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St. Mary's Anglican Church
December 7, 2008
Guitar ensembles have been popping up over the last few years - was it the advent and success of the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet (who even managed a short-lived contract on Sony Classical) that prompted the surge? For whatever the reason, we here in Victoria have now the benefit of a local ensemble.
The Trio ran through a condensed musical history, beginning with a suite of lute trios by Giovanni Pacolini (the programme gave the date 1564) and ending with an effective arrangement of tango great Astor Piazzolla's Evasion.
One of the challenges facing a guitar ensemble is the homogeneity of the sonorities of the instruments. For the Pacolini, the Trio addressed this by having two of the three players shorten the effective string length through the use of a capo (a clamp that holds down the strings at a fixed point along the fingerboard). The Pacolini tunes were nicely rendered, and provided a charming start to the afternoon's programme.
The piece that opened the concert's second half had a novel way of addressing the homogeneity of sound: during the interval, the three guitarists moved their chairs to the extremes of the stage, thus emphasizing the individuality of their parts for John Weinzweig's Conversation for Three Guitars. The Encyclopedia of Music in Canada describes Weinzweigss musical style as one that emphasizes "clarity of texture, economy of material, rhythmic energy, and tight motivic organization." After hearing Conversation for Three Guitars, one can't help but agree. This spacing worked to great advantage, emphasizing the Trio's separate voices. Drawing on the full range of techniques available to the guitar, the piece was an interesting listen.
The other four pieces on the program give me the chance to write about what may be the biggest challenge facing all classical guitarists - repertoire. It can be convincingly argued that the best composers didn't write for guitar until the twentieth century, and that much of the best music for guitar and guitar ensembles is in the form of arrangements of music written for other instruments and combinations. The Victoria Guitar Trio's programme did nothing to dispel this idea.
The Trio's programme featured what has become standard guitar fare - arrangements of the piano music of Spanish composer Isaac Albeniz. An arrangement for three guitars allows for a rich sound that captures the full tonal range of the piano originals, while making idiomatic the guitaristic flourishes that Albeniz tried to capture in his piano writing.
The second half of the concert closed with an unmistakably Piazzolla tango, Evasion in a very effective arrangement. Here the Trio accentuated the drive of the rhythm without losing the charm of Piazzolla's melody. This was a tremendous way to close out the programme. I found this music, along with the Albeniz, the most musically satisfying of the program.
Ferranti's Polonaise Concertante was originally composed for three guitars in the mid-nineteenth century, but it lacks the musical brilliance of the Albeniz arrangement that preceded it on the programme, and thus suffered by comparison. The same problem appeared in the second half of the concert, when the Trio played an arrangement of a concerto by J.S. Weiss dating from the early eighteenth century. The Trio played the music well, with a nice ensemble balance (although occasionally the lead line was lost in the mix) and a certain joi de vive, but it wasn't enough to elevate the music above its status as rather generic baroque fare.
For an encore, the Trio returned to the stage and announced that they were going to play an arrangement by local composer Wes Wraggett. They then launched into that most ubiquitous of baroque works, the Canon by Pachelbel. I was beginning to think unflattering thoughts about this choice of music, and better about the Weiss, when suddenly I was struck by the equally familiar melody that floated in: Paul McCartney's "Yesterday" (pace Lennon fans who argue that because he got half writing credit, he had a hand in its composition). This raised a chortle or two from the audience, and brought a smile to many a face. This was perhaps not the most dazzling choice for an encore, but certainly one that had listeners humming as they headed for the exit.
Overall, a good performance by the Victoria Guitar Trio. One only hopes that as they mature as an ensemble they can build on their strengths, and continue to develop their repertoire. I for one am looking forward to their next appearance on a Victoria stage.
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