Guitar SKU: UT.CH-111
Notturno - Napolitana - Roma. Composed by Francesco Balilla Pratella. Edited by Maurizio Mazzoli. Saddle stitching. Classical. Ut Orpheus #CH 111. Published by Ut Orpheus (UT.CH-111). ISBN 9790215316317. 9 x 12 inches.
The three original pieces for guitar Notturno, Napolitana (popolar songs) and Roma (March for guitar), together with three transcriptions, are included in a manuscript of 36 pages, noting in the frontispiece “Transcriptions and compositions of F. Balilla Pratella sent as a tribute to M.R. Brondi (1920)”.
These compositions follow a traditional language, and, in the tonality and the alternating themes, are an expression of Pratella’s folkloric vein, with cantabile and melancholy melodies, with the exception of the march, that show some echoes of the nineteenth century guitar masters’ way of composing.
There is a characteristic use of the quartine with no alternated thumb forefinger tremolo, that immediately recalls the plectrum orchestra so much used by Pratella in his youth.
The discovery of these pieces – which happened accidentally and saved them from certain destruction – contributes to enhance that period of great guitarist turmoil preceding Segovia, establishing itself at the beginning of twentieth century in Italy with three compositions from an author that, along with the Bonaccorsi and Colacicchi, anticipated that current – already initiated by the Fara, Gabriel, Caravaglios – which was, in the following decades, to go by the name of ethnomusicology.
