Genealogia: Italian Contemporary Music For Guitar – Angelo Colone

The idea underlying this Da Vinci Classics album is to gather together a collection of pieces which have been significant in the performing artist’s life. These include pieces which have been dedicated to him, pieces he premiered, or pieces he found – as we will see in the forthcoming pages. In Colone’s own words, they represent “a corpus of works which are close to me”.
The soloist has always been deeply interested in contemporary and modern music, realizing many premieres and recordings of works by important composers such as Gilardino or Pärt; his artistic perspective is therefore conditioned by his predilection for today’s music.
Moreover, in the performer’s words, “I have searched in a non-programmatic fashion; rather, in a disordered, chaotic and causal way. So I found different styles and languages”. Indeed, this CD gathers works whose language, form and cultural attitude toward modernity are almost antithetical. There are works inspired by early music, as in the case of Metamorfosi su un tema di John Dowland, alluding to the great lutenist of the English Renaissance, or the short Toccata in the style of Leopold Weiss, a German Baroque lutenist.
By way of contrast, the language of Franco Cavallone is entirely his own. This guitarist and composer is being held in high consideration by many performers. His compositional idiom resists all simplistic classifications, and refers to an entire musical world with which he feels some kind of affinity. His style encompasses jazz or descriptive music, but goes beyond them both with an absolutely personal intention. His sonatina in three movements, Cerveteri, was written for Colone who actually lives in the city of Cerveteri.
This album also includes works by Angelo Gilardino, defined by Colone as the “guiding light of contemporary guitar music”. His language is reminiscent of the modal style, but his perspective is strongly idiomatic, “built on the guitar, on the idea and the effects created by its resonances and on its aural world”, in Colone’s words. Gilardino’s Angelus is inspired by the Gospel episode of the Annunciation, referring to the three moments of the narrative. The main “characters” are the Angel and the Virgin Mary, in dialogue with each other as the young girl is told that she will become the Mother of Christ.