Sergio ASSAD (b.1952)
Three Divertimentos (1996) [5:51]
Remembrance (from Summer Garden Suite) (1994) [3:39]
Sonata (1999) [16:06]
Farewell (from Summer Garden Suite) [3:08]
Fantasia Carioca (1994) 10:52]
Dreams (from Summer Garden Suite) (1994) [1:54]
Valseana (c.1984) [2:51]
Three Greek Letters (2000) 10:07]
Thanos Mitsalas (guitar)
rec. July 2008
CLEAR NOTE 74412 [54:52]
Sergio Assad is perhaps best known as a performer, most often appearing with
his brother Odair as the Duo Assad or the Assad Brothers. His family being
thoroughly musical, Assad learnt the guitar as a child and was soon a very
proficient instrumentalist; by his early teens he was already composing. He
studied classical guitar with Monina Tavora and later was a student of conducting
and composition at the Escola Nacional de Música in Rio de Janeiro.
His musical interests cross many of the conventional boundaries - he is just
as likely to draw on the classical tradition as on Latin American models or,
for that matter, on jazz or folk music. As composer and/or performer he has
worked with a remarkable range of artists, including the jazz saxophonist
Paquito D’Rivera, Yo-Yo Ma, the Turtle Island String Quartet and the
American-Italian violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg. Assad has made many successful
arrangements for guitar (alone or in a chamber ensemble) of music by European
composers, such as Debussy, Scarlatti and Rameau. He is, in short, a musician
of wide knowledge and open-minded sensibility. Such qualities are well represented
on this current disc.
The young Greek guitarist Thanos Mitsalas has recorded a large part of Sergio
Assad’s original compositions for solo guitar. The CD comes with a booklet
note by the composer and we can therefore presume that he approves of it -
though he doesn’t appear to have been involved in the conception of
the album, since the first sentence of his note reads thus: “Greek guitarist
Thanos Mitsalas recently surprised me with this recording of a substantial
part of my music written for solo guitar”.
Mitsalas seems thoroughly at home in this repertoire. The syncopations of
the first of the three divertimentos appear to come naturally to him; so do
the relative formalities of the Sonata (a particularly interesting work).
Remembrance and Farewell were written as film music and get attractive and
evocative performances. Fantasia Carioca, written to celebrate the city of
Rio de Janeiro, is a striking tone poem, playfully (and thoughtfully) various
in tempos and phrasing, and Mitsalas invests it with real feeling. Everywhere
one senses a vitality of personal commitment and disciplined freedom in his
interpretations.
Thomas Mitsalas (b.1972) is an impressive soloist and here he throws a rewarding
light on some interesting compositions. He benefits from a recorded sound
that is intimate without being over-close.
Glyn Pursglove