Review

Giuliano Forghieri
Milonga Elastica:
Two B-flat trumpets, horn in F, trombone, tuba

Bologna, , Italy
Publisher: Ut Orpheus Edizioni
Date of Publication: 2014 / 2017
URL: http://www.utorpheus.com

Score and parts

Primary Genre: Brass Ensemble - 5 brass

Giuliano Forghieri is a multi talented Italian performer, composer, arranger, educator, promoter and musicologist. He is active as a professional clarinetist, both as a soloist and in chamber music. He has taught courses in musical computer technologies in numerous Italian institutions and is recognized as one of the leading experts in that field. His transcriptions, revisions, arrangements and original compositions have been published in Europe and the USA. In addition he conducts research and edits music by old masters for modern performances. Milonga was commissioned by the Italian trumpeter Marco Marri and was premiered by his brass quintet - Alti e BRASSi. The composer supplied the following information:

The idea behind the music is very simple: a slow tango rhythm (not a real milonga, it's more like what Piazzolla used in Milonga del Ángel) that gets stretched both ways in the even parts of a simple five parts structure (with a very short coda); hence the title: Milonga Elastica simply means Elastic Milonga (a stretched milonga, in other words). To my ears, that gives the music a Ravelesque flavor, with melodic fragments surfacing from a somehow disturbed tango background (of course, the Bolero quote is obvious and the main idea has something to do with my love for La Valse).

This is an interesting piece, with various gestures of a slow tango that exist in a distorted dream-like world, bordering on a hallucination. There are no extreme technical, range, endurance or musical demands, so it can be performed by a good, undergraduate level ensemble. There is a major error in the tempo indication. It is marked eighth note = 72 but should instead be quarter note = 72. Paper and printing quality are first rate.