Marina Nebro: Arts and Culture

Last Minute Guitar Recital

I believe this guitar recital was last minute in every sense – as of last week, my cousin (Zeke Bardash who’s a classical guitar performance major at the Aaron Copland School of Music) wasn’t even sure there would be one! And with regards to me, I woke up at 6:30 today after a nap and planned to regretfully skip it, but thanks to some pushy parents made it there just in time!

I realized upon seeing this recital of about eight students that I don’t listen to much guitar music. William Anderson, presumably the guitar teacher at the Aaron Copland School of Music, even mentioned that there is not much “great” repertoire for guitarists. By great, he was referring to music composed by the “great,” popular, or well known composers. When it comes to classical guitar, it is a “ghetto instrument.” For this reason, mainly, the program was filled with composers I had never heard of or at least couldn’t recall (except, of course, for the three Bach pieces).

There were two main pieces that struck a chord with me (pun intended) that I would like to explore briefly.

Prelude by Frank Martin was performed by Zeke. Up until this performance, all the pieces played were baroque and classical in feel – again, I don’t have much education when it comes to the history of guitar music.  This particular piece felt a lot more modern – probably because the composer happened to be an early 20th century writer. A brief background on Martin, he was born into a Calvinist Swiss family in 1890. In his upper level education, he pursued math and science – which is interesting because I know of quite a few people who have explored these subjects but ultimately turned to more creative careers or endeavors (music, acting, etc). He has composed music for guitar, piano, organ, orchestras, and voice. He wrote this particular piece in 1933. Zeke performed Prelude incredibly well. I had never before seen a guitarist use vibrato, which may be due to my lack of exposure to the instrument, but I thought it really enhanced the sound of the almost dissonant notes. He was also not afraid to use dynamics and play that guitar to its fullest. Though I realize that many of the other pieces may have called for a piano dynamic, at times I thought the performers were almost afraid to project.

Cuban Landscape With Rain by Leo Brouwer was the second piece that really stood out, perhaps due to the fact that it was an ensemble piece performed by six of the guitar students. The Cuban composer, Leo Brower is probably most well known for his soundtrack to the magic realism film Like Water for Chocolate and although I’ve never been to Cuba, and hence don’t know it’s landscape, I can say that with this composition he really painted a vivid image of his country. The slow, gradual beginning reminded me of the beginning of a sun shower. Later on in the work, the guitar playing gets a little bit more aggressive – perhaps the sun shower has taken a turn for the worse, or maybe Brouwer is trying to illustrate the sound of rain on different surfaces. But no worries, by the end, the sun seems to come out again and the rain slowly ceases as Brouwer brings back the simple line he wrote for the beginning. One thing that kind of distracted me from the piece, though, was William Anderson’s conducting. It seems as if Cuban Landscape could have been a chamber piece (as the example I have posted is). His conducting was a bit chunky and almost humorous, but I could tell that he was really into it, so I think that makes it okay.

Overall, I’m really glad that my parents forced me out of my PJs today and told me to get over to LeFrak to support my cousin and his fellow guitar students. Look, I even got taken out to dinner by Zeke’s parents (THANK YOU)!!! A great end to a slightly boring day.

QC Guitarists
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
7:30 PM
Choral Hall

Marina B. Nebro