Giacomo Susani is a young guitarist (born in 1995) who graduated with honours in that hub of refined artists which is the class of Stefano Grondona at the Conservatory of Vicenza. Since 2014 he has been improving his skills in London with Michael Lewin, receiving, amongst other things, the “Julian Bream Trust Scholarship”, bestowed by the same Bream. It is of course true that these things do not make a pupil great, but faced with this “crossfire” of great names which provide a guarantee, we can only prepare ourselves to listen to this first CD with a mixture of respect and curiosity. On the other hand, we have had the opportunity to appreciate the rare gifts of this boy in Alessandria, where, a few years ago, as a very young boy, he played in the annual Competition, arousing great admiration.
The CD presents an anthological programme – the only great absence is the original nineteenth century repertoire – with excellent pieces from the Baroque period (Bach BWV 998 and Weiss Tombeau sur la mort de M. Compte de Logy), with works from the twentieth century of Segovian influence by Tansman, as well as Petrassi’s Nunc.
It isNuncwhich opens the programme, and we consider it to be the perfect choice: right from the first notes, in fact, the listener cannot escape the formidable paraphernalia of colours and the attention given to the sound quality which allow Susani to perform the eight or so minutes of Petrassi in such a masterful way. Susani is capable of measuring out tones and dynamics with great skill and the attention of the listener cannot lessen at any time during the performance: the darkness of some atmospheres, the mysterious throbbing personified in the percussive parts, the sorrowful singing in the quotes from Verdi, everything seems to form a perfect mosaic which is perfectly managed by the musical talent of the performer. I believe that I am not doing an injustice to anyone if I define Giacomo Susani’s Nunc as one of the finest currently recorded!
The programme continues with Bach’s .Prelude, Fugue and Allegro, which Susani tackles with a certain agogic elasticity (perhaps not always focussed, at least in our opinion) and with abundant use of staccato (in the Fugue), but which suffers a little from breathing noise (particularly in the Prelude) and a few défaillances in the intonation of the – moreover very beautiful – 1926 Domingo Esteso (listen to the final chord of Bach’s Fugue). It goes without saying, however, that such an instrument magnificently supports the intentions of the young player throughout the programme.
Tansman’s Variations on a theme by Scriabin have been achieving, over the last few years, formidable success; thanks, certainly, to the beauty of Alexander Scriabin’s Prelude on which it is based, but also to a magnificent re-working by the Polish composer who has managed to reveal its more hidden and implied aspects, entrusting to the delicate and distant voice of the guitar the most intimate sense of the piece and its reworking. Susani’s interpretive investigation is focussed on the evocative power of the Variations which lead us to make a journey between modal sounds and distant atmospheres, reawakening in the listener – as Laura Albiero, author of the excellent notes to the CD, appropriately underlines – “an imaginative construction of rare scope”. It is certainly another top moment of the CD.
Almost seamlessly, taking advantage of the glazed fixity of Tansman’s final harmonics, here we get closer to the solemn funereal atmosphere of the B minor chords of the Tombeau written on the death of the famous lute-player, Jan Antonin Logy von Losinthal, by Sylvius Leopold Weiss, his great friend. The piece is tackled media luz, almost as if describing a journey into the opalescent mystery of the afterlife. We should say that the guitar version of this masterpiece does not manage to produce all the grave majesty of the original for lute, but Susani puts everything into it to make Weiss’ homage to the memory of his friend solemn and moving, thus demonstrating that the mission is not at all impossible…
The programme finishes with Tansman’s Cavatina, a piece which is now definitely amongst the immortal ones of the Segovian repertoire. Susani seems to move in the best way between the Venetian mists: the “Prelude” is perfect in its kaleidoscopic radiance: the “Sarabande” seems to belong to a fantasy world, tackled as it used to be, quite slowly, but pervaded with a tension that never lets it dissolve; the “Scherzino”, excellent in its rhythmic vivacity, the “Barcarola”, nostalgic, lulling and sweet in its elegant counterpoint. Even with a few imperfections that the young guitarist from Padua will certainly be able to correct in future recordings, Giacomo Susani’s “first work” stands out in the current very crowded field of recordings as a very precious business card: indeed, Susani shows, through a programme of great depth and difficulty, an artistic personality of very significant quality. We are firmly convinced that Susani has an important career ahead of him and a place of honour amongst some of the most important performers. Giacomo really deserves it.
