San Francisco Classical Voice

On Monday, March 6, Lawrence Ferrara and Tom Leisek, two pillars of the Bay Area guitar community, presented a fresh and ambitious program of contemporary and classical works with wonderful unity of conception and variety of detail. They proved that performance standards could be as high for a duo of classical guitars as for a string quartet. The classical guitar is a subtle and colorful instrument best known for its intimate solo voice. In recent years a growing number of instrumentalists have been exploring the coloristic, dynamic, and contrapuntal possibilities of the instrument in an ensemble setting. In the past, guitarists approached joint efforts with commendable enthusiasm but little attention to a common musical conception of the work at hand. But as this performance showed, expectations have changed.

The Brazilian composer Celso Machado combined his own distinctively contemporary musical voice with traditional music in three portraits of Latin American countries. Imagens do Nordeste ("Images of the Northeast"), by turns aggressive and lyrical, is a portrait of the harsh and changeable highlands of northeastern Brazil. Bolinhas de Queijo, reflective of folk traditions of Peru, features a quasi-improvised meditative melody artfully passed back and forth between the two guitars that frames a more dancelike section. Boliviana, with its festive rhythms and lively rasgueado provides a strong conclusion.

Machado is a guitarist as well as a composer and his music reflects a deep knowledge of the resources of the instrument. Ferrara and Leisek presented his sophisticated textures in a performance as joyful as the music itself.

Fernando Sor, the most important guitar composer of the 19th century, strove to emulate the melodic and harmonic expressiveness he admired in the work of Haydn and Mozart. Fantaisie español, op. 54, has a slow introduction with an orchestral texture and concludes with a well-crafted set of variations. The performance was rich with fluid elegance, varied articulation, and propulsive energy.

Phillip Houghton, a contemporary Australian composer with a mastery of both classical and rock music, was represented by his Three Duets, a meditation on the cycle of life and death. The Mantis and the Moon is a tone poem whose features include a mysterious moonlit night and a quickly darting preying mantis that curls up and dies at the movement's end. Lament is a moving elegy written on the death of a friend. Alchemy, with its driving ostinatos and brilliant outbursts, brings this miniature suite full circle with its allusion to the transformation of worthless earth into gold and presumably to rebirth and new life. The performers skillfully conveyed the evocative moods.

Transcriptions are at the heart of the repertoire for any instrument or ensemble without a long tradition. Some of this music is so apt in its new setting it finds a permanent home. Some is not, like the unsatisfying guitar transcriptions of Scarlatti sonatas and Scriabin preludes included on this program. The predominantly two-voice texture of the Scarlatti seemed less interesting than the Machado and Houghton works. And the Scriabin, though musically fascinating, seemed to need the additional sound the concert grand piano provides.

Brazilian guitarists have played a large role in defining the sound of the guitar in the 20th century. From the groundbreaking modernist experiments of Heitor Villa-Lobos to the Afro-Brazilian fusion of Luiz Bonfá and Baden Powell, in Brazilian culture the guitar has produced a rich and vibrant repertoire. Memoria e Fado, by jazz guitarist Egberto Gismonti, featured a mournful melody and rolling arpeggios. Paulo Bellinati's Lun Duo treats the guitar duo as an Afro-Brazilian percussion ensemble and features drumming, indeterminate sounds, open strings, harmonics, and glissandi. It is exciting, fascinating, and an excellent introduction to Bellinati's deservedly popular Jongo. Ferrara and Leisek brought both incredible energy and minute attention to the details of its exciting rhythms, complex textures, and gorgeous melody.

(Scott Cmiel is a guitarist on the faculties of the San Francisco Conservatory and the University of California, Berkeley, SCmiel@aol.com)

©2000 Scott Cmiel, all rights reserved