I Just Discovered Angelo Gilardino
As I have said many times here before, there are so many interesting composers who write for the guitar. So many interesting compositions to explore once you step out of the comfortable confines of standard guitar ciriccula.
On one of the Discord-based forums for classical guitar, someone posted an excerpt of an interesting piece of music. When I asked this person what this was, he said that it was an unrecorded piece called “Red” by Italian composer Angelo Gilardino. I had never heard of Gilardino, so I did some further exploration. It turns out that Angelo was a very prolific composer for the guitar. One of his great works is a series of 60 advanced etudes called “Studi di Virtuosita e Di Trascendenza”. He also has a book of “easy” studies for the guitar. And then I went on to YouTube and I saw that guitarists such as Marko Topchii and Thun Le recorded some of the virtuoustic studies.
I think I am going to have some fun checking out more of Gilardinos works. Maybe not playable by me right now, but it would be interesting to check out one of his studies as an alternative to Brouwer and Villa-Lobos.
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Hi, Marc! I'm glad you have discovered Angelo and taken an interest in his music. I studied under him for 7 years, owe him a great deal both as a guitarist and a person and love his music to core. Here's the first movement to his second Sonata for guitar (he has many) recorded by yours truly (you can listen to the other movements in the same album). https://open.spotify.com/intl-es/track/1VSYfhn7EosTf7rOgu1sjP?si=6065940d38f94414 Hope you'll enjoy!!
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Ariel Elijovich, I am listening to your performance of the Sonata now. It is gorgeous! Can you recommend other Gilardino pieces to listen to?
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Marc Adler thank you so much! I'm glad you found the Sonata to your taste! Frankly, when i heard it for the first time from the corridors of the Trivero Summer School that Angelo organized every year I was completely captured by the souund of it and made one of my goals to perform it top priority.
Angelo's music, i find, has two main ways: the rythmical-atonal and the impressionistic-modal. Some people are more atuned to the first and some to the second and some to both. It's up to you to decide which you enjoy more. His music has been recorded entirely by Cristiano (Porqueddu) but there are also many great musicians recording selections of his pieces I recommend his big form-pieces Sonatas and Variations. He wrote many and those paint a bigger picture than the studies (which are sublime roo... rhink of "The roses on the snow" and many many others). And also don't miss his chamber music (winter poem for 3 guitars being one of my favourites) and various concerts!!
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Ariel Elijovich Gilardino's name came up twice recently. The first time was last week. The NYC Guitar Orchestra (who I play with) is considering a piece for guitar solo and guitar orchestra. and someone recommended Gilardino's Concerto di Autunno. Also, on a Discord guitar forum, someone said that they were playing a new piece called "Red", which nobody had ever recorded before. Are you familiar with these pieces?
-marc
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Marc Adler concerto de Autunno i know pretty well since it's one of his most warly pieces and was recorded by my co teacher and best friend and formost Angelo's disciple Luigi Biscaldi. It's a very energetic piece! Quite demanding. I hope you'll have the chance and have a great time with that!!
I don't know RED, though Angelo sent me almost all of his pieces via mail even after i came back to Argentina.
Btw!! If you are in NY I'd like to invite you (and you can share with your colleagues from the Guitar Orchestra) to a concert i'll be performing at Americas Society (very near Central Park) with my quartet NUNTEMPE ENSEMBLE the 29th of April.
If you are interested in contemporary guitar music, I'm sure you'll enjoy! Check us out on Spotify or Youtube and if you want i'll send you a flyer with the specific time and address!!
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Ariel Elijovich I will most likely be out of the country for the last week of April and the first week of May, but if you send me all of the info or a link to the concert's web page, then I will share it with the folks in the NYG orchestra. I see your channels on Soundcloud and Spotify. I wonder if you ever played an arrangement of one of Ginastera's string quartets?
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Marc Adler what a pity! I hope you'll enjoy a nice trip! No, we don't play arrangements. Only original contemporary pieces written for guitar and electric guitar quartet most of which have been dedicated to us. We have promoted the composition of around 60 pieces (10 of which we'll be premiering in this trip) by worldwide composers.
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Ariel Elijovich I just caught this thread and am listening to your recording of Gilardino's 2nd Sonata now. It is beautiful - both the com position (its mov.) and your performance. I'll have to listen to the rest of the sonata, and album - especially the Britten and deFalla. Thanks for sharing.
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Jack Stewart thanks to you, Jack for listening! I'm really glad you enjoy it and am looking forward to your feedback on the rest of the cd, if you wish.
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Thanks Marc - I just found an album of Gilardino's works by Cristiano Porqueddu on iTunes
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Ron I think that Porqueddu has recorded almost all of Gilardino' pieces.
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Marc Adler Cristiano is a terribly prolific guitarisr. I think he has more music recorded than Bream, Russel and Barruecos put together. All new music and all very high quality standard. And he made a an exhaustive work of recording all of Angelos music with maybe the exception of a few pieces dedicated to other guitarplayers who have not recorded them and want them to be first recording.
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End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
