Alberto Mesirca Plays with Domenico Scarlatti

I sometimes think that the history of music evolves not through those that simply play music but with those most adventurous individuals that seek out opportunities to play with the music of others. Composer Kevin Swierkosz-Lenart provides a good example of such an endeavor, and his effort can now be appreciated through the latest Omni on-Location video, which was released on YouTube this morning at 10 a.m. This is a solo performance by guitarist Alberto Mesirca, which was captured on video at the Villa Comello in the town of Rossano Veneto, which is in the province of Vicenza, Veneto, Italy. (One can find a map on the Rossano Veneto Wikipedia page.)

Guitarist Alberto Mesirca playing Kevin Swierkosz-Lenart’s “Scarlattiana” at the Villa Comello in today’s latest video release from the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts

The title of Swierkosz-Lenart’s composition is “Scarlattiana.” As might be expected, his music plays with a composition by Domenico Scarlatti, his single-movement K. 380 sonata for solo keyboard. This tends to be one of the most familiar of the many (over 500) sonatas that Scarlatti composed. I suspect that many in my generation “discovered” it when Ingmar Bergman appropriated it as music for his film The Devil’s Eye (one of his few films that is a comedy).

Swierkosz-Lenart, however, seems to be more interested in virtuosity than in sly humor. Scarlatti’s music is deconstructed; and the fragments are then woven into a “thicker fabric,” which demands focus on rising to the challenge of each finger-busting elaboration on the underlying theme. Mind you, anyone familiar with the Scarlatti sonata will have no trouble following it, but the fun comes in following all of Swierkosz-Lenart’s digressions!

As one can see above, the Villa Comello is a seriously austere venue. I was therefore struck by some of the “off beat” camera angles (such at the one captured above). I took these be a playful point of view that offsets the austerity of the physical setting, thus reinforcing the prankish approach that Bergman took, when he appropriated Scarlatti’s music for his film. One might even say that the media crew was playing with the visual impressions in the same way that composer Swierkosz-Lenart was playing with Scarlatti.