Review of Patrik Kleemola, Perchitarrasola – Finnish and Italian music for guitar, Pilfink records, 2012
Interesting mix this CD played by the talented Patrik Kleemola that combines an ideal musical twinning between Italian and Finnish composers. Dilated songs, all sharing a meditative and melancholy character, all composed after 2000. So all new “material”, new life for classical guitar’s repertoire that recently concentrates the attention of composers all around the world.
The Finns are present with Kai Nieminen (1953) with his ”Riflessioni sul nome Amedeo Modigliani – omaggio a Oscar Ghiglia“ of 2011, a sort of musical kaleidoscope where echoe varied painting themes and poetic art of the Italian painter, where you can draw quiet thoughts, hallucinatory visions of strong emotional situations.
“Ta-ta-ta-taa” is undoubtedly one of the most popular rhythms both in music’s history, the fate knocking on our doors in Beethoven’s Fifth, as within our contemporary world, the “v” the “victory” of the morse’s code. Percussive materials also serve as generators for “Internal Fire” (2011) by Juha T. Koskinen (1972) where the title comes from a sonnet by Renaissance artist Michelangelo (1475-1564), in which the inner fire revives even the cold stone.
Cinque miniature (2005-2006) Markku Klami (1979) are, as the title says, small genre scenes. The ingredients – sudden stops, asymmetrical rhythms, multiply triplets, repetitions – reveal that the images are painted in recurring situations, cyclic variations of the same atmosphere. structurally these miniatures have a cyclical, organic nature, underlined by the fact that each miniature starts using the last sounds of the previous one. Five miniatures is one of the three pieces for guitar Klami wrote for Kleemola.
Francesco Maggio (1986) is the first Italian composers with the song “cCALAU – Tre canti per ringraziare il sole ” (2011), a music full of expressive power that honors the sun, the source of all life. According to the composer, the term “calau” indicates precisely the mysterious moment that precedes the rising of the sun, and that represents the beginning of the song that later develops as the sun rises and grows in the sky .
Marcela Pavia (1957) is an Italian-Argentine composer whose catalog included many works for guitar, The Banshee ‘s Keen (2009) is part of the series of pieces for guitar in which the author wants to bring to light the mythological beings of British Isles, the Banshee is a female figure in Irish sagas, a scary character that announce death: it’s not surprising that the song leads the “nervous” indication and the result is a rather haunting and dissonant music, with a complex rhythmic and .. it could not be otherwise since the topic.
FlankY (2010) of the Italian composer Mauro Porro (1956) goes beyond a plurality of styles, funky syncopated rhythms, rock’s chords, flamenco’s quotes, pentatonic blues scale, but already the title says a lot: Fla (menco-fu} nky.
The Suite Liol・(2009-2010) by Andrea Talmelli (1950) is based on eponymous theater piece by Sicilian Nobel Prize Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936): the protagonist is Liol・ a free single middle aged man that believes into flesh’s joys, he had several childrens by different women, Liol・is a good father, but can not take care of the mothers of his childrens, the song of Talmelli follows comedy’s situations and sentiments.changes.
The record ends with Perchitarrasola (2009) by Ada Gentile (1947) and it’s part of a series of works for solo instrument. A very refined piece created in a style of the past, particularly melodic and intense.
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