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On
Saturday October 27, 2012, the XXV Guitar
Convention was held in Modena, Italy. The event
took place in the splendid halls of the
Coccapani palace, headquarter of the National
Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts. The event
offered a new and significant opportunity to
rediscover and deepen various aspects of the art
of the guitar, from the fascinating compositions
of Santiago de Murcia to the many-sided
character of contemporary sonority. Lutherie was
the centrepiece of the presentation of original
instruments made by Antonio Stradivari (with his
famous Sabionari model), Manuel Ramirez, Pietro
Gallinotti.
The conference also hosted an exhibit dedicated
to a unique artist, Italo Meschi, the
poet-singer from Lucca, who distinguished
himself as a harp-guitar virtuoso. Meschi was
acclaimed in many concerts held in Europe’s
great cities as well as in America, from New
York to San Francisco. Numerous accounts remain
of his travels and of his life as a musician and
singer and of his peace activism. Marco Bazzotti,
curator of the exhibition, gathered this rare
and unpublished biographical documentation, made
available for this occasion by Tista and
Innocenzo Meschi, respectively Italo’s cousin
and nephew.
As customary, the organizers of the Convention
distributed among the participants an
information package on the event’s topics. This
year’s package, however, held two special gifts.
The first was a CD of Gilardino’s 20 Studi
Facili recently recorded by Cristiano
Porqueddu for the Brilliant Classics label and
kindly made available by the Associazione
Musicare di Nuoro. The second gift consisted of
a musical publication Sinfonica with a
collection of studies of various composers with
an enclosed CD recorded by Bruno Giuffredi on a
Gallinotti guitar and made available by the same
publisher.
The day began with a welcoming address by
Professor Ferdinando Taddei, president of the
Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze, Lettere e
Arti. Convention curator Simona Boni then took
the floor introducing the day’s events. She also
read out a letter from the Mayor of the
Municipality of Rovereto who, following a
recommendation of the Committee of Chitarra
in Italia has promised to restore the
dilapidated tombstone over Maestro Luigi
Mozzani’s grave.
The convention began with a session entitled
Santiago de Murcia: the guitar between the Old
and the New World
by Argentine guitarist and lutenist Evangelina
Mascardi. Ms Mascardi presented a well-received
program for baroque guitar, interpreting with
exquisite sensitivity music by Santiago de
Murcia, partly drawn from a recently
rediscovered manuscript in Chile (Cifras
Selectas de guitarra, 1722). These pieces (Passacalles
de clarines por la D, Follias, Zarambeques,
Marizapalos, Los Ymposibles, and Fandango)
were strongly influenced by the circles
frequented by the composer at the time.
Santiago de Murcia travelled extensively in
Spain, Italy and the New World drawing from
various cultural traditions new musical ideas,
creating musical pieces of great beauty,
combining classical musical forms, contrapuntal
structures, and African and Spanish dance
rhythms.
Mascardi’s session was followed by a very
exciting moment with the presentation of the
Sabionari guitar (named after its first
owner Giovanni Sabionari). The Sabionari is one
of five guitars built by Antonio Stradivari
that have survived to our days, and the only
playable. It is interesting to note how this
instrument’s most recent history takes us back
to the tradition of Guitar Conventions. This
same model was shown at the X Convention, held
in Bologna in 1948. On that occasion, Andrés
Segovia examined the instrument and signed his
name at the bottom of the sound hole. At a
distance of 64 years from that X Convention, the
precious instrument has been brought again to
the attention of the guitar community. We owe
our thanks to Virginia Villa, director of
Stradivari Foundation of the city of Cremona
where the model is being kept. Thank you also to
Roberto Domenichini, the guitar’s current owner
and to Fausto Cacciatori, curator of the
restoration project and of the studies performed
on the instrument.
In the following session, Stefano Toffolo
presented the result of his studies on the
guitar in Venetian history and art, from the
fifteenth to the nineteenth century. He
demonstrated the instrument’s recurrent presence
in areas seemingly far apart, such as music
publishing, instrument making, and visual arts.
Thanks to a considerable array of images,
Stefano Toffolo showed us how the three contexts
under analysis reflect the trends of their
times. In particular, seventeenth century music
publishing (born in the previous century right
in Venice) did not fail to disclose a widespread
and growing passion for the guitar, very much
present in the cultural and social life of the
time. Noteworthy frescoes and paintings also
confirm this trend, as well as the art of
instrument-making; that right in the city of
canals has experienced a refined development.
Next, Walter Zanetti provided an in-depth look
at the guitar of the eighteen hundreds. He
followed the usual chronological path through
the centuries with reference to particular sound
research, composition, and construction carried
out by Francisco Tárrega and Antonio de Torres
Jurado. Zanetti dedicated his program entirely
to Tárrega’s music. He offered an admirable
interpretation on two important instruments: a
copy of the Torres model guitar ‘Leona 1856’
made by luthier Paul Coriani, and a Manuel
Ramirez 1903 guitar, kindly made available by
the same luthier. The composer and the luthier
perform complementary work, as shown by the
decision to perform this music on the guitar.
The work of the luthier contributes to the
composer’s expressivity. Both have shaped the
features of our modern instrument.
The morning ended with a musical performance by
Bruno Giuffredi dedicated to the guitars of
Pietro Gallinotti, with a careful selection of
works by different authors; from Bach to
Villa-Lobos, all aimed at revealing the true
character of the single instruments. The
performance was preceded by an interesting
presentation by luthier Fabio Zontini, who
explained some aspects of Pietro Gallinotti’s
building techniques. Gallinotti’s encounter with
a guitar created by Julian Gomez Ramirez
convinced him that the future of the six strings
would lie in ‘Spanish style instruments’ and not
on Gaetano Guadagnini’s outdated models.
Gallinotti’s genius lies in the fact that he did
not just produce mere copies, but models
developed through original construction
projects. These instruments were admirable for
their rich timbre and sound, as shown by Bruno
Giuffredi’s performance on some excellent
models: three guitars built between 1933 and
1957 (the n. 5, dedicated to Peter Volpini), as
well as the first guitar built in cedar wood in
1952. The cedar guitar received a first award in
the guitar-making competition held in Turin in
1952, on the occasion of the XIV Guitar
Convention. At the end of the event, the
Convention presented a guitar by Fabio Zontini,
inspired on the 1952 cedar wood instrument. This
is a testimony to the longevity of
Gallinotti’s influence on the Italian liuthery
tradition.
At the end of the morning, the maestros gathered
in the Hall of Mirrors for a group portrait by
photographer Marco Cavina. After lunch - served
in the Palace Halls and as always a welcome
occasion for pleasant conversations and an
annual opportunity to see each other - the
guests attended the screening in the conference
room of the documentary film A misura d’uomo
directed by Luigi Coppola and focused on the
experience of professional luthier Fabio Zontini
and of his encounters with guitarists Bruno
Giuffredi and Max Manfredi.
The early afternoon session featured ‘Un
hombre no puede colgar el alma’. The human
adventure of Alirio Díaz, by Stefano
Picciano, dedicated to the illustrious
Venezuelan guitarist. Picciano perfected his own
guitar studies with Maestro Díaz. Meeting Diaz
evoked such a profound interest in him that he
decided to narrate his rich personal and
artistic life story in a recently published
book. It starts from the guitarist’s peasant
origins and the difficult years of his youth.
It moves on to his early influences (a total
immersion in popular culture), to his meeting
with Segovia, his concert successes and academic
teaching. The constant passion for beauty has
allowed Díaz to overcome the mutual exclusivity
between folk and cultured, therefore creating a
superior artistic ideal, reflecting his natural
generosity and availability. The speaker offered
a special opportunity for a glimpse on a
personality of deep artistic sensitivity.
Elena Casoli’s musical selection, with the
participation of flutist Lorenzo Missaglia,
generated great interest among the audience. The
duo presented the Namasté project
focusing on research around the works of the XX
century repertoire that arose from the encounter
of Eastern and Western cultures. The West has
often been fascinated by the traditions of the
East: an example is the two beautiful -
unfortunately little known pieces - by Terry
Riley taken from the cycle Cantos Desiertos
(Francesco en Paraiso and Quijote, the
latter consisting of a series of variations
based on an Indian melody). Conversely, in the
Eastern context, some composers have chosen to
adopt Western musical themes, such as some
important themes by Toru Takemitsu’s Toward
the Sea, from whom we have heard The
Night and
Cape Cod.
We are dealing with a cultural bridge of recent
musical history, a bridge that enriches both
the Eastern as well as the Western tradition
with new creative ideas.
Reflecting on contemporary music, we should
realize how often the study of this repertoire
arrives too late in the formation of a
guitarist. In this regard, Vincenzo Saldarelli’s
presentation sought to emphasize the need to
make students aware of new musical developments.
Students should be allowed to acquire the
necessary knowledge to understand the contents,
techniques and writings (often different from
the traditional one), as well as problems of
interpretation. Saldarelli went on to highlight
numerous musical examples for use in this
hoped-for renewal in teaching techniques. He
then performed two works chosen to exemplify the
technical/interpretative values of this kind of
repertoire: Left and Soft - quattro
divertimenti brevi per chitarra
by Giovanni Indulti, composed in 1983, and
Elegia mediterranea (2003) by Saldarelli
himself.
Always within the topic of education within the
contemporary repertoire, one finds the theme
raised by Cristiano Porqueddu. Back at the
XXIII Convention, Porqueddu presented the work
of guitarist Angelo Gilardino. This XV
Convention sees him in a concert role with a
wide range of pieces by Gilardino, a native of
Vercelli, performed with impeccable touch and
great sensitivity. Porqueddu regards the 60
Studi di Virtusità e Trascendenza as the
first work in which Gilardino expresses his
poetic conception of the instrument.
Nevertheless, it is certainly a very complex and
difficult work in terms of performance and
interpretation. Several premises led to the
composition of the 20 Studi Facili. These
pages are intended for guitarists who wish to
approach twentieth century music. They allow the
guitarist to gradually explore contemporary
guitar technique and the study of dynamics and
timbre, without renouncing to flexible language,
symmetry and freshness of communication; even
more so, allowing these three elements to find a
place in a concert program.
Aldo Minella was given the honor of delivering
the closing remarks for this XXV Guitar
Convention. Minella’s personal artistic story
is emotionally linked to this city of Modena. It
is in Modena where he marked his guitar debut.
In 1955, he obtained his first level Diploma in
the competition organized within the XVII Guitar
Convention. In this twenty-fifth anniversary of
the death of Andrés Segovia, Minella vividly
recalled the memory of his Maestro, the
excitement of his lectures and the artistic
ferment that reigned during that period of time:
«from those courses began a splendid
renaissance of the guitar, whose effects are
still being felt today through successive
generations of students. The education I
received from Segovia in one decade has been a
fundamental part in my musical formation.
Segovia’s teaching did not consist of analytical
lessons; it was rather an all-inclusive and
always profound musical experience. It felt like
being in the presence of a great performer in a
great concert that leaves you fulfilled.
Musical research and research of poetry
in music are the main legacy that I have
left. This is what I try to convey to my
students by showing them, by example and on the
guitar itself, the means to carry out this
research».
It is within this constant search, musical and
poetical in the deepest sense of the word, that
perhaps the most precious idea of the Segovia’s
legacy lies. An idea that is still very powerful
to this day and that we hope will be handed down
to future generations. An idea bequeathed
together with all the works, the research and
artistic values, promoted by those among us who
dedicate themselves with sincere devotion to our
instrument.
S. Mastrogregori,
Il XXV Convegno Chitarristico
Program Abstract
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