An 80th-birthday tribute featuring new recordings of key works by the Italian guitarist-composer from one of his most dedicated interpreters.

Born in the Piedmont region of Italy in 1941, Angelo Gilardino stands in the noble line of guitarist composer-performers that includes Paganini, Tárrega, Brouwer and countless more. Yet he professes not to be the best interpreter of his own music, leaving that privilege to others. One such is Sicilian guitarist Cristiano Porqueddu, who studied with Gilardino and who presents here an appealing mix of the composer’s solo and orchestral works featuring classical guitar.

After the impressionistic works of his early period such as Abreuana, Gilardino evolved a more formal style during the 1980s, beginning with his first series of 12 studies (Studi di virtuosità e di trascendenza) in 1981. The 60 final Studies now stand as cornerstone of Gilardino’s oeuvre, having entered the concert programmes of guitarists worldwide. He wrote his first concerto for guitar and orchestra in 1996; the Concerto di Oliena is his third, dedicated to Cristiano Porqueddu and highly evocative in its opening movement of the rocky terrain and harsh contrasts of the Sardinian landscape which is also Porqueddu’s native land.

During the 2000s, Gilardino returned to writing for the solo guitar, skilfully bridging the divide between atonal chromatic and diatonic modal music in the five-movement Sardegna Suite dedicated to Porqueddu. The collection is bookended by a musical birthday card from the collection (composed between 1953 and 1968) by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and Porqueddu’s own Metamorfosis de la Soledad, inspired by his encounter with the artist Gastone Cecconello.

The Brilliant Classics catalogue already carries a substantial catalogue of Gilardino’s music: these are new recordings, made in 2021 and previously unissued.