Not long ago I
praised a disc with "Guitar
Music from Brazil" (Naxos 8.557295)
played by Graham Anthony Devine, and
I really looked forward to hearing more
from him. Well, here he is again and
on home ground he is just as convincing
as he was "south of the border".
I doubt that there are many more guitarists
around with all the qualities that Mr
Devine exhibits. His technical prowess
is second to none but what impresses
even more is his ability to shape a
phrase, to build up the tension in a
composition, to always keep the music
alive. His playing is, if you excuse
the pun, divine.
Apart from the Spanish
repertoire there are few guitar works
that can be regarded as "standards",
but Walton’s Five Bagatelles
must surely be counted in that category.
Written as late as 1972 they represent
a reawakening of his creativity. I am
not a Walton specialist and I may be
wrong, but to me his creative period
was the 1920s and 1930s and then his
collaboration with Laurence Olivier
in those Shakespeare films in the 1940s.
Here, confronted with a new medium and
inspired by Julian Bream, who no doubt
played an important part in the coming
into being of these pieces, he suddenly
writes some of the most charming music
of his whole career. The more I listen
to them the more I like them: so full
of ideas, of rhythms, of surprising
turns. This a young man’s work, not
that of a septuagenarian.
I mentioned Julian
Bream and his name has to be emphasized
in this connection. Much of the music
on this disc wouldn’t have been written
without Bream’s participation, as a
source of inspiration, as commissioner,
as technical advisor, so it is appropriate
that the disc is dedicated to "the
greatest guitarist of the 20th
century" as Graham Anthony Devine
writes in the booklet.
In the case of Alan
Rawsthorne’s Elegy he even completed
it, since it was left unfinished when
the composer died in 1971. And death
seems never to be far away in this moving
piece. It is good to have it in a good
modern recording, now that Rawsthorne’s
music is being noticed again. Naxos
have released a batch of records with
his orchestral and chamber music and
hopefully there is more on its way.
There is a similar newly awakened interest
in Sir Lennox Berkeley’s music in a
series of recordings on Chandos. I must
admit that my acquaintance with his
oeuvre is limited, to say the least.
In Scandinavia he is hardly played at
all but during regular visits to UK
for more than twenty years I have never
heard a note of his music. And that
is a shame, since what is presented
on this disc is really inviting and
I think I have to catch up on Berkeley.
The Sonatina, written for Bream
in 1957, is an inspired piece of work
and especially the first movement is
brilliant. The Four pieces for guitar,
written between 1927 and 1932 while
he was studying with Nadia Boulanger
in Paris, hence the French title, were
dedicated to Andrès Segovia,
whom he heard at his debut recital in
Paris. Strangely enough Segovia never
played them, they were found among his
papers as recently as 2001. But it seems
that Segovia was sometimes erratic;
there are several examples of his turning
down music, most notoriously the Rodrigo
"Concierto de Aranjuez", the
most famous of guitar concertos, which
he never played, obviously because it
wasn’t dedicated to him, which he had
hoped. Anyway, these four pieces are
melodic and attractive; the first with
some tremolo effects, played here with
obvious affection. The Andante is also
a fresh, melodic piece with some acrimonious
spicing. The Sarabande has a baroque
flavour while the short concluding Allegro
energico is slightly jazzy. In all four
pieces one gets the impression that
the composer is still searching an identity
but the remaining impression is of a
full blooded musician and these pieces
should definitely be on many guitarist’s
menu. Miniatures they are, and so are
Richard Rodney Bennett’s charming Five
Impromptus. Again Julian Bream is
the dedicatee.
Peter Maxwell Davies’s
Farewell to Stromness was originally
a piano piece and in that shape it has
for many years been a favourite of mine.
It was an interlude in an anti-nuclear
cabaret from 1980, "The Yellow
Cake Revue", ‘Yellow cake’ being
the name for uranium ore. Stromness
is the Orkney town nearest the site
of threatened uranium extraction. The
title and the haunting, "old fashioned"
tune are of course ironic. Compared
to the original, Timothy Walker’s guitar
arrangement is more soft-edged but still
hypnotically surging.
This disc is a winner
in all respects. Listeners who normally
fight shy of 20th century
music need feel no fear: this is accessible
music, sometimes even hummable. Add
to this that it was recording in the
guitarists’ Mecca, St John Chrysostom
Church, Newmarket, Ontario with the
high priests of guitar recording, Norbert
Kraft and Bonnie Silver, in charge and
everyone can rest assured that the technical
side of the project is beyond reproach.
Recommended with all
possible enthusiasm.
Göran Forsling
Graham Anthony Devine (guitar) 
