All About the Strings

Spanish guitarist Pablo Sáinz Villegas, winner of the gold medal at the inaugural Christopher Parkening International Guitar Competition, gave an exhilarating San Francisco debut recital Saturday at the Veterans Building's Green Room. He stirred an enthusiastic audience with passionate Romantic interpretations, bravura technique, and an unusually wide dynamic range at the first concert of the Omni Foundation's Dynamite Guitars series. His program consisted of Bach; Spanish classics by Albéniz, Turina, and Rodrigo; and music from outside the European tradition, by Heitor Villa-Lobos and Carlo Domeniconi.

Spanish composer Joaquin Turina studied in Paris and as a young man wrote music in the style of the French impressionist composers. After Isaac Albéniz recommended that he devote his attention to Spanish folk music and flamenco, Turina created a body of work that captures the color and vitality of Andalusia. Fantasia sevillana, written in 1923 for Andrés Segovia, is a musical portrait of celebrations performed each year in Seville during the Holy Week before Easter. Villegas used rhythmically crisp rasgueado (strummed chords), brilliant arpeggios, and expressive echoes of flamenco to create a passionate reflection of a Spanish holiday. Villegas next gave an undeniably compelling performance of a turgid arrangement of Johann Sebastian Bach's Chaconne, with unnecessarily filled-in harmonies and added bass notes. I had doubts from the first measures, but Villegas used beautifully graduated dynamics and color as well as a finely honed rhythmic freedom to clarify the structure of the music and explore the entire range of human experience, from anguished sorrow to exuberant joy. Isaac Albéniz' Asturias, an evocation of a legendary eighth-century battle, and one of the most popular pieces in the guitar repertoire, was performed with a strikingly dramatic frame and an introspective middle section. The dynamics on Albéniz' score, frequently ignored by guitarists, were meticulously observed and created a mesmerizing effect. The improvisatory middle section, evocative of Spain's Moorish conquerors, was played with expressive rubato and demanded rapt attention. The composer Heitor Villa-Lobos was also a guitarist who wrote with both knowledge and love of the instrument. His Chôros no. 1, with its popular rhythms and exuberant zest, reflects a young life spent playing the guitar in street bands at weddings and carnivals, in cafes and theaters. Villegas played the Brazilian street rhythms with verve and snap, the lovely middle section with tenderness, and the periodic fermatas with a droll wit.

Brilliant Technique and Flair

Joaquin Rodrigo's Invocation and Dance is subtitled "Homage a Manuel de Falla" and is based on a theme from Homenaje, Falla's only guitar piece, which was itself written as an homage to Debussy, and refers to Debussy's Soirée dans Grenade. Villegas played the opening harmonics with great delicacy. When the music moved into an impassioned and intricate pattern of melody and broken chords, he built an almost unbearable tension, which led inexorably to the fiery Dance. Perhaps a reminder of the last of Falla's Siete canciones populares españolas, this dance is a polo, a song-dance in triple time, which develops into passages of demanding tremolo and brilliant runs. The entire work closes with sparse harmonics, a fleeting reference to Falla's El amor brujo, and a final murmuring arpeggio. The subtlety, passion, technical command, and dramatic flair that Villegas displayed made this the high point of the evening. Italian guitarist and composer Carlo Domeniconi spent many years living in Istanbul, and the influence of Turkish music plays a large part in his compositions. The beauty of a small brook in southwest Turkey inspired his Koyunbaba, the name derived from that of an ancient saint, revered in the region. Domeniconi wrote for a guitar tuned in C-sharp minor — far from standard tuning, and often a problem in recital. Villegas tuned his instrument and then took some time to speak to the audience about the music he was about to play and his excitement at making his San Francisco debut. In addition to creating a different kind of connection to his listeners, he gave his strings time to settle in their new tuning. After a few minor adjustments, he began and played in perfect tune. Based on fantasy and variation, the music gradually builds during the work's four continuous sections. Although his rendition was marred by a long passage of strummed chords that is not called for in the score, Villegas was able to use the special tuning and added ornamentation to hypnotic effect, creating an atmosphere of intensity and excitement. The program ended with a standing ovation and two encores: a sultry Tango en Skai by Roland Dyens and an unusually introspective and lovely Recuerdos de la Alhambra by Francisco Tárrega.