Italy may have the most interesting, meaningfully polished, creatively intelligent guitar community in the world. And they are the recipients of a long wonderful tradition of creative guitar that goes back centuries.

Flavio Cucchi is an Italian guitarist that is inspiring composers to write for him. His verve, especially for contemporary music, is massive and this music takes on a character that I believe it wouldn't have in hands of most performers.

The CD most interesting to me and representing the most recent achievements in guitar composition is Crossing Over EUCD1326.

Represented on this CD are the composers Ralph Towner, Nuccio D'Angelo, Anthony Sidney and Astor Piazzolla.

The CD starts with a name that is becoming more familiar to classical guitarists, Ralph Towner.

I originally know of Towner's compositional and performing work through the pure music achievements of the acoustic group Oregon where he played mostly 12 string guitar. The music of this group is hard to describe; compositional, improvisational, pan cultural, genre defying and most of all thick in meaningfulness and invention.

The Suite for Guitar consists of three movements: Mevlana Etude, Caminata and The Juggler's Etude.

Simple in formal construction and beautifully crafted these three pieces are extremely focused on a style of guitar that is truly a blended. The first two are short but long enough to work out the balancing of a ostanato voice through change.

The first and third are fast and have very difficult moments. You wouldn't know know it to hear Flavio play it. His command of the instrument is such that he can take the pieces to new levels of expression.

Nuccio D'Angelo is another brilliant composer from Italy. The Electric Suite, dedicated to Flavio Cucchi, in four movements: Funky, Soft, Raga Blues and Song, are Nuccio's past experiences on improvising electric guitar explained on the classical guitar in a language that is more in keeping with the abstract nature of composition.

Funky and Soft have extremely integrated body percussion.

Funky is a sort of fusion rock piece that has the menacing theme. The feel of Mahavishnu Orchestra's Birds of Fire come to mind. Percussion and backtones are very forceful and the inner voices are clustered together.

Soft has a 3 against 6 Latin feel and the integrated body percussion that keeps time and returns as a head between improvisory passages over the main progression.

Raga Blues is just what the name implies. Song was the most complex formally and had the most rigorous statistic of change set up. The recording had some unusual stereo and room effects.

The first two movements of Electric Suite require an very concise understanding of contemporary guitar. Flavio's interpretation, I'll guess, was aided by an association with the composer. No difference. This has to be one of the most exciting moments on the CD and possibly in contemporary guitar itself. Thank you gentlemen for this contribution!

Anthony Sidney dedicated Changing Shadow to Flavio and the piece is a collection of snippets of the stylistic components of guitar and music ranging from Satie to Yes. It is very arresting in lyricism.

Little David for voice and guitar brings the amazing talents of vocalist Elena Roggero. The piece was written for soprano and guitar but in keeping with the flavor of the CD Flavio made the decision to use a jazz vocalist which is another great moment on this CD. The falsetto and guitar are made for each other and this song may be the only classic example in a small genre.

The CD ends with Historie de Tango by Astor Piazzola with flautist Stefano Agostini. Although the playing is first rate and it is great to listen to nothing in it cracks me up like the last movement, Concert d'aujourd'hui. This is the piece from it that is truly in keeping with the rest of the CD and played with demonic edge by the two.

I don't give five stars because I don't have any stars laying around and I'd have to go in a graphics program. All I can say is the highest recomendation. Flavio is a stunning guitarist that will get a composition from me when I get off of my butt.

Flavio is one of those rare guitarists that expresses music in a way that leaves you breathless and not concious of the enormous technique that he has. The beauty of his playing is very uncommon and as he is a member of that small club of guitarists in the world that a composer wishes he had at their full time disposal.

Being 45 years old From Yesterday to Penny Lane arranged by Leo Brouwer for guitar and string orchestra and performed by Flavio Cucchi and the Tessarini Chamber Orchestra conducted by Enrique Ugarte gets me in the throat. The recording is given that big room treatment which focuses the beautiful romanticism of The Beatles and the arrangements.

The seven songs chosen are: She's Leaving Home, A Ticket to Ride, Here,there and everywhere,Yesterday, Got to get you into my life, Eleanor Rigby and Penny Lane. There is a way that Brouwer reinvents this music and shows us another side of this great music that isn't elevator.

In the liner notes provided by Leo Brouwer he says that each piece is an exercise in chamber music. Eleanor Rigby is a homage to Bartok, She's leaving home is Smetana and Penny Lane has a touch of Hindemith.

Keeping to the romantic feel of the CD is Intermezzo for Strings op. 8 by Franz Schreker which has touches of Schoenberg's highly romantic Transfigured Night op. 4. This is without guitar but a beautiful edition.

Tres Danzas Concertantes for guitar and string orchestra by Leo Brouwer from the very beginning is the center piece of the CD most advanced representation of the harmonic language of Mr. Brouwer but was written in 1958. Again, inspired by Bartok and also Stravinsky he says in the liner notes that the object of the piece was Cuba and the mix of cultures.

This music is so colorful and the guitar part is written so well and executed with so much fire and finesse. The string writing is very rich and colorful. The reference to the earlier mentioned composers is quite apparent but the harmonic language goes further into the XXth century. This is a very fine rendered performance and the CD is worth just this. This is only the high point of a wonderful CD.

La Oracion del Toreoro for string orchestra by Jaoquin Turina ends the CD on a note of pure string beauty rich in Spanish Impressionism. The excellence of the Tessarini Chamber Orchestra and conductor is richly demonstrated.

Another must have CD for it's choice of material. The music is so well blended into a full experience. The performance is not to be noticed it is such a great performance.

I had a chance to talk to Flavio over a period of months. He was, as you'd expect, very busy performing every conceivable type of music on the classical guitar which entails a lot of travel. The first question is based on the article by John Bent on the audience situation for classical guitar.

N.M - You mentioned in an email that you somewhat agreed with the audience article. Can you go off on that? You have spoken of it earlier and if you could elaborate?

F.C. - I don't know if my English is good enough for elaborating a discussion: I am not certain to be as clear as I want and it is very easy to create misunderstanding speaking about these topics without looking in each other eyes and in a foreign language.

Also the particular problems of playing hard music on the guitar in a place like Germany where they're bored with it. For instance what is hard music for you? Everyone has his own concept of what is hard, and it depends by many things i.e. culture, familiarity with different languages but also the personality.

About Germany: I am not sure I understand what you mean when you say they are bored with it. (I said that I thought that Germans might be bored with psychological serialism=hard music) As far as I know in Germany they like it more than in Italy. Germany is the source of contemporary hard music: atonal music developed there and, beside this, Germans , unlike Italians, are very serious people (personality plays its role) and they appreciate more than Latins intellectual cold music. Anyway, as you see, if I would love to discuss with you personally (or in my language) on these things I am afraid it is somehow complicated for me, in English, to develop a discussion.

N.M - What have consistently been the best audiences for your performances and the guitar in general?

F.C. - Mexicans and Italians are the warmest.

N.M - What pieces are you working on now?

F.C. - In this period I am very busy because this year I will be performing several different programs: Platero y Yo, for actor and guitar, then a program with strings (Guastavino's Jeromita Linares and Brouwer's Seven Songs after the Beatles), then I play in a three person show (actor, soprano, guitar) called "Rossiniana", with music by Rossini, Giuliani, Carulli and Mozart, then I have a program of contemporary music for flute and guitar (an Italian composer), then the "Cimarron" by Hans Werner Henze, which is a really good and demanding piece of modern music (1hour and a half) for Bariton, Flute, Guitar and Percussion and then there is an interesting musical project with a group of 10 good musicians: we create some music based on European ethnic rhythms and melodies, there is also some improvisation...this is an experiment. Then of course, the solo recitals. I use to play a choice of the music I recorded in my last 6 CDs.

Some composers are writing something for me, and I always look for something new to add to my solo repertoire, but I like also to study some classics.
In this period I work on Bach Ciaccona, which I never played before. I enjoy, as you see, to experience different musical experiences, which bring me also to confront different kind of audiences.

I don't like to play all the time for guitar festivals: sometimes I have the feeling that it is not a real audience, but a group of "colleagues".

N.M - What are some of the criterion for choosing a piece of music to play and record?

F.C. - First of all I have to feel some emotion from it, it has to convince me: then I have to somehow sense that there is my own, personal way of interpreting the piece. For the recording I always put among classic works something original, never or seldom recorded.

N.M - I asked Flavio about his experience with Alvaro Company, one of Italy's most famous guitar composers of the XXth century, as his teacher and how much of his influence he still carried. I also asked about general schools of guitar in Italy and what influence they have on the guitar community.

F.C. -About my experience with Company: I still follow some basic techniques but after so many years I developed my own point of view on technique and particularly on teaching.

In this I am so different from Alvaro that I wouldn't call myself his follower. I also don't like very much the idea of these schools of guitar and this is why: now and then there is some outstanding persons who proposes with autority their point of view on aesthetic, and this is good and important to the development of the guitar, but when this becomes a school it tends to loose life and become an Academy, where if you don't play exacly in such and such way you are not a musician, where this and that is forbidden and on and on. I have seen this deadly mechanism all over the world.
Of course this is due to the stupidity of some pupil, but sometimes this mechanism is also created by the teacher himself who most of the time doesn't play anymore and uses his power against the pupils.

Flavio went to the US to perform and upon his arrival in Italy he emailed me a letter:

Dear Larry,
In the USA I played at Texas Tech University and at Indiana University (and I also held master classes). In Florida I played for a private organization, so I played mostly for students and this is a very specific audience. Anyway I found these people very enthusiastic: some of them knew me and had my CDs.

In the master classes I found very interested and curious musicians. They really appreciated the way I led the short class. I spoke about the role of the interpreter, how the creativity of the musician plays with interpretation of a piece of music, what is the limit (in my opinion) of the freedom in reading a score, then we spoke about contemporary music: the new trends and so on.

I had the feeling that they are a little isolated compared with the European. Also, contemporary music in Europe has been deeply influenced by the Darmstad experience (Boulez, the post Webern generation, structural music) while in USA you had different personalities influencing the scene. (Cage, Feldman etc).

Maybe in the USA there is not a tradition of classical guitar yet. I spoke with Ernesto Bitetti (who invited me in Indiana) and he thinks that there is a lot of work to do in USA to increase the people's education about the guitar.

In the recital I played Carulli, Solo nŠ2 op 76; Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Capriccio Diabolico Tarantella; Brouwer, tre pezzi latino americani Un dia de noviembre; Bogdanovic, Mysterious habitats; D'Angelo: Electric suite.

Ciao!

Flavio

Because this is such an important issue, the guitar in America, I asked Flavio again just to be sure of his point.

N.M - How do American audiences differ from the European audience types?

F.C. - I did not play in USA so often enough to be able to have a real opinion of the audience.

I think classical guitar audience is made most of the time of aficionados and professional, so it is somehow similar all over the world . The kind of response is different according to the different ethnics: Latins are more openly enthusiastic then Germans, the Asians are more shy, the Americans are very friendly ...

N.M.- How about some biographical stuff?

F.C.- I started when I was 5. (Now I am 47, but , as I will explain, I lost a lot of time. I did my first concert when I was 8. In my teens ,in the fabulous 60s, I experienced the joy of playing with groups and improvising, but these exciting years brought also drugs and politic violence.
I lived through all these things and when I was 21 (1971) I decided to change my life before it was too late.

I abandoned all the pop environment and I went to the Conservatory of classical music, starting from the beginning (open strings, scales etc).

Very tough, but I survived, and I started creating a career again.

I have always been interested in contemporary music, because I like to feel that I am living in present time, and I like the idea of participating in the creation of this time.

I played a lot of modern music and now I am really convinced that it is about time to have a more communicative attitude.

I think that in a composition the important thing is not the kind of language but the presence of the "desire to communicate".

In Europe we had for a long time an art very hard, over-intellectual and super-complicated. Communication got lost and so this music, which became detached from the public.

Now it is a very interesting moment, because I feel that things are changing for the better, and good sense and respect for the audience is showing up again.

N.M.- Being that your technical facility is so great, do guitarists find fault with your interpretations on the grounds that you have less feeling? (this is something I always find leveled at great technicians because guitarists are always trying to keep their high opinions of themselves)

F.C.- I know what you mean, but I am not aware to be criticized this way: actually I have a lot of international reviews that appreciate my feeling and they put the accent particularly on this aspect of my playing. Maybe some other guitarists criticize me as you say , but if they do, they are not telling it to me!

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