The Gathering Note

By: Philippa Kiraly

The main auditorium at Benaroya is too big for a classical guitar concert, but what’s Seattle Symphony to do, when its Guitar Recital Series draws too large a crowd for the little Nordstrom Hall upstairs?

I’ve rarely sat in such a quiet audience as on Monday night in the big hall, where the maybe 800 guitar devotees listened intently to Cuban master Manuel Barrueco, staying hushed even while he adjusted the tuning of his instrument.

Only one of the four composers Barrueco played actually was writing for classical guitar—Joaquin Turina in his Fandanguillo and Sevillana (Fantasia). The others wrote respectively for Baroque violin (Bach’s Sonata in G Minor, BWV 1001) or piano (selections from Isaac Albeniz’  Suite Espanola). I haven’t been able to find the original instrumentation for Astor Piazzolla’s Tango Etudes, but it surely wasn’t guitar. Piazzolla’s own instrument was the bandoneon (Argentinian concertina).

This was not a flashy concert program. Much of what Barrueco performed sounded introspective, and while he frequently played extremely quietly, he hardly ever played loud. The sound was unobtrusively amplified just enough to hear without straining.

Bach translates beautifully to guitar, an instrument on which it is easy to play clearly articulated notes, but in the last “presto” movement, Barrueco made definite delineation in fast runs between articulated and legato playing where smooth, singing tone was the norm.

He himself arranged this sonata and played the first, slow movement expressively and with considerable rhythmic freedom. For the second, the fugue, his rock-solid tempo allowed each line to be heard individually in its right place in Bach’s intricate interweaving. It takes great skill to achieve this kind of essential clarity and absolute orderly progression, but Barrueco made the performance sound effortless.

Piazzolla’s needs are very different, the writing often so dense, particularly in the bass, that it can sound turgid. In playing five of the Tango Etudes Barrueco avoided this while keeping the prominence of the bass which anchors each work. The second of the Etudes—he was expected to announce which etudes he was performing, but didn’t—had a chromatic melodic line with close harmonies underneath, and Barrueco created a pristine sensuality to the piece, the pristine part being the tone quality, the sensuality the intepretation with hesitations and phrasing. Yet another had a flowing melody with clearer harmonies elaborately emboidered with runs and ornamentation. In Barrueco’s hands these sophistated, difficult, quite somber works were elucidated, with the tango thread running through them all.

The second Turina work, Sevillana,  began to give us the more homely feel of flamenco, becoming more exciting as it reached its end, while the five cities depicted from Albeniz’ Suite Espanola included the familiar Granada and Asturias,  plus the lilting rhythm of Cataluna juxtaposed with fast runs, and the songful melody of Sevilla. Good choices to follow the Piazzolla, these required less effort to listen to and comprehend, and gave considerable enjoyment. Equally delightful to hear was Barrueco’s encore, Ernesto Lecuona’s La Comparsa, from Danzas afro-cubanas.