Interview with Angelo Gilardino

This is the English language version of the paper I read in 2007 in the Convegno of the Pitalluga event in Alessandria, Italy, on the occasion of receiving their Chitarra d'Oro award.

Discusses G. Gabrieli's work 'In Ecclesiis' and why it bridges the Renaissance and Baroque periods. A study of key elements that are characteristic of Renaissance music and the musical forms and devices that are found and developed in Baroque music.

Analysis of 'Due Notturni Crudeli'

2012

The present article tries to make thematic the geographical plan of the present volume, by examining the major focal points of Contemporary Music in Central Italy which act as centres disseminating compositional trends through a long-established interest in recent music, as well as didactical structures and important teachers. Clearly, Rome is a more infl uential centre than Florence (where the endemic tendency of Florentine culture towards a sense of order, the settlement there of Dallapiccola, and the rise of a pioneering activity in the fi eld of electronic music since the '60s are noteworthy); this is due to the teaching-through different generations-of Petrassi, Guaccero, Donatoni, Corghi and now Fedele, as well as the presence of many musical institutions, and the availability of artists and writers involved in exchanges and collaborations with composers. For this reason, many composers who were educated or active in Rome developed an outstanding-often prophetic-predilection for mix-media or theatrical works. After Bussotti, Guaccero, Macchi and Bertoncini, Giorgio Battistelli is a pivotal fi gure representing this trend in the next generation of composers; nonetheless an aptitude for it can be perceived also in other composers from both generations (Clementi, Pennisi and Renosto; Sbordoni, Lombardi, Rendine, D'Amico and De Rossi Re), including among the younger ones Silvia Colasanti, Roberta Vacca and Francesco Antonioni. In parallel, electronic music has been cultivated by Evangelisti and Branchi, as a way of renewing musical thought and language from their foundations: researches in the musical application of digital processing have been remarkable in Rome, along with experimentation in real time sound-generation and-transformation (Nottoli, Lupone, Di Scipio). On the whole, the generation born in the 1950s seems to tend (in aesthetics as well as in poetics) towards a change of thinking about musical form, integrating paradigmatic (structural) categories, typical of serial music, with syntagmatic (fi ctional) ones. Such an integration is perceivable as early as in the works of Donatoni, which have widely infl uenced many younger Italian composers, whether they have studied under him or not. The compositional horizon in Central Italy will be examined, with a special focus on that generation, with regard to two issues: 1) Has this change been determined (or helped) by post-modernism? Before post-modernism became widespread during the 1980s, some composers from Rome had already elaborated a language which included heterogeneous sound materials and playing with musical codes, even if they did not deny the necessity of historical progress of musical language. Furthermore, postmodernism doesn't suffi ce to explain the music of many composers, for whom the stratifi cation of musical language and the sphericity of internal relationship inside a work is a result of the theory of complexity. 2) What is the aesthetical and poetical tendency in the youngest generation of composers, since a radicalization between a fi ctional and a visionary approach seems to have been established in their music?

Se presentan las Notas al programa escritas para el cuadernillo anexo al disco Quando sará quel dì. Música para voz y guitarra clásico-romántica del compositor italiano Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829); Ensamble Alfabeto (Andrés Silva, tenor; Julián Navarro, guitarra clásico-romántica). Mauro Giuliani fue quizás el más importante virtuoso intérprete y compositor de música para la guitarra de su tiempo. Junto a los españoles Fernando Sor y Dionisio Aguado, fue uno de los principales responsables de la aceptación de la guitarra como instrumento solista en el siglo xix. En las últimas décadas su trabajo ha empezado a ser de nuevo reconocido y afamado, y de alguna manera redescubierto y rescatado, gracias a numerosos conciertos en vivo y grabaciones discográficas. Giuliani dedicó un buen apartado de su extenso trabajo creativo al bello e interesante formato vocal. Esta es la primera grabación que incluye los cuatro ciclos de canciones Sei ariette, Op. 95; Sechs Lieder, Op. 89; Trois romances, Op. 13, y Sei cavatine, Op. 39, utilizando una guitarra clásico-romántica. Las piezas realizadas en este conjunto resaltan la versatilidad y capacidad de adaptación de un prodigioso y popular compositor. Presenta obras en tres idiomas (italiano, alemán y francés) que el compositor dominaba sin dificultad, usando textos de autor desconocido en francés e italiano, de famosos poetas alemanes y de Metastasio.

2020

has a singular place among the Italian cantautori of his generation. In spite of his early success, a continuous prominent presence since the seventies, and a current appeal that crosses social, regional and generational divides, there is a segment of both the audience and critics who belittle or dismiss him in an aggressive manner. They view him as plastic, overly sentimental, politically and socially unengaged, naïve, and aligned -in his youth -with slightly right-wing petty bourgeois Christian Democrat values. For them, Baglioni is trivial pop, and they perceive him as the persona he presented when he sang his early songs -a whiny and agonizing performer with little to say.

Bridges Across Cultures, Proceedings, Vasto, 2017

In Il Fuoco (The Flame), D'Annunzio writes, "Have you ever considered that the essence of music might not be in sounds at all? It is in the silence that precedes sound and the silence that follows. Rhythm appears and comes to life in those periods of silence. Every sound and every chord awakens a voice in the silence that can only be heard by our minds. Rhythm is the heart of music, but its beat cannot be heard except during the pauses between sounds." [1] The silence as the essence of music, music that originates from the inner spiritual human life, through the experience of senses and affections, becoming a voice of mind and soul.

Marino Zuccheri &Friends, Maria Maddalena Novati Laura Pronestì, Marina Vaccarini (eds.), 2018

The title of this event aims to highlight the richness of the experiences which Angelo Paccagnini (1930-1999) lived during the course of his career. When one speaks of Maestro Paccagnini, it is impossible to discuss only one of these aspects. Studying his activity means going through a series of heterogeneous documents that help to reconstruct and trace in retrospective the life of an intellectual who managed to create a important network of contacts. This versatility of his interests is clear also when the object of research is only one particular aspect, as in this case, his presence at the Studio di Fonologia di Milano della Rai.