The series organised by Giacomo Brunini, head of the Borgo di Mozzano music school, continued at San Francesco ex-convent church in Borgo a Mozzano last Tuesday with a guitar recital given by Alessandro Deiana.
Before the main recital, however, young guitar students from our area played pieces ranging from Paganini to Villa-Lobos. It is quite extraordinary how a seemingly remote Apennine valley can contribute promising musical talent thanks to teachers like Maestro Antonio Rondina.
After this delightful opening the main soloist for the evening, Alessandro Deiana (born in Quartu Sant’Elena Sardinia in 1979), occupied centre stage.
This was Deiana’s programme:
The Bach was most convincingly performed despite a need to repeat the prelude again since there was an emotional relapse in the playing. However, this showed the young executants that even the most experienced master of his instrument may on occasion stray from the score. I thought the lovely sarabande was particularly well played.
The Mertz pieces are Deiana’s speciality. Joseph Kaspar Mertz (1806-1856) was an Austro-Hungarian composer who elevated guitar playing from the drawing-room cantabile fashion of the earlier nineteenth century towards the high romantic style practised in the piano music of Chopin and Liszt. Deiana’s interpretation of Mertz’s ‘Fantasie Hongroise’ was particularly well done.
I had never heard of Mertz and was grateful to be introduced to him through Deiana’s immaculate performance. Pieces from another composer unknown to me followed. Born in 1964 in Maisons-Alfort near Paris, Laurent Boutros was attracted to music from oral traditions, and became interested in folk music Flamenco, and popular Brazilian and Argentinian music. In this case the composer was attracted to Caucasian music in his suite based on music from that area. Again, it was an exciting performance by Deiana.
Two encores concluded covering South American music including a delightful samba.
Some background information about the evening’s artiste:
Alessandro Deiana was encouraged by his father to follow his natural inclination in music. He began studying classical guitar at a very young age under Armando Marrosu. After graduating, he followed the courses of the late Alberto Ponce, one of the greatest guitarists and founder of an important guitar school, perfecting himself at the École Normale de Musique in Paris, where, in 2002, he obtained the ‘Diplòme Supérieur d’Exécution en Guitare’. As a teacher Deiana taught in the conservatoires of Bussy Saint-George and Savigny le Temple in France and also in the Civic School of Music of Olbia (Sardinia). Currently he teaches guitar at Tempio Pausania and holds the role of artistic director of the Civic School of Music there. He has been awarded various national and international prizes(“Emilio Pujol”, Sassari, “Fernando Sor”, Rome, “Maria Luisa Anido”, Cagliari etc.).
Deiana’s concert activity has been considerable both as a soloist and in chamber music ensembles. He has performed in concerts for important organizations and associations in Italy and abroad and often performs as a soloist. He has made recordings for radio and television in Italy and abroad. In June 2020, a CD of Johann Caspar Mertz’s works was released by Da Vinci Publishing in Osaka (Japan). It was this CD that was for sale after the concert.
Don’t miss the next concert which will be held in the attractive village of San Romano further up the Serchio valley. It’s in the parish church on Thursday 29 July 2021, at 9.15 PM, is given by the “Le Consonance” Guitar quartet and consists of music by Boccherini and Bizet
