V

Description

For his first solo recording, Adrien Brogna highlights – in a double album – two highly contrasting musical periods.

ROMANTIC, Two waltzes by Chopin arranged by Roland Dyens frame works by Legnani, Coste and Sor. Adrien Brogna recorded them on an eight-string romantic guitar (Replica Stauffer) by Bernhard Kresse

MODERN, features compositions by Brazilian composers Sérgio Assad and Marlos Nobre, preceded by an Hommage à Roland Dyens by Belgian Boris Gaquere. Adrien Brogna recorded them on an eight-string guitar by Peter Barton, as well as the piece called by Osvaldo Golijov his « V » gymnopedie. This enigmatic letter V perfectly titles the double album of a musician born under the double sign of Gemini…

ROMANTIC

A waltz by their colleague pianist Chopin introduces selected works by three guitar masters, the Italian Legnani, the French Coste and the Spanish Sor. They share the contents of the romantic part of this double album.

The year 1819 is an important year for Luigi Legnani, he publishes his first composition for solo guitar and makes his debut as a guitarist at the Scala de Milano. This is the starting point of his guitar virtuoso career. He concertizes extensively throughout Europe for many years and publishes some 250 works, the very last one being a method (1) available in several countries. Nowadays, Legnani’s music is mostly known through his 36 Capricci opus 20, perhaps inspired by those for violin by his fellow countryman and friend Niccolo Paganini. His Fantasia opus 19 was written when he was about 30 years old.

The Viennese guitar maker Johann Georg Stauffer developed, in cooperation with the famous virtuoso, the so-called “Legnani-model”. This guitar was copied  for many yearsb y several guitar makers including René Lacote in Paris. On this album, Adrien Brogna plays an eight-string guitar (Replica Stauffer) by Bernhard Kresse.

In 1830, the publication year of Fernando Sor’s « Méthode complète pour la guitare», Coste -24 years old – arrives in Paris. He already had made a name as a guitarist in the North of France and seeks to meet the numerous guitar masters established in Paris. He takes lessons with Sor. One says that they play as a duo in an acclaimed concert in 1838.

The selection of 4 studies by Napoléon Coste recorded here comes from the « 25 études de genre opus 38 » published in Paris by Richault around 1873. We learn from the foreword that they are presented « to the appreciation of artists and studious amateurs faithful to the guitar ».  Coste dedicates those studies of an  indisputably didactic and aesthetic quality to « talented amateurs and to dear former students ». He mentions also that he has been using – « for a long time » an extra floating 7th bass string (D) which is « of great resource» and « very imperfectly replaced by the 4th string ». Indeed, he was famous for playing the so-called Lacote Heptachord. This instrument is the fruit of his collaboration with the luthier René Lacote, active in Paris, rue de Richelieu, known to be open to players‘ suggestions. His guitars were endorsed by several guitar masters including Sor, Carulli, Zani de Ferranti, Carcassi and Aguado. Adrien Brogna’s eight-string guitar made possible, in the recording of the studies nr1 and 3, the presence of this D bass dear to the French master.

Coste becomes probably Sor’s most loyal disciple. After his death, he edits and republishes Sor’s original method for guitar, writing and bequeathing for posterity an invaluable expanded version of the work (2) by the great Spanish master.

Sor  wrote a dozen fantasies. The last one, his opus 59 composed in 1835, is the « Fantaisie élégiaque à la mort de Madame Beslay, née Levasseur ». The work dedicated to the memory of a former pupil of his who died in childbirth, stands out by its particular length, its absence of virtuosity and its painful expression throughout the work.

Parisian from 1831 to his death in 1849, would Chopin have crossed Sor’s or Coste’s path? Roland Dyens’ consummate skill for the arrangement makes possible this virtual meeting of the three musicians.  Two waltzes by the Polish pianist revisited with art by the French guitarist have no trouble convincing us of it.

(1)      Metodo per imparare a conoscere la musica e suonare la Chitarra, composto colla massima semplicità e chiarezza, Ricordi, 1847.

(2)      Méthode complète pour la guitare par Ferdinand Sor rédigée et augmentée de nombreux exemples et leçons suivis d’une notice sur la 7^ème corde par N. Coste, publiée à Paris par Schonenberger, boulevard Poissonnière 28, propriété de l’éditeur.

MODERN

Hommage à Roland Dyens is a commission by the GHA label to Belgian guitarist and composer Boris Gaquere, a former student of Sérgio and Odair Assad. The work, in four movements, was written extremely fast, a few weeks after the death of the incomparable French guitarist. In the four movements of this composition, Roland Dyens’ soundscape is evoked and his spirit captured in an astonishing way.

Like in Roland Dyens’ concerts, the work starts with an Improvisation. The title of the second movement – Il pleut sur Ville d’Avray – a touching lament, refers to the place where Boris Vian was born and died and where Roland Dyens lived for several years before moving to Paris. His piece Ville d’Avril, composed in 1999, is an homage to the French writer. The third movement, Claquettes in the Skaï, introduces at the same time swing and a feeling of happiness while the last movement, Roll and Rock, gives the homage a groovy touch.

In the language Tupi-Guarani used by numerous tribes in Brazil, carioca meant « the house of the white man » referring to the houses built by the Portuguese in Rio. Today, it means « native from Rio de Janeiro ». Sérgio Assad’s Fantasia Carioca was written in 1994. It belongs, with Aquarelle and Three Greek Letters, to his first compositions for solo guitar. The Fantasia Carioca is based on two themes treated to different kinds of development such as canonic, polyphonic, and rhythmic throughout the piece. According to the composer, frequent changes of tempo and of dynamics are directly related to the carioca spirit.

Marlos Nobre wrote Reminiscencias, the required piece for the 51st International Performer Competition in Genève, in 1991. It consists of three parts – Chôro, Seresta and Frevo – inspired by those Brazilian popular musical genres and rhythms. The term chôro names a group of carioca instrumentalists joining to play a music blending European dances (polka, waltz and schottish), Portuguese popular music and Afro-Brazilian influences. This music adopts its definitive form during the second half of the nineteenth century. The word seresta, which appears in Brazil in the twentieth century, is a new designation for the serenata imported by the Portuguese which became quickly a predominant urban musical genre. Originally, the seresta was a sentimental tune accompanied by guitar chords. It was sung in the streets at night. The frevo names both frenetic and vigorous music and dance performed mainly during the Carnival period in Recife, Marlos Nobre’s hometown. The frevo was inscribed in 2012 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

The « V » melody by Argentinian Osvaldo Golijov  makes part of the music that he composed in 2012 for the film TWIXT by Francis Ford Coppola.  V stands for Virginia who is the dead daughter of the main character in the movie. This « V Gymnopedie » appears in the soundtrack every time that the father has a memory of his daughter and when he meets a girl who remembers her, but may or may not be a ghost…

Adrien Brogna plays D’Addario strings on an eight-string guitar by Peter Barton (Addingham, 1993).