Hey!

For the first time, we’re sharing something from us in the video of the week! And there’s so much more that isn't from us: an excellent album on an exciting topic, which, incidentally, breaks with listening habits just as Leon Albert does with his etude in today's edition. Listening habits are also broken with the Feel-Good Tune of the Week: since Christmas is not as far away as it was in September, we are following the example of every single supermarket and offering you a Christmas carol in micro-tuning. It sounds great, even if it is unfamiliar, and may safely be included in your playlist for this year’s holiday season.

The highlight of this issue is undoubtedly the interview with the fantastic guitarist Flavio Nati, who has dedicated two albums to two different composers. We had lots of questions for him...

We hope you enjoy reading, listening, and watching. Have a great time!

Stefan and Willi

YOUTUBE FIND OF THE WEEK
with TMBM

At the market, at the ping pong tables, on a traffic island, in the park, and in front of a bar at night: In today's edition, we would like to recommend a video on our own behalf.

As we announced this summer, the newsletter is supported by DUKE GUITARS. And because we don't recommend anything we haven't tried and tested ourselves, we had a day-long session with two models from Duke’s Master Series and made sure to record it on video.

The idea behind it was to play at different places in our neighborhood in Berlin Schöneberg, which has become more than a home to us. Places we are drawn to before, during, and after rehearsals, or that are on the way to our concerts.

We started in the morning sun at our favorite market and ended the session shortly before midnight on the steps at Gleisdreieck Park against the backdrop of the fairy lights of a nearby bar. And to keep the video fresh and crisp, we only filmed excerpts of our pieces at each location and recorded them live with our Zoom recorder.

At the last stop, there was even an unexpected dance performance, which made our day even sweeter. We had loads of fun filming and hope you enjoy watching and listening to it just as much!

ALBUM OF THE WEEK
with Jelica Mijanovic

Engaging with the music of minorities often requires a greater deal of effort and dedication. However, the fruits of it are usually sweeter, richer, and greater than those of the mainstream. In her current album Meridians – Guitar Music from Six Continents, Jelica Mijanovic focuses on BIPOC composers. The records presents both contemporaries and representatives of early classical/classical music.

We are extremely happy to have come across this release. Jelica showcases a wide diversity of compositions here and plays them with great excellence from start to finish. She seems to embrace each musical style anew and to have thought deeply about the compositions and the stories behind them. At least, that's how it sounds! Thank you for these wonderful interpretations!  

We were most impressed by Iranian composer Golfam Khayam with her piece “Thousand Mirrors.” We really felt as if we were standing between a thousand mirrors, confused about which way was up, down, front, or back. Little by little, anchor points emerge, but the shimmering of the mirrors remains. What do you all think of the piece?

Be sure to listen to Sonata V (Allegro, Rondo) by Mattia Vento (1735–1776), too. Great music, played with great delicacy! And yet another homage to a bird (not a hummingbird ;)): “The Black Cockatoo (flying alone)” by Australian guitarist and composer Richard Charlton.

This is one of those special albums! Enjoy listening!

MORNING-ROUTINE
A coffee with Leon Albert

Hi Leon, what’s the routine for this week?

This study is about consciously breaking habits, but without losing your footing if possible.

KNOW-HOW
with Flavio Nati

What happens when you immerse yourself completely in the music of a single composer – or even two? Flavio Nati has studied the works of Tōru Takemitsu and John W. Duarte intensively and dedicated separate albums to each of them. In this week's interview, he tells us how this focused work has affected his listening and playing, what tonal and technical challenges Takemitsu's music presents, and how he finds his own approach while remaining faithful to the works. We are very pleased that Flavio took the time to answer our questions, and we highly recommend that you listen to both albums afterwards.

Hi Flavio, what did it mean to you as a guitarist to dedicate an entire recording to the world of one single composer (in your case Takemitsu and Duarte, respectively)? Did this kind of immersion change the way you hear or approach their music?
Hi Willi and Stefan, first of all, thank you so much for these questions. I think it's always a great opportunity for us to share our thoughts about the music we play – occasions like this are not so frequent.

The two recording projects you’re referring to are quite different from one another, although they share several common traits. The main difference is that the Takemitsu album came about naturally from a personal urge to share my own view on the composer’s guitar works. The CD featuring Duarte’s music, on the other hand, gradually took shape through a collaboration with the composer’s son, Chris – to whom I’m very grateful for his trust. It all started with the publication of a score for guitar duo (Fantasia and Fugue on “Torre Bermeja”, Op. 43) and eventually led to the release of the album for Brilliant Classics, J. W. Duarte: Guitar Music, Vol. 3. Both projects represent a personal take on each composer, as they span several decades of their guitar output.

With Takemitsu, I tried to immerse myself in his musical world – I listened extensively to his orchestral music, which I find truly amazing – and attempted to translate his fascination with timbre into the language of the guitar. It’s a challenging task, but one I believe is essential.

Duarte, on the other hand, is much more rooted in the guitar world. He was a self-taught guitarist himself, and I had known his music for a long time, even though I hadn’t played it before this project. The recording process and my collaboration with Chris made me appreciate his work on a much deeper level. I discovered many lesser-known pieces – hidden gems that are ingenious, elegant, and never trivial.

Takemitsu’s guitar writing often feels very atmospheric, almost orchestral in its colors. From the instrument’s point of view: what are the specific challenges or opportunities when bringing these textures to life on the guitar?
The challenge with Takemitsu’s orchestral writing is that it's always multilayered, which makes it difficult to capture its full richness with the relatively “limited” resources of the guitar. One of the main issues with his guitar writing, in particular, is the use of harmonics. Eliot Fisk once said that Takemitsu’s pieces are “as delicate as snowflakes,” and if you play them without subtlety, they are inevitably ruined – I couldn’t agree more.

My approach was to treat these works almost like a composer's first draft: I wanted to reshape certain passages, trying to reimagine the composer’s original intentions while deliberately setting aside some of the dedicatee’s editorial choices (mostly fingerings). For this reason, I decided to add a few harmonics here and there, allowing the pieces to sound closer to how I imagined them. This is especially true for “Equinox”, where the use of harmonics plays a particularly significant role.

In working through all of Takemitsu’s solo works and transcriptions, did you discover connections or contrasts between the pieces that surprised you?
Yes, absolutely! There are certain ideas that reappear throughout his music – for example, a zig-zag pattern that he apparently inherited from Olivier Messiaen – and some chords and sonorities seem to have lived in his mind for decades.

Just imagine: the ending of his first piece for guitar (“Folio No. 1”) and his last (“Muir Woods”, the third movement of In the Woods) are both based on the same harmony – a D-flat major chord superimposed on an E natural. Moreover, D-flat major is also the main tonal center of the last movement of All in Twilight. These are just a few examples of how works from different decades are deeply connected.

It’s also worth remembering that Takemitsu played the guitar himself, and apparently some of his song arrangements actually began as guitar studies – which might explain why some of them are quite challenging!

How do you balance fidelity to Takemitsu’s very detailed scores with your own artistic voice?
As I mentioned earlier, my plan was to stay close to the score, while keeping in mind that there’s usually a “middle man” – the editor of the piece, often the dedicatee – standing between the composer and the performer.

So I tried to filter out the editor’s influence by reimagining certain passages in my own way: changing harmonics, fingerings, and so on – always aiming for a clearer, more resonant sound, closer to what I believe Takemitsu might have had in mind, and to what I personally felt would bring out the best from my instrument.

Imagine you could have one sentence printed on a poster to be put up in huge numbers at all the (classical) music festivals in the world. What sentence would that be?
In these times of war across the world, a sentence from the great American conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein keeps coming to my mind: “This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.”

FEEL-GOOD TUNE OF THE WEEK
with Maddie Ashman

An upbeat and positive melody! It makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning. Or take a look at the sky in the middle of the day. Stress? Bad news? Put on your headphones, let your hair blow in the wind and jump on the good mood train!

Our feel-good tune of the week!

OUTRO

Thank you for joining us again! 

If you want to stay in the mood after reading, we've linked the newsletter playlist below. It includes everything that particularly caught our attention in this issue (plus a few new discoveries). The playlist's audience is growing. That's wonderful.

Be good to each other.

Stay tuned!

Stefan & Willi

supported by

New Classical Guitar is a newsletter by Willi Leinen and Stefan Degel from TMBM. You can find our music and more information about our journey at http://t-m-b-m.com/.

On Spotify, we curate a playlist with our favorite pieces. Feel free to follow our New Classical Guitar Playlist at https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ZwxJRAsW9Zs2JiS2eLy6a?si=9b2a737f01c043a4 and recommend new additions.