Choral and Orchestral Music

Gabriele Saro, irreprobative talent and free spirit. His vast, lameme production is the figure of an artistic personality who does not shy away from the incessant challenge towards talking horizons... and in 2017 he completed "MISSA SOLEMNIS "IN GLORIA DEI" FOR CHOIR, ORGAN AND ORCHESTRA": opera trinùzia, since it marries the broad celebratory, the lyrical and the severe. Ineradicable my approach with the composer when I attended the "live" performance of the opera: Gabriele Saro, inexplicably, immediately forced me to look for reference points to which I would stick in an attempt to classify it. But why was I in this state of constriction for his sacral composition? I had to take advantage of the experience to assault me: only those who prove to be a refined composer make you oblige, initially, to "this research". And so, abandoning what could perhaps be mere curiosity, without further delay, healthily capitulating, I recognized his exquisite, accurate, fine identity.

"MISSA SOLEMNIS "IN GLORIA DEI"...»... not only the "Mediterranean" character of the score but also the arrangement of the "elements" that make up the composition, enhance the relationship with religion, a bursting, nanny, prosperous relationship and also full of trepidance... trepidation like Kyrie: subdued "openness" as if it were being born from an indescribable silent heart of the earth.

Freshness and liveliness in the vocal expression and the tonal tablet of the orchestra: it seems a model of big-screen direction, totally suasive for any peremptor, from the most competent to the most neophyte. Slow "slips" destroy the heart that is in full swing when the aura of ancient crosses it; a fervent dawn discovers your chest when harmony takes on the outspoken late-romantic flavor; a vulcanal wind crosses you when the "head" invades the orchestra; the majestic lashes you, lifes you... notes overflowing with all wealth that seem waiting for our amazement to leap into it like festive springs.  The voices, perfectly adapted to their roles and saro's virtuosic writing, go hand in hand with the rigorous sound tightness: indeed, maestro Gabriele, draws a reading of great expressive power.

One cannot but pay attention to two robust and true elements in the Imaginative Saroiano: persuasive effectiveness and feeric vision. The interpreter who will be going to face this eternal value of Saro, will therefore have to grasp and evoke the strong and authentic elements of him: if the interpreter believes in the feelings of candidness, elevation and spirituality that this work presupposes, worthy of trust will also be his interpretation.  
Gabriele Saro lives in the sign of fluent communication with the public on all continents.

CLAUDIO GARDENAL

Title of the work: «“O Quam Gloriosum” — Eight Simple Masses»
Creator: Maestro Gabriele Saro

…and so I started listening to his «Eight Simple Masses». To be honest, I had been mulling over to myself for a while: «“Simple”… hm, a challenging adjective, full of meaning. What awaits me? “Simplicity” is an exceptional virtue: in fact it is quite rare. Being simple is an extraordinary thing!
I return to the topic: «“O Quam Gloriosum” – Eight Simple Masses». Song after song, Gabriele Saro unleashes his fantasy, his imagination: five after five, his writing becomes a luminous gesture of offering. Romantic flows, intense and… nostalgic atmosphere. Yes, Gabriele, with the notes that spread in an adoring flight, manages to insinuate into us the nostalgia for broader horizons, while instead with the liveliness and expressive fervor, he makes us understand that the woman in prayer is "condemned" to nostalgia , that the man in prayer is "condemned" to nostalgia: they feel the debasement of their situation, of their "reasonableness" and rush towards an adventure full of charm and risk. Everything is lovely, inspired, evocative. “Self-sufficient” compositions – I mean not at all ornamental – and rigorously constructed. Gentle alternation of "sound weights": "empty" and "full" which can give, at the time, an impression of roughness but instead it is precisely the emotional essentiality that gives sculptural beauty and gives the lines their continuity. The slow movements have enchantingly lyrical tones and the melodic invention is capricciate. Nothing is over the top: as always, after all, in the music of the heart and head of Gabriele Saro.
A completely personal idea: works like these would be somewhat sacrificed in the studio while in live performance, strength and freshness remain intact.
«“O Quam Gloriosum” – Eight Simple Masses» is a “work” referring exclusively to God and to the sisters and brothers and nothing, absolutely nothing, remains outside these poles of attraction. There are no particles, no matter how tiny, rotating disorderly around other orbits. Saro's simplicity is, therefore, openness to above and openness to others.
«The Mass is over: go in peace!». Gabriele Saro's «Simple Masses» instead say: «Go, because the Mass is not over!». We get up from Mensa and start working: we bring out what we have received, we bring out what we have become... we bring out what we have become.

Claudio Gardenal

Title of the work: “Eternal Light”
Creator: Maestro Gabriele Saro

Gabriele Saro felt called to make his own, irreplaceable, contribution of clarity and here he gives us the flow of the refined, graceful notes of "Eternal Light"... melodic profiles of singing perfection that float on the dawn that touches the heart. Saro's five songs - songs without a single weak moment - envelop, captivate: thanks precisely to the accurate writing and the uninterrupted definition of spaces that keeps the sound material under control. Saro's sacred music is full of clarity which is sincerity: «... whoever works the truth comes to light, so that it appears clearly that his works were done in God».
“Eternal Light” is a work that challenges time: Gabriele Saro is very clear that the appointment with God is always a journey, postponing the complete revelation of the path until “later”. In other words: we will only know the road after... having traveled it all the way to the end (either it is an adventure of faith or it is nothing). So, I said to myself, set out and… you'll see what will happen.
“Hail Mary…”… the sky itself remains amazed: the earth becomes the bearer of God. Yes, the earth rises towards the sky and the sky meets the earth: meditation on the “tip of… note”. “Our Father…”… the sensational event arises in a “climate of complicity” between God and a creature «… full of grace…»… “Oh My Angel”, the fullness of God's grace reached Mary in her poverty and humility: the separation between God and man, between matter and spirit, is abolished. She welcomes the word of God and precisely in Her, in Her virginal soil, in Her womb, the relationship of Love between creation and the Creator is re-established... "Oh Child, My Divine...". Mary is not a spectator, but a protagonist: She is truly "She who creates the dawn"... "Lord, You are My Light..."... but we must, precisely, set out, spy the dawn, anticipate it, not … being woken up by the dawn.
I consider Gabriele Saro an incomparable composer: incredibly passionate and prolific.

Claudio Gardenal

Title of the work: Eucharistic Masses
Creator: Maestro Gabriele Saro

“Eucharistic Masses”… not multiple “Mésses…” but with reference to “the”, articulated feminine singular preposition, “Eucharistic Masses” in the Friulian language: Friuli is the maternal land of the author, the maestro Gabriele Saro. I have to write it... with religious attention and using the unavoidable exclamation point: how well it flows! It flows like a precious homogeneous mixture, full of life-giving oil and perfectly dosed. We are linked to our Friulian language, to its historical sufferings, and the convincing vocal harmony, masterfully free of affectation, seems to tell us that on the altar there are "our things", they belong to everyone, without exception... even those who were unable put nothing. “Eucharistic Masses” was created by maestro Saro on the hundredth anniversary of the Friulian Philological Foundation and, not surprisingly, it experiences an incessant season of extraordinary possibility and executive freedom: voice and organ; choir and organ; choir, liturgical assembly and organ... yes, even the liturgical assembly can easily perform together with the choir or separately from it. Gabriele Saro, rich in creative impulse, which reaches heights of lucid abandon and peaks of melodic intuition, gives us this work not for our intimate transports, but because we "transport" it to other creatures. “Eucharistic Masses” must not simply be listened to but must be “seen” by everyone: it has an irresistible force of gravity… upwards! Not many exceptionally gifted musicians also have the gift of such light writing: these transparent melodies hook into everyday life... the "Mèsse" ends as a liturgical action and begins as a celebration of life.

Claudio Gardenal

How does “The Magic Of Christmas” see the light? The Hollywood tutor of the "Music Interval Theory Academy" in Los Angeles, a master prepared to transmit the gifts of music, decides to put down roots in Vienna as well and, from there, calls Saro... "the compositional technique" and then calls the master Gabriele Saro in that of Vienna. The "yes" of adhesion is immediate: music is his natural profession, what he feels born for, and its immeasurable, very deep underwater fault, with pure water and voluptuous reflections, captivates him ... swallows him without rest. Gabriele returns and promptly gets to work because one of his dreams has found the impact with the reality he was looking for: the magic of Christmas has come to the longed-for encounter with its possibilities. Realized the dream, he offers me the ciddì saying: «A gift to the world». After careful, meticulous listening, I can and would like to declare: «“The Magic Of Christmas”, by Gabriele Saro, is the essential gift of nostalgia to the modern world… nostalgia for something else… nostalgia for Another». The ten songs reworked by him live on fluid melodic lines above the tempo, supported by confidential, gentle arrangements, of a pure, subtle grace. For his part, times are elegant and prudent. We must convince ourselves that simplicity is never a simple thing: as in life, even in art, authentic masterpieces are characterized by harmony and proportion. In "The Magic Of Christmas" Saro's simplicity is unity, it is coherence: only truly great people can be simple. Gabriele Saro is a man, a composer, an artist who goes straight to the goal, knows what he wants and his gaze always points to the essence of things. By refusing the large orchestra, he has ensured that the seven instruments and the light and diaphanous chorus can listen to each other, converse, bring to us the value of purity... or, better to say, the bliss proper to transparency which is undoubtedly that of purity of the whole being: that is, the clearness, the transparency of the whole person who has eliminated the waste, the shadows, the opacities and becomes clear crystal that reflects the authentic image of God. I smile meditating: «Because every passage has clear, bright, the result of precise choices that shun any heaviness or darkening, Gabriele Saro's Christmas offers us precisely this unprecedented surprise: we were waiting for an inexorable judge... and a child has arrived...».

Claudio Gardenal