Whereas Magritte's painting Le trahison des images, with its notorious inscription "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" is very obviously a representation of a pipe, it's not always immediately evident in
Emanuele E. Forni's collection Ceci n'est pas une guitar that the sound we are hearing is in fact a guitar. In Hugues Dufourt's creepy La cité des saules, for guitar and electronics, for instance, the sound is transformed to the extent that its source in the guitar is rarely discernible. Georges Aperghis' Conversation XX tellingly isn't described as being "for guitar," but "for guitar player," whose contributions consist more of verbalizations and percussive effects than traditional playing.
Ulrich Krieger's Histoire de l'oeil, for electric guitar and electronics, manipulates the sound into haunting and mysterious sonorities, an atmospheric study in which very little happens, but whose slow development is completely engaging. Other works use the instrument more conventionally, but few of the pieces themselves could be described as conventional, and almost all use other instruments along with the guitar.
Forni plays
Steve Reich's Nagoya guitars, for overdubbed guitars, with plenty of rhythmic bounce. The two pieces by Japanese composers are especially lovely. Takemitsu's original version of To the Sea, for alto flute and guitar, is probably the most familiar work on the album, and
Forni and flutist Tatiana Durisová invest it with delicacy and lyrical, fluid yearning; it's a striking work and performance. Toshio Hosokawa's Renka I (Manyô-shû), for high voice and guitar, is a somewhat more modernist work, but like the Takemitsu, its gossamer textures are beguiling. Eve Beglarian's Until it blazes is an authentically minimalist work, with just a few pitches constantly pulsing. Originally conceived for piano, it works beautifully on guitar.
Forni and his collaborators perform with passion and sensitivity to the variety of idioms represented by these works. The sound is clean and present. This diverse collection should be of interest to any fans of contemporary music for guitar.