Two Guitarists: Roland Dyens and Ana Vidovic

I was just wondering what to post about when I saw a comment on yesterday's post asking my opinion on Roland Dyens and Ana Vidovic. Happy to oblige!

I have already mentioned Ana Vidovic a few times and I did a post on her and Quebec guitarist Jérôme Ducharme a while back. Speaking of Jérôme Ducharme, we had him play a concert for us Friday night and it was a great experience. He played the Villa-Lobos preludes superlatively in every way. He also played a spectacular piece by Quebec composer Maxime McKinley called "Mandala". Virtuoso, but ending with a lovely long passage in harmonics. Good piece, very well played. The pinnacle of the evening was the Twenty Variations and Fugue on "Folias de España" by Manuel Ponce. Again, a terrific performance of one of the most challenging pieces in the repertoire. The encore was a masterful "Recuerdos de la Alhambra".

But I'm supposed to be talking about Roland Dyens. I first heard about him when his piece "Tango en skaï" was published quite a few years ago. Here he is playing it:

"Skaï" is a French slang term for imitation leather, so the title indicates a gaudy, humorous take on the tango. Here he is playing the "Fuoco" movement from his Libra Sonatine:

I think I am supposed to be discussing Roland Dyens as a guitarist, not a composer, so let's hear him playing something by someone else. Here is a Chopin waltz, op 69, no 2:

Regarding his playing, he has something a lot of classical guitarists are weak on: a strong rhythmic sense. He has a groove! But while he is precise in that area, he is sloppy in a lot of other areas. He doesn't seem to have much sense of tone color. He makes some nasty sounds at times and doesn't seem to go for any shading of color. He also doesn't have much sense of shaping a phrase. He plays to his strengths, surely, but it is hard to call him a well-rounded classical guitarist. He really seems more to play with a jazz sensibility. And after listening to his Chopin, I am strongly tempted to call him the world's best restaurant guitarist.

What about his compositions? I don't hear much there apart from flashy guitar virtuosity, which palls for me pretty quickly.

On to Ana Vidovic. Here she is playing the "Alla Cubana" from William Walton's "Five Bagatelles":

Now that is fine classical guitar playing: clean, precise, lovely tone, beautifully phrased, nice dynamics. Everything that Roland Dyens ignores. Here is another movement from the Walton:

And finally, here is the Presto from the first Violin Sonata by Bach, which is at least as difficult as it sounds:

Ana Vidovic is a very fine player with loads of technique. Sometimes she misreads an accidental--I've noticed a couple in Moreno Torroba--but she is a young player and has room to grow as an artist. Well worth listening to now and in the future.

Read more »

Pepe Romero

Occasionally I like to talk about an individual artist who is an outstanding musician--as opposed to an outstanding technician or self-promoter or crossover hack. In the past I have talked about Grigory Sokolov and Valentina Lisitsa on piano and violinist Kristof Barati. I've talked a lot about guitarists, but I haven't singled any particular one out. Being a guitarist myself, it is harder to be objective about players of my own instrument. I think there are a couple of reasons for this. One is that there are always jealousies, sour grapes and rivalries among competitors. Everyone who plays violin is in competition with everyone else. The public doesn't see this because it happens behind the scenes. Right now, for example, there are hundreds or thousands of organizations like symphonies and chamber music societies that are choosing their artists for next season (if they haven't already). Which violinist or pianist will they choose? The competition is fierce! Another, more subtle reason is that solo performers don't really want to hear other solo performers. This is not out of jealousy, however. If you have spent months or years learning a piece of music and have taken many pains to work out exactly how every note needs to be played, when you hear someone else's version, you really won't like it. It is not that your version is the only way, but that you are committed to it. Every other version just sounds wrong.

I have some advice, if anyone wants it. I am on the board of our chamber music society and we hire artists to perform around twenty concerts during the winter season. There are a couple of pianists, a couple of violinists, a baroque ensemble, some singers, a guitarist, a string quartet and so on. We just were trying to decide between two ensembles and it really came down to programming. One ensemble had a program that consisted entirely of Italian concertos from the early 1700s. The other ensemble had a program of French music and Bach. Guess which one we chose? I notice that a lot of artists don't seem to have put much thought into the program. Too much of the same thing is boring for an audience. Music in a style that you are uncomfortable with is also a bad idea. Try to have some variety in the program. Have some light, charming music, but balance it with some more substantial music. Have one piece that is perhaps a bit over the top. I've always thought that the Kronos Quartet arrangement of "Purple Haze" was sheer genius. But if you do too much of that, it seems like pandering.

But let me get back to my real topic: Pepe Romero. I studied with him on a couple of occasions in the 1980s and he was in many ways the best guitar teacher I have seen. A few years ago just out of curiosity I did a survey of the leading guitarists: Pepe Romero, Manuel Barrueco, Sharon Isbin and David Russell by totaling up their concert schedule. This is not too accurate, of course, but it gives you a rough idea. I was intentionally not looking at artists like Otmar Liebert who play a lot of concerts but is not actually a classical artist. What I discovered is that Pepe Romero plays more concerts than any other classical guitarist. Manuel Barrueco is a distant second and Sharon Isbin an even more distant third. Now this was a few years ago. I just had a look at Ana Vidovic's 2012 schedule and it looks like she is coming up fast. But Pepe Romero has been at the very top of the classical guitar field for a long time. And he deserves it.

He has recorded a tremendous number of guitar concertos and is possibly the finest interpreter of many of them. His recordings of the music of Joaquin Rodrigo are definitive. Here is a bit of the slow movement of the Aranjuez:

He is also the outstanding performer of the concertos by Mauro Giuliani. Alas, YouTube seems to have no clips of those performances, but here is a set of variations by Giuliani:

Pepe Romero is one of the great interpreters of Spanish music by Tarrega:

The Gran Jota by Tarrega is rarely heard, probably because Maestro Romero is about the only guitarist that can really bring it off:

He is a wonderful player of 20th century Spanish music as well:

Most of his best performances are not available on YouTube, such as his recording of the Suite castellana by Federico Moreno-Torroba. My favorite recording by him you may find surprising. It is of the Second Violin Partita in D minor (with the famous chaconne) and the Third Cello Suite. Absolutely marvelous playing. The tone is extraordinary and the technical command remarkable. But it is the beautiful musicianship that is the most important thing. The recording is now out of print, but here is the entry on Amazon if you want to track it down.

I'm thinking of Pepe these days because we have engaged him to play two different programs for us in early February and I'm really looking forward to renewing our friendship. One of the great artists of the guitar and a genuinely humble man...

UPDATE: I almost forgot. Pepe is also an accomplished flamenco guitarist in the classic sense, meaning that he doesn't play the somewhat degraded fusion flamenco stew so common nowadays. He sometimes plays in concert the music of Agustín Castellón, better known as Sabicas. In fact, other than Sabicas himself who passed away in 1990, I don't think there is anyone who plays it better:

Read more »

Two Young Guitarists

Before you all go out and buy a copy of the well-promoted debut recording of Milos Karadaglic, I want to recommend two other guitarists who are well worth hearing. The first is Ana Vidovic, winner of the 1998 Tarrega competition, who has both CDs and DVDs available. Here is a selection. She is an excellent player and her debut recording on Naxos displays a fine selection of repertoire. As a player, she most resembles, perhaps, Manuel Barrueco, with her incisive clarity of touch. Everything, especially Bach, seems just a bit too fast. The complexity of Bach's harmonies, to my mind, needs a bit more room to breath. There are also terrific performances of the Sonata romantica by Ponce and the Five Bagatelles of Walton. She is an outstanding and musical player with just loads of technique. Here she is playing the last movement of Barrios' La Catedral. She actually sounds much better than on this scratchy, trebly recording:

The other player I want to recommend is the Quebec guitarist Jérôme Ducharme, winner of the 2005 Guitar Foundation of America competition. Here is his debut recording. Naxos really seems to be dominating the market these days. No Bach on this recording, but a fantastic version of the Tres piezas españolas of Joaquin Rodrigo. There is a lovely recording of perhaps the best piece of Canadian guitar music as well: the Suite, op 41 of Jacques Hétu. The sonata by Ginastera is also on the CD,  but I just can't seem to come to love it! The real discovery, though, is the Fantaisie-Sonata, op A22 by Juan Manén, a piece I have read through many times and thought was quite remarkable, but have never heard anyone play before. Here he is, playing the Fandango from the Rodrigo. He too, sounds better than this. These YouTube clips always seem to have a harsh sound...

Enjoy!

Read more »