A Review of Magie, Works with guitar-GS 201030
A brief interview follows.

Due Canzoni Lidie by Nuccio D'Angelo is a classic in it's own time. Improvisory in character, it is like a wedge of two connected pieces that forms one long crescendo. It is suspenseful and agitated. It is beautiful and thought provoking.

In Europe this piece has been performed and recorded numerous times. It's no wonder. Nuccio's material is for the few and they don't seem to be in America.

Ad Hock, is for baroque guitar, played by Paolo Paolini, and regular guitar. By the title you'd figure it would sound like improvisation. The form IS the material and it has a slight edge of structural dissonance, they almost play different musics at times.

Corale for guitar, vibraphone, by Jonathan Faralli and Maria Grazia Dalpasso on electronic harpsichord, is a two movement work of a contracting wedge in dynamics. The first movement begins like minimalism with interlocked rhythmic lines that become fragmented. The intensity diminishes to a second part that is bare and you hear the chordal scheme of the corale where each player has their own chord. The second movement starts with vibraphone and has a slow rhythm and also has the same dynamic wedge downward. Then the dynamics expand outward to the end. The third movement starts with the guitar and has a Stravinskian sound in the way the chords blend like pan diatonicism but this is not the scheme here.

Magie, the title cut returns to solo guitar. The theme is tightly woven from short intervals, everything is clouded in minor seconds and a very blurry effect is achieved. Introspection is pitted against the large and overt.

Quattro Travestimenti for recorders, played by David Bellugi, and guitar begins in relaxed fashion and tonally. Low recorder and mostly harmonics on the guitar gives this first movement a new age quality that wedges outward with guitar of orchestral quality that constitutes waves of impressionist color. The second movement begins with solo guitar in quiet and simplicity of harmonic material and the expanding wedge once again happens to introduce the recorder. There is a fascinating use of body percussion that is characteristic of Nuccio's playing and the dynamic wedge reverses and the movement ends like the first movement. Third movement counterpoints the previous by more complicated harmonic materials and a more rhythmic drive. The fourth movement begins with soft and uncomplicated materials for solo guitar but again it wedges outward in dynamics and tension. At about three minutes the recorder is introduced. The outward dynamic wedge is repeated until the wedge is reversed to the end. The piece is dedicated to David Bellugi and it is a highly unusual piece and quite beautiful on many levels.

I am only speaking in general terms about the music on Magie because of the density and idiosyncrasies of the material. Nuccio is an individual voice and an astounding one at that.

Probably as much from improvising on the electric guitar as anything else, common to some XXth century composers, is a disposition against direct recapitulation as a formal consideration. The material is sometimes perpetually transformed. Nuccio also mentions that he has preference for Indian music umongst other musics. Perpetual variation is characteristic of this music.

The density of the material has a lot to do with close voiced(seconds)inner voice manipulations. The upper part is derived from at least, extensions or sometimes symetrical, octatonic, lydian material and chromaticisms on these. This is a bit simplistic and in some cases other things are at play but it is a pronounced feature of this powerful language.

He is a marvelous guitarist, his technique is almost flawless and there is technical invention contained in his playing.

I can say that he represents a step forward for our instrument and he culminates streams of music that are blended into a seamless amalgam. I hope you get a chance to hear him.

N.M - I asked Nuccio about his material because I heard a depth of harmonic material that extended the scope of the lydian mode in Due Canzoni Lidie.

N.DA. - About "D.C. Lidie",bravo! You have seen right; yes, there is an octatonic implication. But not only. In every piece (if is a piece and not a "schema") appending a "digestion", a kind of internal self-generation from some primary element. In this case the primary elements are the lydian scale on Eb, but many times I enjoy myself putting in the piece some melodic element that can be transfigured (as "travestimenti"). The new important element, in this 2nd movement is the cell displayed as 1st time at the end of first line in double notes. It consist in three notes at the follow descending intervals: second b and 3rd b (G/Gb/Eb). I transport this cell in various degree. My pleasure often consist in give similar elements in various directions and with harmonic-melodic polyvalency. So you can found at the end of the second line D#/E/C that is a interpolation and an enharmonic change from E/Eb/C; as you can see in the 1st group of 8 notes of the 4th line another transformation of this element in "moto contrario retrogrado": F#/G/Bb and D/Db/E and F#/G/D and after Db/C/(E)/A. Sometimes, when the cell is ascending, I prefer the interval of 4th (as in F#/G/D of 4th and 5th lines).

This is important for me: I create a structure that give coherence and unity to the piece, but I'm free to modify or gainsay it if my intuition and the aesthetic need of the piece request it. Therefore, this cell is a explicit melodic reference and work also underground.

N.M - Nuccio, like where you coming from, Dude?

N.DA. - Anyway, shortly: for me was very important to begin the musical studies very young and freely with my uncle that was a good musician but not own a guitarist but a clarinet-player that did composition on the guitar. So he didn't repress my kind of playing. Now I understand the importance because every moment of study was lovely. The formalization of style wasn't present in this kind of musical upbringing. I was listening to every sonorous event. There weren't even any stores to buy music books where I grew up. I wrote music because I didn't know what to play.

Important was the experience (age from 14 to 18) with the electric guitar because I improvised for many hours and unbinded some physical and psychic mechanisms of making music. And, we know, to improvise and to compose are two similar mechanisms: the first is a dilute composition and the second is a concentrated improvisation. And after the taste of improvising moved me towards jazz and Indian music, where the depth and wisdom of a musician is lived as player and as composer.

Yes, perhaps you can consider my music pan-cultural because I didn't discard anything from my experiences.

N.M - What are you doing now? What are your plans for the future?

N.DA. - Now I'm working to prepare some recital with different programs: my music, music of South-American authors, and in October the "Concerto Elegiaco" of Leo Brouwer. I like in my recitals to alternate my music with South-American and Spanish music. In this I love the innumerable possibilities to give colours to the piece with timbres and rhythmic expression. In the future I'll continue to give recitals and chamber concerts hoping to play increasingly my music.

The material for a new CD is ready. It have a common denominator: the jazz influence. There are two quintets dedicated to A. Piazzolla, a "Raga" and a "Ballad" for piano containing a improvised section on given material. There is also "Due Liriche" to Leo Brouwer (for string orchestra) and will be Leo who conducts the orchestra. The CD should contain also a unpublished piece for violin and guitar and my last publication for Maw Ecshig: "Spazio" for bassoon and piano. You don't believe me if I tell you that in Italy I couldn't find a production for this work!

In July I record "Electric Suite" for an company American Athena Record. The piece will be insert in a compilation of winners of Ibla Concourse (New York-'96). I'd want compose some guitar studies too.

I dedicate much attention to chamber music with or without guitar and to an orchestral composition (perhaps with guitar soloist). The instrumental destination is fascinating for me because every time there is a research of timbres and of musical texture for instrumental possibilities. I think also that comfort is important because the instrument give better of itself and the performer can play at their best because they can express themselves without too many technical problems.

I like teaching and in this period I'm improving my system that always includes some compositional and improvisational experiences. In interpretation lessons I try to analyze and revisit the piece to recreate the composers sensation, in which he knows the importance of the structure, of harmonic peculiarities and every time has the interpretative key of the piece.

I believe it's important to do: harmonizations of tonal melodies to individuate exactly the appropriate chord. This is more important (in a first moment) than the right conduct of the voices. Then I propose to the student to obtain from this harmonic structure the material for the bass and after for another internal voice at least . All this must be in a guitar version and the student must be able to play it. So he must find the better instrumental situation (adequate to his actual technical ability) together to the best musical taste.

Also I propose to develop the same melodic theme because for the beginners is good to free and use the primitive imagination of the "melos". Also I give them some modern material as note groups or little choral groups to manipulate. They can obtain melodic material or scales from choral or harmonic material superimposing single notes to create pieces.

Beyond the large and right programs,it is very important that the student constantly practice gratifying experiences: this quickly induces them in a healthy rapport with the music and with the profession of a musician. All these experiences I'm doing and will continue and improve in the Livorno conservatory and in my seminaries. Now I foresee Summer and Autumn seminaries in Rome, Agropoli and Trapani (Italy).

N.M - I asked Nuccio for a lesson for the readers and his answer was interesting.

N.DA. - It's strange to give a lesson to nobody! However I've something to say, so you'll can publish it if you suppose it is helpful to anyone. I'd want say something about the composition.

I belive it's nice research new structures, new harmonies, new techniques, new textures etc. I belive we need to be as explorers. We have said many things(about composition)but nothing respects the infinite musical possibilities. But the structural invention isn't yet poetry. It can organize the work, to arrange, frame and give value to our ideas, but it is not a despot or a absolute proprietor of the develop of the piece.

It's right to begin to define some important line of the piece. But after, we must listen what the piece wants, where it wants to go: so it becames harmonious and coherent. Sometimes a structure can develop and a free idea can suggest a possible structure, but is important to listen to the constantly changing requirements of the piece (also in the structure). When I say to listen the piece I say to listen yourself, because the inspiration is in our sensitivity and not in some formula....but it's good for me to think that the piece tells me what it wants.

Another experience that I like to teach is about the moment of develop of a idea. In traditional lessons of composition, the professor corrects the piece of student but he doesn't know what was happening at home in the moment of composition. For example, perhaps the student suffers or struggles for too much time in each bar (if there are the bars). Or perhaps he has many good ideas but he doesn't write them because he waits for the "ingenious idea". I propose, during the lesson, to develop and write a given theme, cell etc. in few minutes, to release the inhibitions and the subjection of the white page. Over all, I propose this because it's important to learn to give value to all ideas, to find musicality in each sonorous event and solidify the develop in the musical line almost like when we improvise.

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