95194
Bogdanovic
Guitar Music
ANGELO MARCHESE
Dusan Bogdanovic A richly gifted composer, improviser and guitarist, Dusan Bogdanovic has explored musical languages that are reflected in his style today- a unique synthesis of classical, jazz and ethnic music. As a soloist and in collaboration with other artists, Bogdanovic has toured extensively throughout Europe, Asia and the United States. His performing and recording activities include work with chamber groups of diverse stylistic orientations including The Falla Guitar Trio and jazz collaborations with James Newton, Milcho Leviev, Charlie Haden, Miroslav Tadic, Mark Nauseef, Anthony Cox and others. He has over fifty published compositions ranging from guitar and piano solo works to chamber and orchestral ensembles (Berben, GSP, DobermanYppan et al.), as well as close to twenty recordings ranging from Bach Trio Sonatas to contemporary works (Intuition, GSP, Doberman-Yppan, M.A. Recordings et al.). Among his most recent commissions are a ballet-poeme Crow, premiered by the Pacific Dance Company at the Los Angeles Theater Center; Sevdalinka, written for the Newman- Oltman Guitar Duo with the Turtle Island Quartet, premiered at Merkin Hall, New York; Canticles, composed for the Gruber- Maklar Duo; a mix media piece To Where Does The One Return, for sixteen ceramic gongs in collaboration with sculptor Stephen Freedman, premiered in Hilo, Hawaii; Games, commissioned by the BluePrint Festival and dedicated to David Tanenbaum and Nicole Paiement; Byzantine Theme and Variations, premiered by James Smith with the Armadillo String Quartet, as well as works written for pianist Fabio Luz and numerous solo guitar compositions written for Alvaro Pierri, David Starobin, William Kanengiser, Scott Tennant, Eduardo Isaac, James Smith and others. Bogdanovic was born in Yugoslavia in 1955. He completed his studies of composition and orchestration at the Geneva Conservatory with P. Wissmer and A. Ginastera and in guitar performance with M.L.S達o Marcos. Early in his career, he received the only First Prize at the Geneva Competition and gave a highly acclaimed debut recital in Carnegie Hall in 1977. After having taught at the Belgrade Academy and San Francisco Conservatory (1990-2007), he is presently engaged by the Geneva Conservatory. 2
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His theoretical work for guitar, at Berben Editions, includes Polyrhythmic and Polymetric Studies, as well as a bilingual publication covering three- voice counterpoint and improvisation in the Renaissance style. His latest book Ex Ovo, a collection of essays for composers and improvisers published by Doberman-Yppan, is soon to be followed by Harmony for Guitar, which is in preparation by the same publisher.
Monographic Recording of Music by Dusan Bogdanovic Though I have many renditions of my work, this recording is special: it was initiated by an exceptional young guitarist Angelo Marchese as a monographic recording that unites some of my strongest compositions for solo guitar under the same umbrella. It includes a body of work that demonstrates a wide spectrum from my earliest to the most current compositions. It is interesting for me to look at this collection; not only does it show various phases and stylistic influences in my creative work, but it also mirrors events and transformations that occurred through the course of my life. In that sense, music is a travelogue of a sort and the compositions are “markers”, making this life seem a little less intangible and transient. My first attempt at writing in cyclical form, Sonata No.1 bears very strong influence of string quartets by Bela Bartók, one of my early composer heroes. As in Bartók’s case, the harmonization of the themes fluctuates from tonal to modal and polymodal. The opening movement’s ostinato staccato figure is built on fourths, which remain one of the strong harmonic elements of the whole piece. The Adagio movement is built on a chromatic melody accompanied by ostinato motif in harmonics. A fugato section brings the movement to its climax. Like the first, the third movement is in a Sonata form; structurally, it is an amalgam of the short figure from the first movement and the ostinato pattern from the second. The final movement, which is in a Rondo form, translates the opening theme from binary into ternary meter, brought here with a relentless moto perpetuo, which is only broken by a stretto reiteration of the first movement’s second theme. The coda mimics the ending finale of the first movement. Thanks to Angelo Gilardino’s support and his kind 4
review, this composition found its home at the Berben editions in 1978. Sonata No.2 is a very different affair: though built on a similarly traditional form, it was a commission for the concert series at the Church of Saint Germaine in Geneva in 1985. While the first Sonata shows undoubtedly clear models, the second is much more personal and, though it builds its language on a similar Balkan idiom, it takes its formal, rhythmic and harmonic solutions from a much larger pool of material, including jazz/world music improvisation, which I was very much involved in, at the time. The first movement Allegro deciso e appassionato is very fiery and restless in its nature and presents the emotional and formal building blocks of the whole piece. Tenebrous and moody, the second movement Adagio is constructed on a thick chordal texture, which gradually brings the whole movement to its natural dramatic peak. It ends with a little melody in harmonics, which also serves as segue between the movements. A temporary repose is brought by Scherzo malinconico, which has two sections: a quasi-Malheresque melodic segment combined with a rhythmical flashback of the second subject of the first movement. The final Allegro ritmico transforms the original theme into a rhythmically propulsive dance, ending on an intense, explosive three-voice ricercar. If these two sonatas represent my work in the context of the traditional classical form, Raguette No.2 is more typical of my experimental work within the same time period. As I would jokingly mention before performing this piece, in contrast to Indian ra¯ga, which may last very long time, my short Raguette is meant for nervous Westerners. As in ra¯ga, an introductory section (alap) establishes the general mood, as well as the grain of musical material to be developed further. Since the piece is based on Dowland’s Fortune, each of the degrees of the original scale (containing the motif of Fortune) is elaborated upon; ensuing modulatory shifts and transformations of the original material bring the piece onto higher levels of complexity and psychological intensity. The piece concludes by returning to the initial mood. In a way, Raguette could almost be conceived as a musical metaphor for the 5
Western concept of musical evolution: the form of the piece progresses from the basic percussive and drone-based texture to melodic (shifting from lower to the upper tetrachord), to harmonic, to modulatory and finally, to polymodal structures. The piece was originally commissioned for the Berben collection of Dowland-inspired original works entitled Fortune 1993. When Angelo Marchese asked me to write a composition influenced by his native Sicily, I thought of a poem by the ancient Greek poet Alceo (translated here in Italian by S. Quasimodo), which seems to convey the taste of the sea, the song and the exotic perfumes from the Levant-all in a miniature. “O conchiglia marina, figlia della pietra e del mare biancheggiante, tu meravigli la mente dei fanciulli.” The piece starts with an imaginary Sicilian canzone, which remains a constant inspiration throughout the composition. To convey this uniquely expressive and romantic spirit, I have built the entire composition on an amalgamation of tonal and modal harmony and a flexible rhythmic profile. This movement is followed by a symmetrically constructed ricercare and a slow valzer, which owes much of its atmosphere to the late jazz pianist Bill Evans. An improvised flourish of passaggios and arpeggios is inserted before the last movement. The four-voice coral ends with harmonic texture perhaps reminiscent of the disappearing resonance from a seashell. The Taoist concept from Hui Ming Ching of an effortless way of natural development was the prime mover for this piece1. At the time I wrote the music, I was living in an eleventh floor apartment in Belgrade; I would often have my breakfast on the roof of the building, viewing the whole city and admiring swallows flying around me. This particular atmosphere was the inspiration for this piece. While the first couple of pages happened as if by a miracle, it took at least three more months to finish the whole composition. While both introduction and passacaglia use Indian modes, the rhythmic profile of 6
the composition is somewhere in-between Balkan asymmetric meter and Indian tala concept. The fugue, which is built on the same theme as the passacaglia, constructs the second half of the piece as a mirror to the first. I thought it a good sign when my father told me the music reminded him of a “field of flowers”. Haiku-like in their concentration and terseness, Quatre Bagatelles are miniature pieces that almost act as written-out improvisations. Disconnected moments create their mini-worlds in a way that finds its expression in a poem written by the thirteenth century Zen master Do¯gen: “The world? Moonlit drops shaken from the crane’s bill.” Lonely travelers that they are, the earth and the moon occasionally coincide in their individual paths to produce what we know as an eclipse. Although less celestial, the polymetric cycle works much the same way: it begins and ends at the point where at least two different meters coincide. Written in mid-eighties, this series of rhythmically challenging studies was an attempt to systematize my research and experimentation with polyrhythm and polymeter. All of the studies are based on cycles: the first interlocks 3/4 and 12/16, which is very common to West African music; the second combines 5/8 and 3/8 with two contrasting Balinese pentatonic scales; the third presents a two-voice canon based on Balkan modes alternating 11/8 and 7/8; the fourth superposes a freely structured melody to a constant 9/8 meter. The fifth study, which combines 1/4 and 3/16, was actually the first I have written-it was inspired by the beautiful mountainous region of Lagonegro in Southern Italy that I was visiting at the time. © Dusan Bogdanovic 1
From C. G. Yung’s Psychology and the East (Commentary on “The Secret of the Golden Flower”), Princeton University Press, 1978
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“Talent to sell!” Seicorde Magazine “Superb technical mastery of the instrument and performer careful and profound.” Guitart Magazine “One of the most fearless samples of my music!” Angelo Gilardino (composer) Sicilian Angelo Marchese is considered one of the most interesting guitarists in the international music scene of the new generation. He trained with Luigi Biscaldi and Angelo Gilardino under whose guidance he graduated from the Conservatory of Music “Antonio Scontrino” in Trapani with highest honors and the International Academy of Music “Lorenzo Perosi” in Biella with judgment “Excellent with Special Mention”. Winner of numerous national and international awards – including the first prize at the International Competition for Musical Performance “Johannes Brahms”, an intense and regular concert activity as a soloist with orchestra and in various chamber ensembles throughout Europe and the United States. Dedicatee of numerous works for guitar written by important composers from around the world. He has published four releases with major international record labels. Unanimously praised by the press and by international critics, he plays a copy of Hermann Hauser of Andrés Segovia built by luthier Giuseppe Guagliardo in 2008. Holder of the chair in the middle school music, lives and teaches privately in Partinico (Palermo).
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Recording: January 2015, MERLO Rec Studio Sound Engineer: Francesco Passannanti Guitar: Copy of Andrés Segovia’s Hermann Hauser crafted in 2008 by Giuseppe Guagliardo Strings: Aquila Strings Sponsored by Lunetto Group Cover image: “The Sea” by Rubaldo Merello o & © 2015 Brilliant Classics 10
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Gilardino: Complete Music for Solo Guitar 9425 14CD 11