A Song For Friday: Emmanuel Jacob Lacopo

Harmonics and a paper clip help create a transporting guitar miniature

Emmanuel Jacob Lacopo, a self-described “Post-Classical Guitarist/cComposer” from Montreal, shot into my consciousness last year with his adaptation of two Julius Eastman pieces. As I noted in the Best Of 2023: Classical, “In Lacopo’s hands, Buddha (1983) becomes a series of dense drones of woven electric and acoustic guitars, while Gay Guerilla (1979) is transformed into a more contemplative but no less resolute exercise in tension.”

Today’s release finds Lacopo interpreting Marguerite Brown’s Miniature Beams, a glorious continuation of a tradition at least partly inaugurated by The Duritti Column and perfected by Daniel Lanois on Silver Morning from Brian Eno’s Apollo: Atmospheres And Soundtracks (1983): the ambient guitar instrumental. Others, like Noveller and - and just today - Elsa Hewitt, have also staked out territory in these realms of sparkle and calm.

Brown, a California-based composer and guitarist, is new to me but has been making a name for herself with microtonal works for guitar, string quartet, and other forces. Miniature Beams was composed in 2023 for Satchel Henneman, a fine guitarist himself.

But there’s something about the absolute precision Lacopo brings to the piece that frees it from the staves on the sheet music and allows it to truly soar. He seems to have the full architecture of the seven-minute piece firmly in hand from the first gliding note.

The guitar is tuned to F-Ab-G-C-G-Eb and Brown instructs that a paper clip be “affixed to the lowest two strings at the 12th fret, resulting in a round, gong-like sound with no buzzing or rattling,” which creates some distinctive effects, especially at the end when the performer is told to “flick paperclip.”

But all of the elements Brown assembled form a seamless whole that, in her words, transports you on a “languid journey to the middle of the end.” Buy the ticket, take the ride.