Diangelo Cicilia, born on Curaçao in 1971, studied guitar at the Rotterdam Conservatory and at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, where he graduated cum laude and with a special distinction for his promotion of contemporary music; he then studied with Eliot Fisk at the New England Conservatory in Boston. Already as a student he looked for compositions that would explore and extend the possibilities of his instrument. The five pieces on this SACD are the fruit of his initiative and of close collaboration with Jo Sporck, Frank Crijns, Florian Magnus Maier and Paul Goodman, who – though not all of them native Dutch – are all closely linked to musical life in the Netherlands. All five works are dedicated to Cicilia.
Jo Sporck, born in Heerlen in 1953, wrote “The sandman” (2000) after the video installation of the same name by the Canadian artist Stan Douglas from 1995, towards the end of which two videos merge into one. A second, pre-recorded guitar sounds from loudspeakers behind the audience – on the SACD layer literally from the rear. The live guitarist answers this shadowy sequence with capriccios and paraphrases from which a cadenza grows, until both levels, accompanied by the sounds of real sand, come together. Frank Crijns, born in 1960, calls the eight movements of his “Raam # 2” (1999) reveries; string-instrument techniques and the low E string tuned down to C sharp serve the most transparent sound possible.
Florian Magnus Maier, born in Munich in 1973, himself a guitarist trained in Rotterdam, traces in “Crystal Vermin” (1999) for amplified guitar the slow underground transformation of dead organisms into crystallised forms, using many new and highly complex techniques. His “Toccata” (2002) for amplified guitar and stereo delay sounds like an ensemble piece: precisely calculated delays create the illusion of three guitars playing a canon, one second apart, through five movements. In the surround version the live guitar is heard at the front and the two delayed voices more softly at the rear left and rear right, so that the piece circles the room like a carousel. Paul Goodman, born in Vancouver in 1955, studied at the Institute of Sonology in Utrecht; his “Call” (2004) consists of four sections, each beginning and ending on a held g’’, to be repeated as often as the performer likes without a break – the performer thus becomes a co-composer.
Between 1958 and 2002 Luciano Berio wrote fourteen solo pieces entitled Sequenza. “Sequenza XI” was written in 1987/88 for Eliot Fisk, who premiered it on 20 April 1988. It is a compendium of guitar techniques, above all from the Spanish guitar repertoire, down to Bartok pizzicati and an opportunity to retune in the middle of the piece. The recordings were made in September 2004 in the Dorpskerk in Rhoon; the booklet text is by Stefan Fricke.