Cunctipotens Genitor | guitar solo by Frank A. Wallace
by Frank A. Wallace
A modern tapestry of polyphony and instrumental fantasy for guitar solo based on medieval chant.
SUGGESTED DONATION: $7.00
Duration: 8 minutes; 4 pages
Instrumentation: guitar solo
Difficulty level: moderate difficulty; stretches
Written: fall, 1997
World premiere: Frank Wallace in Wurzburg, Germany, 2007
Recording: Oracion by Jan Bartlema on Daminus, 2012
Review: “…outstanding musical quality.” Classical Guitar, April, 2013
All Gyre compositions are ASCAP
Copyright ©1997 Frank A. Wallace
Cover photography and design by Nancy Knowles
All rights reserved.
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I became involved with the performance of medieval music shortly after graduation from the San Francisco Conservatory. In the fall of 1974 I joined the Quadrivium, a school of performance of early music in the Boston area run by my mentor-to-be Marleen Montgomery. I fell in love with the sounds and spirituality of the repertoire. That feeling deepened in 1979 when my ensemble Trio LiveOak spent three months hiking through the Pyrenees to sing in dozens of the 2,000 Romanesque chapels of Catalunya, Spain.
The piece starts with not the actual chant, but a second part that comes from the St. Martial school chant. The two-part version is then heard and is woven into a modern tapestry of polyphony and instrumental fantasy around the three sections of the tune.