Eugenio Catina
Bergmann Edition : 9 pages
The title refers to the full moon in May known as the Flower Moon at this time being extraordinarily bright and large, and so this piece by this Italian guitarist /composer is light, playful and musically bright throughout.
If the piece has a problem, the first is that it requires a 6th String to be tuned to a C, which is something I personally found almost impossible to keep to, as after a few moments it would ride up and I’d have to retune. That said it takes some getting used to apart from its tuning because firstly the way the piece is written you often need notes higher up the fingerboard, and so, for example, finding a low G on fret 7 takes a little getting used to! For once the fingering is minimal and I felt, especially with this unusual tuning that a bit more could have been provided, especially during the extended harmonic sections when you are almost continuously playing them in two and sometimes three voices at once. It’s not very often that I am brought to an absolute stop when reading/playing but this happened here.
The harmonics section opens the piece, set in C Major with an almost other- worldly melody before the theme continues in ordinary notes for a few bars. An extended harmonics section follows that does task the brain somewhat, mixed as some of it is with normal notes in chords. A new section marked Allegretto vivo e giocoso then bursts in, full of optimism and with some imaginative rhythms spilt into 3 main voices. The opening Andantino in harmonics then returns and leads into a new theme that moves several times out of C Major into several flat keys along the way before returning to C Major for a climactic build into a coda that surprisingly quietens down , and everything closes on a large spanned C Major 7 chord.
The style of this piece is quite different to most music you may have come across, as it is entirely individual in feel and with the right fingers and hands playing it , this could prove to be a wonderful piece to get to know.
Chris Dumigan
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