Classical Guitar
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Brouwer: Concierto de Benicassim - Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez - Martin: Guitare
Naxos · Apr 2016CD$19.99
Americas
Mario Castelnuevo-tedesco: Guitar Works / Eliot Fisk
Among the operas, concertos, oratorios and solo piano music (Naxos, Somm SOMMCD 032) there are two guitar concertos, a serenade for guitar and orchestra, a concerto for two guitars and orchestra and many pieces of chamber music involving the instrument. The first concerto was written partly in Mussolini's Italy and partly in America. If the middle of the three movements of the op. 99 First Concerto sometimes drifts close to Tatiana's Letter Song it is delectable sentimental stuff. The flanking movements are sanguine and proud. They will certainly appeal to anyone who likes Rodrigo's Aranjuez. It's a lovely concerto and well worth tracking down in this very generously timed disc. I hope there is a volume 2 with the Second Concerto, the Serenade and the Concerto for two guitars.
Golondrinas (Swallows) suggests a relaxed saunter along the corniche - a summer evening with the swallows of the title diving and soaring. It's a virtuoso piece as is the eager and bustling La Primavera. The Platero suggests a delicate spray of lilies. The Rondo has some of the aristocratic elegance of the finale of the op. 99 concerto. The three movement op. 133 Suite is a work of beguiling emotional suggestion. This enchanting disc ends with the three movement op. 143 Guitar Quintet. The writing is full of interest with some incidental echoes of Ravel and of Russian nationalism. Again it is cheerful, subtly allusive, dynamic, poetic, playful and at times sweetly eerie. Unlike the much younger Brouwer this music has no truck with dissonance. Its milieu is impressionistic poetry. The string quartet writing is most inventive and by no means a dull stooge to the guitar.
After you have rifled Rodrigo's guitar treasury you must try this. This composer is no Rodrigo epigone but his music shares the Spanish composer’s mood and gift for beguiling invention. You can add this composer's name to that of Manuel Ponce as someone whose guitar music needs to be explored. By the way, do not overlook Ponce's Concerto del Sur for guitar and orchestra. Like so much else from that era including these works by Castelnuovo-Tedesco - it was written for Segovia – recorded by him and also by Alfredo Moreno with Enrique Batiz.
These recordings were originally issued in 2004 on MusicMasters. I hope that there is more to come and if not that Nimbus might find funding for a collection of this composer's concertante works for guitar. It's that good.
-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International
Bach: Transcriptions For Guitar / Judicael Perroy
It was Francisco Tárrega, composer and guitarist, who first transcribed Bach’s music for his own instrument, offering colour, tonal variety and clarity in an exploration of counterpoint. Tristan Manoukian’s transcription of the Partita No. 2 honours the precedent in its virtuosic and expressive writing. It is possible that the Suite and the Prelude, Fugue and Allegro were originally conceived for the so-called “lute-harpsichord”, a keyboard strung with gut that sounded like a lute. Bach’s version of Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto transforms and refashions it, and the guitar transcription is perfectly suited to convey the richness of its invention. Prizewinning guitarist Judicaël Perroy is one of the most exciting talents to have emerged in years.
L'histoire de la romance russe, Vol. 1
Kontraste: Friedemann Wuttke Solo Works
Castelnuovo-Tedesco: 24 Caprichos De Goya / Zoran Dukic
--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com
Paganini: Ghiribizzi / Denis Sungho Janssens
-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
American Classics - Hovhaness: Guitar Concerto No 2, Symphony No 63
Naxos are moving with implacable determination around the towering edifice that is the Hovhaness catalogue. Disc after disc is added to their catalogue and discoveries are being made at every turn. This latest volume, set in the context of their American Classics series continues the track record established by: 8.559294 (Symphony 60; Guitar Concerto 1), 8.559207 (Symphonies 4, 20, 53) and 8.559128 (Cello Concerto, Symphony 22).
As is evident from the Saxophone Concerto Hovhaness can be unpredictable and so he proves here. The wonderfully titled Fanfare for the New Atlantis is more of a tone poem with aspects of fanfare in-built. His regal and confident brass writing has the trappings of antiquity - a touch of the Gabriellis - but there is also a sense of modernity, of prayer and of invocation. The most stately aspects of the fanfares at 5:10 recall the striding brass writing in Vaughan Williams' Pilgrim's Progress. The origin of the piece seems unknown though it may have some connection with the Francis Bacon Society which believes that Shakespeare was Bacon's pen-name. Hovhaness was a member of the Society. Amongst Bacon's writings is The New Atlantis. In any event this Fanfare defies clichés you may have absorbed from knowing the examples by Bliss, Walton and Benjamin. This fanfare is recorded, as are all three works, with lavish resonance yet with no loss in definition.
The Guitar Concerto No. 2 was commissioned by Narciso Yepes who gave the work its premiere at the Granada Festival in 1990, five years after its completion. This may have been delayed by the tragic death of Yepes' son in the year in which the concerto was completed. There were no other performances after the premiere. Javier Calderón who commissioned the First Guitar Concerto plays it here although David Leisner made the first recording of the guitar concerto (Naxos 8.559294). The Concerto No. 2 is in four movements. The first is an andante which is delicate, stately and Moorish in character. The allegro giusto recalls the Ravel string quartet in its pizzicato and Rodrigo's Aranjuez in the guitar writing. The andante misterioso makes use of the composer's trademark in surging and searching unison strings alternating with guitar solo. The two commune in invocation and response. The final adagio, allegro giusto combines the sinuous North African arcana of the first movement with a delicate heel-and-toe dance (2:06) over pizzicato. It will have most listeners wanting to play this piece again and again.
In the Loon Lake Symphony Hovhaness looks back in the first movement (Prelude) through the hybrid Celtic-Oriental cor anglais melody to holidays in New Hampshire. We should remember that Hovhaness spent time at his uncle's New Hampshire farm. The commission for this work came in 1987 from the New Hampshire Music Festival. The opulent yet understated carpet of the orchestra comprises a delicate interplay of harp, bells, and pizzicato strings murmuring and strumming. The contemplative and partially Debussian second and last movement includes an Andante misterioso which seems to wander in a trance through those countryside memories. The sound of the loon is quoted in this evocative movement (4:30 and 15:03). The co-commissioner of the Symphony was the Loon Preservation Society. The dialogue of woodwind and the steady dripping of harp hold the attention. The flute and oboe have a louche and jazzy character (12:46) over a pizzicato string backdrop. This develops into an episode which has the clarinet singing a Holstian melody which has something of the greensward about it (14:10). The rhapsodic curl of the woodwind solos resonates with Vaughan Williams - this time the Antarctica rather than the Tallis Fantasia. This is a most beautiful and naturally eloquent symphony. The grand Purcellian statements which are a Hovhaness watermark are here added silver livery by the harp’s expressive endowment. Over this grandeur the trumpet cries out in a further evocation of the loon.
The notes are helpful and specific - always valuable with Hovhaness – and add to the delights of this fine disc.
Naxos are in their element with the Hovhaness symphonies. Don't stop now; of a total of 67 there are plenty of unrecorded symphonies to tackle.
I cannot over-emphasise how attractive this music is. Hovhaness wrote in the 1960s of the importance of identifying our own kind of beauty. These three works bear him out completely.
-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International
ALL FOR THE KING (LP)
Brouwer: Concierto de Benicassim - Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez - Martin: Guitare
This recording brings together two undisputed 20th century masterpieces and one from the 21st, all of which share surprising stories of neglect. With its sublime Adagio, Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez has become a true phenomenon in the history of Western music, but like the original version of Frank Martin’s extraordinarily powerful Guitare it suffered disapproval from its dedicatee Andrés Segovia. Echoes of Rodrigo can be heard in the cinematic romanticism of Leo Brouwer’s Concierto de Benicàssim, described by the composer as “a panorama of my own ideas” and revived here by Miguel Trápaga a decade after its première.