Commissioned by guitarist Timothy Walker with funds provided by the Arts Council of Great Britain. Timothy Walker gave the first performance on 26th October 1972 at the Purcell Room, London, and recorded it for L'Oiseau Lyre (DSLO3).
Canto for guitar is the first of a series of solo pieces with the title Canto which were written between 1972 and 2000. There are also Cantos for violin (1973), piano (1973), clarinet (1975), cello (1981) and flute (2000).
The title, mood and general shape were suggested by the first canto of Dante's Inferno. The poet awakes from a long sleep, to find himself lost in a dark and profoundly symbolic wood, menaced by profoundly symbolic wild beasts and feeling profoundly sorry for himself:
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita,
Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
Che la diritta via era smarrita . . .
The word "iconic" is horribly overused nowadays; but it can be applied without exaggeration to these lines, which open Dante's wonderful metaphysical epic La divina commedia - which itself may be described as the foundation-stone of Italian language and literature.
The ghost of Virgil appears to the tremulous poet and offers to guide him safely out of the wood, and also give him a guided tour of hell and purgatory, before handing him over to his late, lamented lady-love Beatrice Portinari - who will serve as his guide to the celestial realms. He gratefully agrees, and off they go . . .
Since I spent my childhood incarcerated in a Yorkshire boarding-school run by theologically deluded monks, plainsong permeated my formative years - to such an extent that nowadays it makes my heart sink. But back in 1972 I was still under its influence; and a plainsong melody is embedded in the material of this piece - that of Ave Maria, gratia plena from the antiphon for the second vespers of the Annunciation. The feast of the Annunciation (25th March) was believed in mediaeval times to be the date of (a) the conception of Jesus and (b) the creation of the world. An unlikely story, all things considered; but it is exactly the kind of symmetrical idea which appealed strongly to scholarly and pious mediaeval monks.
Most of the melodic material is derived from this plainchant tune, fragments of which also appear at key points in their original form - usually on long, high harmonics.
Giles Swayne
2025