Giorgio Gaslini

Plexiglas gathers the music for voice and guitar, and for guitar with other instruments, by Giorgio Gaslini (1929-2014), the Milanese pianist and composer who joined twentieth-century compositional methods with jazz improvisation and called the result "total music". At its centre are the Sei interludi for voice and guitar of 1999, and fifteen songs from his Songbook of 2006-2007, transcribed for voice and guitar. Between them sit four instrumental pieces, so that the disc reads as a portrait of a corner of his catalogue far from the piano and the jazz groups.

The guitarist is Andrea Monarda, who had already recorded a Gaslini album, Dieci minuti all'alba: Omaggio a Giorgio Gaslini, in 2016, and who made the voice-and-guitar transcriptions of the songs. He works regularly with the soprano Ludmila Ignatova, who sings the interludes and the songs. Marco Scazzetta plays percussion and edited the percussion parts, Sergio Bonetti plays flute in Moto velocetto perpetuo and François Stride is the second guitarist in Libras, for two guitars. The six interludes are brief, none longer than about a minute and a half, marked Mosso, Veloce fluido, Moderato, Tranquillo and Andantino. The solo guitar pieces are Ariablu and Dieci minuti all'alba, the longest track at over ten minutes. Seven of the fifteen songs add percussion to voice and guitar, among them Cosa dicevano le tue labbra, Piccola dalia nera and Senso di Natale, while others such as Serenata a una sfinge, La canzone di Xianlan and the title song Plexiglàs keep to the duo.

Urania Records CD LDV 14058, released in 2020.