Tidewater Classical Guitar Society: Matt Palmer Matt Palmer plays guitar like no one I have ever heard before. This was not a greatest hits show for his instrument. He closed his eyes and let the audience dial down the energy from our busy world as he invited us to focus on one comfortable young man and his guitar, and all this without words. Very gently, with quiet, spectacular fret work, he opened with Fantasy on “Crimson Moon,” a Russian folk song set by Sergei Rudnev (b. 1955)—"one of many contemporary Russian guitar composers." Other pieces we have heard by Rudnev played by Palmer include The Old Lime Tree and Fantasia for guitar solo El Día de Noviembre. This is not the first time we have heard Matt Palmer play guitar. In August, 2017 at Mac and Carol Simons' home in Virginia Beach he appeared with Tanya Anisimova in concert with an audience of 35 guests. Ms. Anisimova is a long time musical friend of the Simons. They had listened to a pay-per-view concert and decided to have them give a live performance in their home for friends. A piece by Mikhail Vysotsky (1791-1837), Ty podi moia korovushka domoi (loosely, Go home to your cat), was a simple melody made complex by a busy left hand sliding or walking up and down the frets as the tempo accelerated. Here he paused to stretch the top string before he played the Chaconne by J.S. Bach from Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004 for solo violin. The Chaconne is as long as the preceding four movements. It consists of a gigantic set of interconnected variations derived from a simple four measure bass harmonic pattern. The beginning has a grave majesty of 32nd notes that rush up and down as if one run will trip over the next. There are tremulous arpeggios that hang almost motionless and a very beautiful D major section. It was as if the guitarist were channeling this music from a far dimension. Plucked strings and crisp notes all added to a completely satisfying experience. A brief intermission was followed by El Decameron Negro by avant garde Cuban composer Leo Brouwer (b. 1939). This 1981 three-movement piece is a dramatic telling of a West African folk tale of war and love through musical patterns and gestures. The opening section, El Arpa del Guerrero (The Warrior's Harp) offered a melody whose beauty could break your heart. Huida de los Amantes (Flight of the Lovers) was percussive before it became meditative and Ballada de la Doncella Enamorada (Ballad of the maiden in love) offered flowing melodies in an open exploration, returning to lyricism but with abrupt chords. The lyrical end left me with a smile of satisfaction. Turning to contemporary Brazilian composer Dilermando Reis (1916-1977), we heard Two Waltzes. Se Ela Perguntar (If She Asks) had me swaying, but only in my mind, while Una Valsa e Dois Amores (A Waltz and Two Lovers) was a lilting pop sound of great loveliness. To quote Mr. Palmer: “that guy had it bad for someone.” Matt Palmer closed the program with Sonata Mongoliana (1986) by Štepán Rak (b. 1945), a fiery display of the guitarist's technical skill in a work that is both daring and expressive. It is based on many treatments of tremolos, those trembling or quivering fast repeats on a single note or the alteration of two notes to create tension and excitement. The pentatonic themes of Mongolian folk music are evocative of legends and landscapes of that faraway land. The speed and percussion of his playing left the audience breathless. As Sam Dorsey expressed it: “Matt shreds!” His encore was Tom Waits' I'm Still Here. He spoke of Waits' rough voice as he quoted a favorite line, "You haven't looked at me that way in years.” The melody plays on the same emotion again and again. Matt plays a custom, handmade guitar by luthier Michael Thames and is Director of Guitar Studies at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland and Coordinator of the Eastern Shore Guitar Festival and Workshop held each October. More information about Matt Palmer and his CDs can be found at http://www.mattpalmerguitar.com/.
We were an audience of two at the Real Conservatorio Superior de Musica de Madrid, located on the square at the Reina Sophia Museum in central Madrid. We were looking for classical music while we were visiting but weren't having any luck. The Teatro de la Zarzuela production staff was on strike. The Teatro Real's upcoming opera, Die Soldaten by Zimmerman was to open the week we returned home. Returning from Retiro Park and an excellent lunch, we were trying a more direct route back to our apartment at 4 pm when we saw the Conservatory building off to the right. Steve suggested we go inside and ask about chamber performances. His Spanish was good enough to converse with the conserje (receptionist) and as luck would have it she said there was a performance in 30 minutes. We refreshed ourselves in air-conditioned comfort in a window seat in the enclosed 18th century arches of the loggia. At 4:30 we were guided upstairs by the receptionist and ushered into a recital hall with warm-toned wood covering the walls and a barrel-vaulted ceiling and 25 or so chairs with a printed program on each. The performers had just completed their freshman year and were fulfilling a public performance requirement after the end of the school year. Most of the other students had already left. Along with their professor Juan M. Nieto, we made-up the audience. We learned in a later conversation that the quartet of guitarists: Diego Castro, Celia Gonález de la Aleja, Sunmin Moon and Alex de Sousa aspire to play Carnegie Hall someday. Their demanding program of lovely, lively playing indicates they are well on their way. J.S. Bach's Fuga BWV 539, 2, originally for organ, was arranged to give equal voice to each guitarist, which gave a richness of sound that was most exciting. Facing the audience without a conductor, they cued each other with subtle eye signals for the perfectly coordinated playing. Then came Americana for 4 guitars (1992) by John W. Duarte (1919-2004), a British composer who had arranged Bach for the famous English guitarist John Williams and had a friendship of forty years with Andrés Segovia. Duarte wrote some 150 works for guitar and lute and was mostly self taught. His only formal lessons were for jazz guitar and he worked professionally playing trumpet and double bass with jazz musicians such as Coleman Hawkins and Django Reinhardt until 1953. His wide range of styles was highlighted in Americana. The opening movement, Broadway, had a modern lyrical language with jazz elements and even the sound of car horns produced by the guitars, a tribute to Gershwin, perhaps. Work song and blues was in a nostalgic mood—a bluesy spiritual. As the tempo accelerated the mood lightened only briefly, and then deepened as we heard the pain in an old-timey blues—to end Diego Castro dominated the sound. The third part, Hoe down, had Mr. Castro slapping out the rhythm on the body of his guitar, taken up by Alex de Sousa and then moving to Sunmin Moon and to Celia González de la Aleja finger snaps. This modern translation of an American folk dance had picking above the fret and hand taps on the top to keep the rhythm. The third piece opened with fingernail taps by all four players on the side of the guitar that gave a rhythmic glow of excitement to Aragonesa from Carmen Suite by Georges Bizet (1838-1875). Habanera began with two guitars playing the well-known song. As the other two players joined in it gave a new freshness to the rich complexity of colors. In the Seguidilla each player by turn gave a fragment of the theme, making even more tricky the superb timing that they achieved. Our praise of the concert and a couple of questions weren't going smoothly until Sunmin Moon offered to translate for us. He said it was Spanish that gave him difficulty—he came from South Korea where he had studied at the American School. |