Immagini, (1994-1996), for solo guitar. Dedicated to Emanuele Segre.

- II "Ricordi?" ("Do you remember?")
- III Musique de balafon (African Marimba Music)
- IV Meditazione (Meditation)
- V Finale (Ending)

Recording data: 4th Movement (Meditazione) (Meditation), live recording, May 2nd, 1997, Brugherio (Milan, Italy), Agorarte concert season, guitarist Emanuele Segre.

(Jump to AUTHOR'S PRESENTATION)

REVIEWS
"Among the new compositions that give their contribution to enrich the guitar repertoire in these years, we present "Immagini", a small suite in five movements by Giovanni Grosskopf, composed between 1994 and 1996 and recently published by Edizioni Suvini Zerboni. (...) A collaboration between the author and the guitarist Emanuele Segre has been developed, that has led to a testing of the technical and instrumental features of the piece, until the piece has been premiered at The Hague, in the spring of 1995. In the same year other two works that include the guitar have been produced: "Lark Music" - for voice, flute and guitar - and "Melodia" - for trombone, flute and guitar - , the same unusual ensemble used in the trio composed by the Hungarian composer György Kurtag. As declared, "Immagini" is composed by five contrasting and well-individuated parts: each movement is a sort of study (...) on a specific aspect of the guitar technique, to discover its expressive possibilities, its colors and peculiar timbres (...). The piece begins with a movement named "Crystal in the Silence" (a little homage to Webern), in which Grosskopf uses a compositional style derived by serialism, generating a delicate and transparent polyphony: (...) one perceives a feeling of purity and lyrism of the single dissonant interval, as we have heard many times in Webern's music, as in the music by Niccolò Castiglioni. In the second movement, again of lyrical mood, but veined with melancholy, (...) owing to which a Norwegian folk tune appears, in an oneiric athmosphere: like a lullaby or a rhyme that one's thought is recalling from a distance, "Ricordi?" ("Do You Remember?") ends in a few bars, like a dream that, when is still taking its shape, is already fading away. The quotation of a folk song is not accidental in Grosskopf's music, but on the contrary shows his profound interest for the ethnic music (...). And exactly to the influences induced by listening it "Musique de balafon", third movement of "Immagini", dues its existence. In this movement the guitar, through the use of percussive sounds, is transformed into this African folk music instrument (...) and engages in a lively and unresting dance, which recalls the athmosphere of a revelling village. (...) Thus we come to the fourth movement, "Meditation", a piece that studies the tunefulness and lyrical expression of the melody, in which the author actuates a personal harmonic research that, though completely autonomous from the tonal system, aims, through new chordal combinations, to create a harmonical system capable to exalt and follow the natural alternation of tension and relaxation in the melody. The author introduces this movement in the following way: "I consider this fourth movement, "Meditation", as one of my best ones. In fact it is the proof that very natural and evident melodies can be composed even in a non-tonal context, not disjoined to a deep communicative eloquence and a great attention to the use of atonal chords that match the melody." A goal that Grosskopf is now continously developing and refining in his more recent compositions, and a research that has been actuated also through the development of a music software to classify the chords (...), now already distributed on the Web. The score ends with a "Finale" ("Ending"), having a "nervous and stamping character, as many traditional finals", in which one hears the echoes of Irish fiddles, (...) (and) dancing, the rhythms of the balafon appear again, to fade away covered by the trills and the rasgueados , until the brilliant and resounding conclusion of this last piece. An interesting work, the happy beginning of Grosskopf's relationship with our instrument (that is already producing another new work for solo guitar) and a work that, owing to the clarity of style and to a well-balanced use of the non traditional techniques, can be studied by pupils of the last years of the guitar course, and by young performers interested to the New Music."

-Elena Càsoli, guitarist, review on "Il Fronimo", guitar and lute magazine, 1999

"From the suite Immagini (Images) for guitar, dated 1994-1996, let's listen to the movements "Ricordi?" ("Do you Remember?" ), Musique de Balafon ("African Marimba Music") and Finale (Ending), three out of the five movements of the suite, short pieces to exemplify Grosskopf's artistic homage to ethnic music, that becomes creative gesture, soundness of thought, archaic signs observed in ecstatic rapture. The distant memory in "Ricordi?" - which is not, however, in Grosskopf's typical style, is given by a harmonics pattern, touching the notes of a pentatonic Norwegian popular song. The second movement suggests sonority, rhythms and stylistic features of the balafon, the African percussion instrument similar to a marimba. The Finale is nervous and stamping, Dionysian, a real 'tour de force' for the performer, whose absolute speed and precision are required. "

- Enrico Raggi, musicologist, Vatican Radio, January 6th, 1999

AUTHOR'S PRESENTATION
The simplest way to introduce this piece is to report Emanuele Segre's notes - enriching and commenting them. This composition has in fact been dedicated to the Milanese guitar player, on occasion of the concert program during the XIV International Guitar Festival in Busto Arsizio.
I am not a guitar player and it has been very interesting to cooperate with Segre, learning little by little the possibilities of this instrument, and writing for it. This kind of work is very important for all composers. That program notes said:
"Immagini (that means "Images", "Pictures"), by Giovanni Grosskopf, is a little suite in five movements. The first one, "Nel silenzio, un cristallo" (Crystal in the Silence), is not typical of Grosskopf's Style, but evidently wants to pay homage to Anton Webern (the great Austrian composer of the first half of the 20th Century, therefore far from us), whose style is here somehow recreated. The second movement, "Ricordi?" ("Do you remember?") and the third one, "Musique de balafon" (African Marimba Music) fully reveal the composer's interest in ethnic music: one of them (very traditionally conceived) takes a Norwegian popular song as a starting point, and the structure of the other one recalls sonorities and stylistic characteristics of the balafon, an African percussion instrument, and reminds African rhythms.
The fourth piece, "Meditazione" (Meditation), is composed of melodic phrases, lyrical and very tuneful, in an atonal context."
I consider this fourth movement, "Meditazione", as one of my best ones. In fact it is the proof that very natural and evident melodies can be composed even in a non-tonal context, not disjoined to a deep communicative eloquence and a great attention to the use of atonal chords that match the melody. I personally consider this movement as the best one of the suite and much more important than the other ones.
"The last nervous and stamping movement, "Finale" (Ending), concludes the piece in a brilliant virtuosic way, as many traditional finals. Each movement is also treated as a study upon a specific aspect of the guitar technique: the first piece is about polyphony, with two well distinct voices, the second is a study on harmonics, the third on rhythm, the fourth on melody rendering, the fifth on precision in speed."
The suite Immagini has been my greatest success up to now, greatly appreciated by the public and the artists who have studied and performed it. It has been performed by many guitar players, for instance also Silvia Cesco, in very important international concert seasons in Holland, twice in Brazil, in the U.S.A. (Green Hall in S.Francisco) and in Switzerland and, of course, in various places in Italy (among many others the Busto Arsizio and Portogruaro festivals).
It has been published by Suvini Zerboni, Milan, Italy. Publishing data:
Author: Giovanni Grosskopf; Title: Immagini; Instruments: guitar; Form: Suite in five movements that can also be played separately; Year of composition: 1994; Year of publishing: 1999; Pages: 15; Duration: about 10 minutes; Publisher: Copyright © Edizioni Suvini Zerboni, Milan, Italy, 1999; CATALOG NUMBER: S.11445 Z.; Fingerings by Emanuele Segre.

PUBLISHER'S SITE