Simone Iannarelli
Les Productions D’Oz: 12 pages
This piece has a sub – title of ‘Sur Un poeme de Verlaine’, written in 1874 and the first stanza of which is at the head of the score. This latest piece by Iannarelli has an unusual tuning in that string 2 is Bb, and String 6 is F which do take a little getting used to, and the piece is an Adagio Molto of 60 crotchets a minute, at the introduction, this being a set of slow chords with harmonics, moving to a Moderato of 70 beats a minute at the first theme. This opening theme is a rocking quaver accompaniment to a cantabile theme that gradually gets more emotive, and eventually leads to a rasgueado strum of an intense and dissonant 6 stringed chord. After a momentary pause, a new Ritmico idea a little faster than previous (at 76 beats a minute) and involving a dance – like triplet semi – quaver pattern in 3 / 4 ,suddenly rushes up and down in demi – semi – quavers , reverting then to a variant of the dance – like theme. Then a new sequence with highly dissonant chords in a two – voiced structure takes the player all over the fingerboard, taking us then to a return of the Adagio Molto of the introduction, but now with plentiful chords and an accelerando, which eventually pauses on a long six string chord. Finally the opening introduction returns and a variant of the first main theme which now has more part – writing and generally more movement. Another accelerando without a time signature and using groups of different amounts of notes then builds to quite a climax. The Ritmico style, with a different slant to it then takes over and the difficulty factor at its highest here. A momentary further return to the opening introduction, leads to a variant of the main first theme, before a final Adagio brings a longer version of the introduction, this time acting as a coda to the piece with everything closing on a G Major chord.
This is , frankly, an unusual piece of some length, with fingering ideas and note and chord structures that veer from the melodic and tuneful to the dissonant continuously, and so the writer’s style , especially using that uncommon string tuning, does lead the player to have to approach the piece with care. That said, this writer is very popular with many players and yet again he has written something quite different from anyone else, and so he should find many advanced players amongst you, interested in this latest piece.
Chris Dumigan