3 Open Spaces

"I have seen a number of Giorgio Mirto's pieces before and they are always melodic and interestingly diverse in their musical styles. This trio had its first performance by the Trio Chitarristico di Bergamo in April last year, and has already been recorded by them on their CD Light Shadows of Ideas. The opening piece, When You Left, is suitably bereft with a mournful opening that sounds like a sigh of regret and enters solo on Guitar 2, mostly built up of triads. Guitar 3 then comes in with a widely spaced theme followed swiftly by guitar 1 filling in some harmonic gaps. The three together continue for some time until a middle section intervenes in 3/4, built up of an arpeggio line, a tolling bass line and a new theme. The original idea returns as a variation and everything dies away on an altered A minor chord. Light Shadows of Ideas is set over a rolling arpeggiated idea on Guitar 3 and is modal and a little folk-like in style, with Guitars 1 and 2 sharing melodic ideas. Everything has a motion, that almost belies the 'andante' speed indication, with a constant semiquaver flow until a brief respite near the end, where a mysterious section heralds in a stuttering section where the movement is put on hold for a brief while until a sudden return to the opening ideas leads to a brief climax and an abrupt stop on octave E. Dark Shades in the Night is another slowish movement that starts solo on Guitar 1 with an expressive fully harmonised little solo. After eight bars Guitar 2 takes this idea over whilst Guitar 1 continues with an additional idea joined a few bars later by the third guitar. An 'accelerando' then takes the piece into another idea built up on quintuplet semiquavers grouped in odd amounts with a repetitive four note idea that is tricky to get your fingers around. Gradually all three join in, with variations on this repetitive idea until the opening speed returns and it all calms down again. This is a brief respite however as the restless semiquaver idea returns anew, only for the sequence to repeat itself one more time until the coda has a final rallentando and a dreamy close on a G minor chord. These are harmonically very interesting, with nothing too difficult. Most intermediate players could play this work, and with such pleasant harmonic ideas I can only hope that this fme set does well for both players and composer alike."

Chris Dumigan (Classical Guitar Magazine)