Giuseppe Rosetta (1901-1985)
Fantasia
Preludi per Gilardino
Canti della pianura

Gian Luca Barbero, guitare

Giuseppe Rosetta naquit en 1901 dans le Piémont et y passa la plus grande partie de sa vie jusqu'à sa mort en 1985. Organiste et également professeur, il fait partie de ces compositeurs qui ne choisirent pas comme but la reconnaissance internationale. Imperméable aux exigences des modes successives, Rosetta continua d'écrire la musique qui lui semblait la sienne, et cet ensemble de pièces pour guitare en est bel et bien le reflet. Introspective, spontanée, élégante, parfois mélancolique, elle n'en est pas moins inventive, explorant modes de jeux et timbres spécifiques de manière très marquée. Le guitariste Gian Luca Barbero a pris le soin de rendre parfaitement cette dimension, qui se révèle comme l'expression de la culture d’organiste du compositeur, dont la science des registres semble se transposer ici sur l'instrument à seulement 6 cordes certes, mais aux sonorités très variées et encore à explorer. (Jérôme Leclair)

Giuseppe Rosetta (1901-1985) studied in Rome under Respighi but soon returned to his Piedmontese birthplace of Vercelli. There he remained, leading and enriching the local musical culture as an organist, choir conductor and music teacher. He spurned fame and dedicated himself to his vocation and to God. His beautifully crafted music is accordingly modest in expressive ambition: elegant, reflective, at times melancholic, generally characterised by introspective, meditative qualities – nothing brilliant or demonstrative. Very little of it has been recorded, making this new album a valuable contribution to a wider appreciation of postwar Italian music. Rosetta taught composition to Angelo Gilardino, who eventually encouraged him to write guitar music, resulting in the Preludi per GIlardino of 1970. These are beautifully and idiomatically written for the instrument after close consultation with the guitarist. Also from 1970, the Canti della Pianura (Songs of the Plain) is a personal evocation of the countryside of the Po Valley where Rosetta lived and worked. The four movements correspond to times of day: the dawn (Mattutino), the afternoon (Meridiana), the evening (Vespertina) and the night (Serenata). The Fantasia dates from 1979, but Rosetta’s conservative idiom recalls the language of his teacher Respighi and contemporaries such as Casella and Pizzetti: he wrote out of time, vividly evoking a lost era of Romanticism on an instrument that sings naturally of nostalgia and regret. As a student of Gilardino, Gian Luca Barbero has become intimately familiar with the private musical world of Giuseppe Rosetta, and is himself a guitar teacher of renown in Italy. The present release marks his debut on Brilliant Classics within the label’s ever-growing library of guitar music.