Frank Campo 1927-2026 (composer, in case you've never heard of him before)

https://slippedisc.com/2026/08/us-composer-dies-at-99/

The distinguished composer Frnak Campo has died six months short of his century.

 

Unfortunate spelling mistake but I knew whose name I was looking at.  Decades ago I couldn't resist grabbing a chamber score Campo wrote that included guitar.  Folks who know me in person (or as a blogger) know that I have an interest in chamber music for classical guitar.  I think it was actually the score for this trio I grabbed when Capitol Music had a clearance sale in order to leave their 9th Avenue location decades ago.  I just saw that whoever Frank Campo was he wrote a trio for an instrumental combination I couldn't resist.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfqwgLmtBWE

 

Bruce Duffie did an interview with Frank Campo way back in 1991.

https://www.bruceduffie.com/campo.html

It's a somewhat long interview and Campo has a funny yet sad observation about the problem of writing contemporary music and how that comes across in performances. There are musicians who perfectly execute note-for-note what is on the page and all that does is just get them to the starting point of the notes on the page.  The performer may not resonate with, understand, or even necessarily like the music itself, but they can play it note perfect.  Orchestral performances can be a risky proposition because so often your new work (whoever you are, composer, who wrote something to share with the world) will be programmed alongside some war horse.  As Campo put it, the rehearsals focus on the warhorse because everybody knows that is the music upon which the night's music gets judged and that all too often means that your music gets sloppier and less careful attention; the music can come off badly and the audience feels they got a bad piece even if you know, as the composer, that the music didn't get a fair shake.

Sounds like a reason to stick with composing for the guitar to me, but then I'm a guitarist, as just about anyone who's read this blog in the last twenty years probably already knows.  :)  

 

So, I eventually grabbed another Campo score, which by now might be kind of hard to find.

Two Studies for Trumpet and Guitar

Anthony Plog recorded the two studies a long time ago and I got that CD back when it was still feasible to get. Here's the information in case you want to hunt down the disc, which has a solid interpretation of the Hindemith Trumpet Sonata.

Crystal Records CD663: ANTHONY PLOG, TRUMPET.

 

Because the disc is kind of hard to find these days I'll refer you to a performance filmed in 2023 with Anne McNamara on trumpet

and Angelo L. Favis on guitar.  It's not a commercial recording, by the way.

 

Favis' channel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnCamW3Bvvk

McNamara's channel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRELgryfwpU

 

To go just by the two Campo works I've been able to study his a composer who isn't a guitarist himself but who has given the guitar some rewarding and challenging music.