Dusan Bogdanovic
Les Productions D’Oz: 19 pages
This latest piece by the richly gifted guitarist –composer Dusan Bogdanovic is some of the most difficult- to- play music I have come across of late. Set in 5 movements, apart from the opening two movements, the remaining three are entirely set in two staves, which make for considerable difficulty.
The opening Ouverture, is a Moderato mostly written in 3 / 4 time with a stately feel about it, but with many places where the rhythmic diversity of the parts does make this constantly tricky to negotiate. The second movement Nuraghe, which is apparently named after a sort of castle is littered with such complex rhythms (e.g. bar 4, set in 7/8, with a beat of 4 semi – quavers in the time of 3, followed by ten demi – semi – quavers and then a quintuplet) as to almost make it impossible to beat where the quaver beat is, for there are a large number of such examples. Of course the composer can play this material, just witness his YouTube channel with this particular movement there for all to hear, but I wonder how many others, except for the professional guitarists amongst you would be able to make a decent job of it. Add that to the fact that the music is extremely dissonant and it becomes an almost insurmountable undertaking. Cantico (No3), Prismi (No4) and Mediterraneo (No5) are all completely on two staves, and are a 3/4 Moderato, a 4/4 Ritmico, and a 4/4 Adagio respectively.
If it sounds as if I am putting a downer on this piece, then let me stress, that the composer writes like no one else I have ever seen, with so many changes of time, rhythms, and with often very unusual harmonies, and that they are so intensely difficult to get your fingers round that this must surely be limiting the number of people that are willing to actually buy the music to try to play it. With that in mind, if your technique is brilliant and you know how this composer’s pieces sound, then you may want to try this one out.
Chris Dumigan