Latin Latitudes ‘Latin Latitudes’ is a musical itinerary between two latitudes, counterpoised and connected by Latin musical roots. The CD constitutes a selection of significant works for guitar, written by composers originating from Spain and Italy, as well as Latin and South America. The three arrangements for solo guitar of Astor Piazzolla’s works (the first edition worldwide) share the sentimentality that flows from tango melody, a kind of sadness that comes from a deep sense of loss for abandoned countries and broken families. The soul of tango in Argentina was created from the emotions of mostly Italian immigrants, and the list of tango musicians was full of Italian names. Astor Piazzolla was also a grandchild of Italian immigrants; he would later affirm: ‘Sobre el tango flotan las melodías de los italianos’ (‘over the tango float the melodies of Italians’). When I decided to expand the music of Astor Piazzolla for solo guitar, I preferred to choose those pieces with almost no jazz or rock influence that were able to merge naturally into the sonorities of the classical guitar, expressing the purest and most poetic side of the great Argentinian musician. The first piece, Ausencias, was the soundtrack of the film El exilio de Gardel (Tangos) directed by Fernando Solanas in 1984. The film depicts the lives of some Argentine exiles in Paris during Argentina’s military dictatorship (1976–83) and reveals a country showing barely any effects of the regime: an extreme representation of absence. The tragic sense of absence (‘ausencias’) is caused by the state of exile and the memory of those who have disappeared. ‘Exilio es ausencia, y ¿que es la muerte sino una ausencia prolongada?’ (‘Exile is absence, and what is death if not a prolonged absence?’). This significant monologue is given by the actor Lautaro Murúa in the film. His son, the actor Pablo Lautaro Murúa, interviewed me recently for a radio programme in Buenos Aires and presented my arrangements of Astor Piazzolla’s works, which have also received praise from various personages in the guitar world. The third piece on this recording, Oblivion, consists (like the other pieces) of a completely polyphonic texture, not so easy for the left hand of a guitarist, nor for the 2
right hand, which uses free-stroke and rest-stroke simultaneously in order to differentiate the several voices. When I played my arrangement of Oblivion for John W. Duarte, he told me that Piazzolla had composed this music after a difficult period of his life, when his suffering was in contrast with his beautiful memories of the past. A mix of feelings is interwoven through the verses of the poet Horacio Ferrer, a longtime artistic collaborator of Astor Piazzolla’s from 1967 onwards; his poem Oblivion inspired the music. ‘Es como un pozo en pasión de enterrar / Que florece al sangrar / Los estigmas del corazón. / Luz degollada de un tiempo tan feliz / Hoy Oblivion vas a borrarme a mí.’ The preceding piece, Chiquilín de Bachín, is a popular tango vals, again composed to the verses of the poet Horacio Ferrer. It is a poignant work in which the content of Ferrer’s poetry becomes one with the notes of Piazzolla, who, not surprisingly, told Ferrer: ‘I want you to work with me because my music is like your verses.’ The theme describes a child who sells flowers on the street in front of a tavern called Bachín in the theatre district of Buenos Aires and expresses the strong contrasts born of social injustice. ‘Por las noches cara sucia / De angelito con bluyín / Vende rosas en las mesas / Del boliche de Bachín’. Thus, the poetry of Ferrer is nothing but the verse translation of Piazzolla’s music, stemming from the violence, injustice and trauma of exile he suffered, only to find its purity in a poetic process of catharsis, like the child who sells flowers with the ‘dirty face of an angel’. The musical journey moves from Argentina to Cuba with a piece by Leo Brouwer, Danza del Altiplano, which includes the entire introduction as performed by the composer himself alongside other ideas so far unpublished in the original Max Eschig edition. Number one in the set Three Latin American Pieces, it is a work inspired by a folk song (a famous bailecito called ‘Viva Jujuy’) that originates from the Andean region and evokes the landscape of Puna, the high plateau. Brouwer was often inspired by a fascination with folk music and odd metres in his early guitar works; this dance is characterised by a cross-rhythm resulting from the superimposition of 6/8 and 3/4. 3
When I met Brouwer in Italy, he told me that the South of the world is rich in musical culture and praised Latin America and the South of Europe. This thin thread that links the different Latin countries is clearly expressed by their reciprocal musical influences and the prominent role that the guitar has attained in Latin America since the Spanish dominion. The Fantasia sobre motivos de La Traviata avails itself of a revision by Alvaro Company, which brings into focus its lyrical as well as brilliant and lively character. Although in one of his manuscripts Francisco Tárrega declared himself the work’s author, signing it ‘Fantasia sobre motivos de la Traviata por Francisco Tárrega’, we now know that his teacher, the Spanish guitarist Julián Arcas, had composed this work some years earlier. Tárrega certainly added his personal ideas, but there is no doubt he was working from Arcas’s pre-existing score. Gran Vals, composed by Tárrega, is a vivid and elegant European waltz inspired by the style of Strauss. The echoes of this fertile European musical culture illuminated the great Paraguayan guitarist–composer Agustín Barrios Mangoré, when he moved to Buenos Aires in 1910. He was also influenced by 19th-century Romanticism, and in his Vals Op.8 No.3 we can find certain elements of the compositional style of Chopin: contrasts between evocative and virtuosic melodies, rubato, romantic harmonies. It is no coincidence that Barrios was transcribing music by Chopin when he composed the Vals around the year 1919 during his stay in Brazil, a country that was also conquered by European music forms at the beginning of the 20th century. Attracted by the popular music of choros and at the same time by the stylistic elements of the European classical tradition, the great Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos expresses the ideal combination of both in his early masterpiece Suite populaire brésilienne, composed during the years 1908–12, (only the last piece of the Suite, Chorinho, was written in 1923 in Paris). In the Suite, elements of popular music found a new life, rising to higher levels of elegance and evocative lyricism. Since there are some errors published in the first Max Eschig edition, I tried to find an appropriate 4
balance between the manuscripts and my personal considerations of Villa-Lobos’s style; for this reason I preferred a more lyrical and intimate interpretation. The last piece is my own composition, Dobrú Noc Brno (Goodnight Brno), which I dedicated to the Czech guitarist Vladislav Bláha, and which was presented at the famous Brno International Guitar Festival. I was inspired by the traditional Czech berceuse ‘dobrú noc’ that my guitarist friends played for me in Brno as a symbolic greeting at the end of each Festival (a wonderful atmosphere of friendship between guitarists from Argentina, Cuba, Mexico, Brazil, Spain, Italy and other countries). The piece is a message of peace; it starts with the Czech melody merged with Latin harmonies and continues in a modern style, evoking a lyrical atmosphere that expresses the contrasts and affinities between different cultures. This CD constitutes a symbolic journey between two continents connected by ‘Latin Latitudes’ that share the warmth, colours and timbres of the guitar. 훿 Luciano Tortorelli, 2015
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Luciano Tortorelli (b.1963) A concert performer and professor of classical guitar, Luciano Tortorelli holds concerts and masterclasses together with many famous personages of the guitar world for internationally acclaimed guitar festivals and prestigious musical institutions. Tortorelli graduated in guitar with full marks from the Italian National Conservatoire and was later awarded a Diploma of Merit from the Accademia Musicale in Pescara. He continued his academic career with Alvaro Company in Florence, undertaking a clear course of research with respect to technique and expression. After earning a Diploma of Merit from the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, he graduated from Salerno University with full marks in Literature and Philosophy, completing his composition studies with the Argentinian composer Eduardo Ogando. Tortorelli keeps a busy concert schedule encompassing many important musical institutions in a variety of countries, including St Martin-in-the-Fields in London, the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire in Moscow, the Dublin Philharmonic, the French Guitar Society in Metz, the Louis Leakey Memorial Hall in Nairobi, the Ravello Concert Society at Villa Rufolo, the International Lyceum Club Concert Series in Florence, RAI national television and the Slovkoncert Agency in Slovakia, amongst others. 6
Alongside contributing to music and guitar magazines of international acclaim, such as Revista Musical Catalana (Spain), GuitArt, Guitar International and dotGuitar (Italy), he is a dedicated studio musician. His debut album, released by the South Korean label Aulos Music, garnered positive reviews in magazines such as Gramophone, Joyclassic and Coda. His next CD, which will comprise Francesco Molino’s Sonatas for guitar with violin accompaniment, will be internationally distributed by Tactus Records (2016). He has edited the first modern edition of Francesco Molino’s 3 Sonatas Op.2 for guitar with violin accompaniment, published by Chanterelle im Allegra Musikverlag and distributed by Zimmermann. Furthermore, he has been invited to hold masterclasses and lectures in countries around the world, including Italy (Narnia International Music Festival, universities, music academies, guitar symposia), Russia (Music Academy of the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire in Moscow), Finland (Music Institute of Helsinki), Poland (music institutes and guitar workshops), the Czech Republic (Brno International Guitar Festival), Belarus (Guitar Renaissance, 2013) and the USA (Portland Guitar Society), in addition to many other international music institutions. Recently he has been invited to hold a masterclass at the Juilliard School in New York as part of their upcoming events in 2016, and to give a lecture and concert at the Conservatorio Superior de Musica ‘A. Piazzolla’ in Buenos Aires. The acclaimed guitarist–composer Alvaro Company dedicated his Bagatella for solo guitar Op.51 to Tortorelli. He plays an ‘Elite’ guitar made by José Ramirez III (limited production, made in 1988). Recording: 5 July 2014, Rome, Italy Recording producer: Giovanni Caruso Artist photo: 훿 DiaStudio Cover image: 훿 Virginia Mele & 훿 2016 Brilliant Classics
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