional chamber combination of guitar and piano, but in the constrained circumstances that have obtained in his native Sicily, the present remix saw the light of day first.  (The chamber premiere actually took place recently in Poland, under the aegis of a husband-and-wife team there!)  I commissioned Riccardo Samperi to devise a version that Davide could perform against an electronic soundtrack he could operate with his feet.  In the foothills under Mt. Etna, musicians sing and dance, but are twice interrupted by volcanic activity.  The second time is particularly fraught with terror, but that just seems to make the succeeding festivities all the more joyous!  All sounds from nature were recorded in and around Mt. Etna.

16  Elegy for flute, op. 16a, no. 1 (1980)

             Written when John Lennon was murdered.  The saddest piece I could think to play when I heard the news was the F minor Sonata from Emanuel Bach's Kenner und Liebhaber series, especially the desolate finale.  My Elegy is more reserved, but is in the same key and has other aspects in common as well.

17  Étude lyrique for guitar, op. 80, no. 9 (2018)

             I canvassed guitarists I knew for techniques upon which to concentrate for nine of the ten studies in my op. 80.  But this one I came up with myself.  Three notes to a beat against four.

Victor Frost 21 VII 2021 Baltimore 

«Nell’Universo regna un principio di “non località”, grazie al quale in varia misura ogni cosa è in diretto ed istantaneo contatto e comunicazione con ogni altra, indipendentemente dallo spazio fisico che le separa. Oggi tuttavia non abbiamo contezza di ciò né di quanto profonda la “connessione” con qualunque essere di questo pianeta a prescindere dai confini, dalle distanze, dalle differenze che ci caratterizzano e ci contraddistinguono. Le gocce dal mio punto di vista costituiscono l’elemento naturale che più si addice a tale principio in quanto simboleggiano le piccole entità che si arricchiscono vicendevolmente contribuendo alla realizzazione di qualcosa di grande. In questo album, pertanto, ogni singolo compositore personifica la goccia, così come ogni singolo brano proposto. Ritengo che le forme che meglio esprimono questi concetti siano quelle libere da eccessivi condizionamenti formali e che vengono definite “piccole forme” così come le parti estrapolate da forme più grandi. Esse rappresentano delle miniature musicali in grado di concentrare in poco tempo la vasta concezione poetica e musicale di un artista, dando la possibilità all’interprete ed all’ascoltatore di “viaggiare” senza mai rimanere vincolato ad un unico “luogo” concedendosi e concedendo libertà. Piccole forme che richiamano le emozioni più brevi ed intense, quelle che rimangono nei nostri cuori, permangono nella nostra anima e sono in grado di suscitare sentimenti e sensazioni non gestibili dalla pura ragione. Ha così inizio un viaggio emozionale avente come filo conduttore il Romanticismo. Il notturno viene “esplorato” in tutte le sue declinazioni; dunque non solo Chopin, ma anche Abelardo, Glinka e Fanny Mendelssohn “preziosa goccia”, lei, in un contesto nel quale la musica per una donna costituiva al massimo il completamento della sua istruzione e mai una professione. Con l’Op.118 Brahms si dedica alle pagine intimistiche e l’Intermezzo in A Major No. 2 rappresenta una sorta di confessione pianistica; esso viene percepito come una lettera d’amore segreta a Clara Schumann. Intermezzo drammatico per violino ed orchestra è invece Méditation eseguito nel secondo atto dell’opera Thäis di J.Massenet trascritto qui per piano solo. Tre sono le composizioni di Debussy proposte: Clair de lune, Rêverie e Arabesque No. 1. Due le forme di danza inserite nel progetto: il Tango Op.165 No. 2 di I. Albéniz, tratto dalla Suite España, ed il Waltz Op. 64 No. 2 di Chopin.» Guendalina Consoli

“This CD begins with my very first work involving guitar (April 1976) and finishes with most recent one ( December 2020 ). It will take a complementary disc (in the works) to cover quite all of the “Music with Guitar “ I wrote in between. The two bonus tracks are encores that Sciuto and Sciacca prepared for a recital in Bologna in December 2019, in which they gave the Italian premiere of my Tango Nuyoricano [track 14], I am glad that I bestirred myself to attend. At this writing (July 2021) it is still the most recent live performance of a work of mine I was able to supervise.”

Victor Frost

1–5  Sketchpad:  Five Little Pieces for guitar, op. 4 (1977)

             A jaunty Caprice, mostly in two parts, sets things in motion.  Toward the end of the meccanico Music Box Waltz, the unit runs down, until given a new twist by the owner.  The Deutsche is of course counted in a plodding three, but the accompaniment to my German Dance clashes, rather, in two!  The Circus Waltz that follows evokes various sections of a typical circus band, even the percussion.  The concluding Cuban Bolero was written for my friends in Miami's Little Havana.

6–8  Sonata classica for guitar, op. 6 (1977)

            I was also in grad school in Miami when I was given an assignment to write a piece adhering to classical style.  Inspired by Ponce's Sonata clásica, I chose guitar as my medium.  On my own, I went on to develop my materials into this fully fledged work.  Allegro subsists in sonata allegro form.  Tempo di minuetto, in standard ternary form.  As often happens in Haydn, the rondo theme in Allegretto un poco moderato sounds a bit different with each return.  At the end, it sounds as though the movement will be ending softly with a pensive new motive, but a final boisterous variant on the dactylic opening theme breaks through to close things out.

9–12  Concertino for guitar and chamber orchestra, op. 17 (1993)

            Certain ideas for this composition date back as well to the turn of the 80s (hence the early opus number).  But I was writing in short score, and only completed the orchestration in the year you see.  The movements are played without a pause.  The slow Intrada introduces a tactus which obtains for the entire work, whether in 3/2, 4/4, 5/4 or 6/8!  The influence of the popular Spanish concertos is felt in the Bolero as well as certain parts of the finale.  A contrapuntal episode led by the bassoon toward the middle of the Bolero is largely ignored by the guitar.  The latter simply picks up again, unperturbed, from the point it was interrupted!  It proceeds thence to a hardy Cadenza, from which it charges straight into the concluding Rondo.  The main rondo tune, however, actually does not feature the guitar through most of the movement.  Finally, though, it adds a layer of counterpoint to the theme's very last iteration.  This imparts a climactic effect, which leads to the work's infectiously optimistic conclusion.  

13  Intermezzo for guitar, op. 58a (2021)

            My opus 58 proper is a piano sonata dating from 2012, whose middle movement I arranged for guitar early this year.  It is in A–B–A form, but with the final A highly condensed.

14  Tango nuyoricano for flute and guitar, op. 74 (1999)

             This work was commissioned by flutist Laurel Zucker toward a recording project that was also to include several Latino works (e.g. Piazzolla's Libertango).  My contribution refers to the famous Nuyorican Poets Café, a few blocks from where I lived in Manhattan's East Village.  Materials are unfixed, and variation rules.  Compare the long intro to the section leading to the main tune's recap.  The accompaniment on guitar is the same, but the melody on flute is utterly different!  And even in the recap itself the flute plays everything in a different octave, higher or lower.  I cannot think of the coda as anything but an affectionate wink at Albéniz.

15  Oliva e lava (remix) for guitar and electronics, op. 87a (2021)

            Davide has promised to record my op. 87 proper, for the traditional chamber combination of guitar and piano, but in the constrained circumstances that have obtained in his native Sicily, the present remix saw the light of day first.  (The chamber premiere actually took place recently in Poland, under the aegis of a husband-and-wife team there!)  I commissioned Riccardo Samperi to devise a version that Davide could perform against an electronic soundtrack he could operate with his feet.  In the foothills under Mt. Etna, musicians sing and dance, but are twice interrupted by volcanic activity.  The second time is particularly fraught with terror, but that just seems to make the succeeding festivities all the more joyous!  All sounds from nature were recorded in and around Mt. Etna.

16  Elegy for flute, op. 16a, no. 1 (1980)

             Written when John Lennon was murdered.  The saddest piece I could think to play when I heard the news was the F minor Sonata from Emanuel Bach's Kenner und Liebhaber series, especially the desolate finale.  My Elegy is more reserved, but is in the same key and has other aspects in common as well.

17  Étude lyrique for guitar, op. 80, no. 9 (2018)

             I canvassed guitarists I knew for techniques upon which to concentrate for nine of the ten studies in my op. 80.  But this one I came up with myself.  Three notes to a beat against four.

Victor Frost 21 VII 2021 Baltimore 

Uno sguardo al passato. È quello che rivolge una parte della musica strumentale italiana, subito prima della Seconda Guerra mondiale e ancora alla fine del secolo, scevra da ricerche linguistiche d’avanguardia da cui si tiene a distanza: un percorso che parte da lontano, dalle riscoperte della ‘musica antica’ auspicata dai compositori della generazione dell’Ottanta, e che da questi procede, per li rami, forte di una tradizione incontaminata e apparentemente incorrotta. La persistente scelta di una forma come quella della sonata, formalizzata e valorizzata almeno due secoli prima, appare spia luminosissima di un ‘ritorno all’ordine’ che, appena pochi anni prima, trovava riscontro nella fedeltà figurativa del movimento del “Novecento italiano”.

Questa scelta segna il camerismo di Nino Rota (Milano, 1911 - Roma, 1979), autore di un catalogo pressoché sterminato in costante dialogo non solo con il pianoforte, suo strumento di elezione, ma anche con altri, talora disparati organici strumentali. Le Sonate giovanili per viola e pianoforte e per violino e pianoforte schiudono orizzonti di straordinario impegno con la famiglia degli archi. La seconda, in particolare, viene composta nel 1936-37 e pubblicata poco più tardi per i tipi di Ricordi, nel 1939: dispiega un lirismo di straordinaria intensità espressiva, che l’autore esalta nell’aggettivazione dei tre movimenti: cantabile è infatti l’Allegretto d’apertura, sostenuto il rapinoso Largo intermedio, fino all’Allegro conclusivo, pagina di limpido slancio nel sontuoso equilibrio delle parti. Dedicata al pianista Guido Agosti, all’epoca collega di Conservatorio dell’autore, è stata pagina prediletta da alcune blasonate formazioni cameristiche, tra cui quelle formate da Michelangelo Abbado e Gianandrea Gavazzeni o ancora da Sandro Materassi e Luigi Dallapiccola.

Più appartata, anche la parabola artistica di Sandro Fuga (Mogliano Veneto, 1906 - Torino 1994) si inscrive nel solco di un neoclassicismo filtrato da una spiccata sensibilità melodica, nell’ambito di un’attività compositiva dalle spiccate finalità didattiche. Tra gli ultimi titoli di un catalogo di considerevole ampiezza, aperto ai generi di tradizione, la Sonata n. 3 per violino e pianoforte risale al 1989, insignita, due anni più tardi, del prestigioso Premio “Alice Psacaropulo” dalla critica musicale torinese. Imbocca, infatti, la via di un tardo-romanticismo che esplora una ricerca di colori d’impronta brahmsiana, per estinguersi nel franckismo vigoroso e intenso della chiusa, dominato dalla sostenuta perorazione di un violino, erede dei fasti di Ysaÿe. Quasi un percorso randomico eppur sapientemente calibrato, in cerca della purezza perduta.

Giuseppe Montemagno

Tristezza, allegria, paura, coraggio, ansia, furore, rabbia, serenità, dolore, felicità, nervosismo, serenità, rimorso.Tutto questo e forse altro rappresenta “Venti Cinque Venti” op. 106, come un gioco di specchi, dove la vita è continuamente distorta, mai limpida ai propri occhi. Come il titolo stesso, nato solo per caso. Inizia a comporre la “sonata” il 20 maggio del 20’, e già dal titolo era destinata al suo doppio, al suo io, dove “il canto di dolore” formato da quelle semplici note che sono Mi, Re, Mi, La, Do, Si, la fanno da padrona.

Matteo Musumeci

“This CD begins with my very first work involving guitar (April 1976) and finishes with most recent one ( December 2020 ). It will take a complementary disc (in the works) to cover quite all of the “Music with Guitar “ I wrote in between. The two bonus tracks are encores that Sciuto and Sciacca prepared for a recital in Bologna in December 2019, in which they gave the Italian premiere of my Tango Nuyoricano [track 14], I am glad that I bestirred myself to attend. At this writing (July 2021) it is still the most recent live performance of a work of mine I was able to supervise.”

Victor Frost

1–5  Sketchpad:  Five Little Pieces for guitar, op. 4 (1977)

             A jaunty Caprice, mostly in two parts, sets things in motion.  Toward the end of the meccanico Music Box Waltz, the unit runs down, until given a new twist by the owner.  The Deutsche is of course counted in a plodding three, but the accompaniment to my German Dance clashes, rather, in two!  The Circus Waltz that follows evokes various sections of a typical circus band, even the percussion.  The concluding Cuban Bolero was written for my friends in Miami's Little Havana.

6–8  Sonata classica for guitar, op. 6 (1977)

            I was also in grad school in Miami when I was given an assignment to write a piece adhering to classical style.  Inspired by Ponce's Sonata clásica, I chose guitar as my medium.  On my own, I went on to develop my materials into this fully fledged work.  Allegro subsists in sonata allegro form.  Tempo di minuetto, in standard ternary form.  As often happens in Haydn, the rondo theme in Allegretto un poco moderato sounds a bit different with each return.  At the end, it sounds as though the movement will be ending softly with a pensive new motive, but a final boisterous variant on the dactylic opening theme breaks through to close things out.

9–12  Concertino for guitar and chamber orchestra, op. 17 (1993)

            Certain ideas for this composition date back as well to the turn of the 80s (hence the early opus number).  But I was writing in short score, and only completed the orchestration in the year you see.  The movements are played without a pause.  The slow Intrada introduces a tactus which obtains for the entire work, whether in 3/2, 4/4, 5/4 or 6/8!  The influence of the popular Spanish concertos is felt in the Bolero as well as certain parts of the finale.  A contrapuntal episode led by the bassoon toward the middle of the Bolero is largely ignored by the guitar.  The latter simply picks up again, unperturbed, from the point it was interrupted!  It proceeds thence to a hardy Cadenza, from which it charges straight into the concluding Rondo.  The main rondo tune, however, actually does not feature the guitar through most of the movement.  Finally, though, it adds a layer of counterpoint to the theme's very last iteration.  This imparts a climactic effect, which leads to the work's infectiously optimistic conclusion.  

13  Intermezzo for guitar, op. 58a (2021)

            My opus 58 proper is a piano sonata dating from 2012, whose middle movement I arranged for guitar early this year.  It is in A–B–A form, but with the final A highly condensed.

14  Tango nuyoricano for flute and guitar, op. 74 (1999)

             This work was commissioned by flutist Laurel Zucker toward a recording project that was also to include several Latino works (e.g. Piazzolla's Libertango).  My contribution refers to the famous Nuyorican Poets Café, a few blocks from where I lived in Manhattan's East Village.  Materials are unfixed, and variation rules.  Compare the long intro to the section leading to the main tune's recap.  The accompaniment on guitar is the same, but the melody on flute is utterly different!  And even in the recap itself the flute plays everything in a different octave, higher or lower.  I cannot think of the coda as anything but an affectionate wink at Albéniz.

15  Oliva e lava (remix) for guitar and electronics, op. 87a (2021)

            Davide has promised to record my op. 87 proper, for the traditional chamber combination of guitar and piano, but in the constrained circumstances that have obtained in his native Sicily, the present remix saw the light of day first.  (The chamber premiere actually took place recently in Poland, under the aegis of a husband-and-wife team there!)  I commissioned Riccardo Samperi to devise a version that Davide could perform against an electronic soundtrack he could operate with his feet.  In the foothills under Mt. Etna, musicians sing and dance, but are twice interrupted by volcanic activity.  The second time is particularly fraught with terror, but that just seems to make the succeeding festivities all the more joyous!  All sounds from nature were recorded in and around Mt. Etna.

16  Elegy for flute, op. 16a, no. 1 (1980)

             Written when John Lennon was murdered.  The saddest piece I could think to play when I heard the news was the F minor Sonata from Emanuel Bach's Kenner und Liebhaber series, especially the desolate finale.  My Elegy is more reserved, but is in the same key and has other aspects in common as well.

17  Étude lyrique for guitar, op. 80, no. 9 (2018)

             I canvassed guitarists I knew for techniques upon which to concentrate for nine of the ten studies in my op. 80.  But this one I came up with myself.  Three notes to a beat against four.

Victor Frost 21 VII 2021 Baltimore