Any well performed homogenous instrumental combination can have its
attractions, but the combination of the mellifluous and nail-hard, of
resonance and striking impact a guitar quartet can have is something a bit
special. The Minneapolis Guitar Quartet has been around since1986 and is
exactly the kind of crack ensemble you want performing contemporary
repertoire, though their repertoire ranges from the Renaissance to the
Romantic via those essential Spanish and Latin composers.
Written as a musical description of cities the composer has lived or
known, Daniel Bernard Roumain’s
Ghetto Strings is sharp and
unsentimental, with groovy jazz/rock accents in the opening
Harlem,
some gorgeously nuanced quasi-minimalist dreaming in a movement called
Motor City, and some hints at folk music in a final movement called
Haiti. Programmatic descriptive works are sometimes a little hard to
digest, but this is a highly enjoyable masterpiece.
The piece
Thrum by David Evan Thomas is another accessible
work, though entirely different in nature. Its three movements have
something of the quality of a ‘concerto for guitars’ and the
material is thrown between the instruments, keeping us on our toes and
providing each player with plenty to do. More importantly this often
provides a challenge of continuity, and the Minneapolis players cope
admirably. The composer describes the middle movement as “part
philosophy lesson, part stroll in a garden of little bells”, and this
verdant path leads us into a final movement which has a fugue written into
it, but one with a very light and un-academic touch. This is music with
great appeal and a high fun-factor.
Van Stiefel trained as a classical guitarist, and his
Cinema
Castaneda had its starting point from a collection of cowboy songs, the
imagination of the composer wandering through frontier imagery, ballads and
rancheros as well as a variety of contemporary and not-so contemporary pop
influences. This description barely hints at the serious qualities in this
piece, which takes us deeper into the sonic variety of the ensemble than any
of the others, layering dynamics and playing with effects in ways which
alter our perspectives and genuinely create a valuable and cinematic
journey. The players are asked to sing as well at certain points, which is a
further surprisingly effective additional nuance. There are ten movements,
though the music runs continuously. This is the kind of piece which points
out the vitality and character of genres and idioms rarely considered in
serious musical contexts, and I’m an instant convert.
Talking of extending nuances, Gao Hong plays
pipa along with
the quartet in his
Guangxi Impression. We’ve come across Hong
before in a disc not much loved by David Wright, but the
effect here is remarkable. The pipa is part of the guitar family, but its
entirely different sonority makes it distinct from the other instruments,
and Hong’s skill in joining and contrasting solo with ensemble creates
a fascinating work.
Guangxi is a province in southern China, and this
piece represents some of the diversity of cultures to be found there,
finishing with a festive ‘Celebrating the Harvest’ with
percussive effects and final shouts.
This is a super disc, very finely recorded in a close but not tiring
studio environment. All of the pieces here have a great deal to offer and
the album is well worth having. It seems a bit mean to cherry-pick, but if
you are only downloading I would urge you to hear Van Stiefel’s
Cinema Castaneda, and I shall certainly be looking out for more from
the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet in future.
Dominy Clements
