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“LA NAZIONE” of Florence – Sunday, 24 September 1995
CLASSICAL MUSIC/STIMULATING ENCOUNTERS AT "SETTEMBRE MUSICA"
“Del Vescovo, or nimbleness”
Article by Daniele Spini
FLORENCE – The programme announced a series of "Young Concert Musicians", without specifying any of the various schools that are represented in this fruitful edition of "Settembre Musica", full of so many new and interesting encounters. Actually the guitarist Ganesh Del Vescovo was to be considered as a representative of the Florence Conservatory "Luigi Cherubini", where he finished his studies with the incomparable maestro Alvaro Company, but it would seem better to remove the label "young", not because he is not physically young, but simply because a concert musician of such high technical level and expressiveness of interpretation does not seem to need to be given the "excuse" of young age or lack of stage experience to keep him, so to say, out of competition.
Ganesh Del Vescovo’s capacities of playing the instrument are first class. He is sure of himself, nimble and has complete control over the sounds he produces. These qualities come together to form the very rare capacity to untangle even the most complex polyphonic combinations on the six strings of the guitar. He is able to express great variations in the dynamics of the music and in the richness of the colours and this allows him to differentiate, to the highest degree, the various planes of sound, thus giving very beautiful expressive emphasis to each line.
His capacity in transcribing seems to move along the same lines. He is able to make music that was originally written for other instruments sound as though it belongs to the guitar itself. This is true of the transcriptions made of the magnificent pieces by Frescobaldi (especially the wonderful Capriccio sopra la battaglia) which, together with a very beautiful Fantasia by John Dowland and a never failing Asturias by Isaac Albeniz, formed the non-original component of the programme.
But Ganesh Del Vescovo’s control over the instrument represents only the starting point of his interpretations which are both very intelligent and intense in the limpid continuity of the cantabile, as well as in the phrasing, which is discrete, eloquent and rich with nuances. Throughout the entire programme, even in the most obviously virtuoso passages, he never gives any concession to effects but keeps up a constant pursuit of a poetic sense. So much so that he manages to render full justice to a genuine masterpiece like the Homenaje pour Debussy by Manuel De Falla, (perhaps the highest contribution the twentieth century has given to guitar literature), as well as to the banal (though very difficult) Studies of Fernando Sor, the subtle genius of the Grande Sonata by Paganini, the calligraphic evocations of the Segoviana by Darius Milhaud and in the modern revival of folklore of the Studies by Heitor Villa Lobos.
The success was immense as were the calls on stage for encores. The concert ended with the repeating of the Capriccio by Frescobaldi.
Daniele Spini
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