January 7, 2019

  • Engaging Guitar Music Featuring Campbell Ross

     

    Concertante: Modern Works for Guitar
    Campbell Ross, guitar;
    Benjamin Greaves, violin. Matthew Ryan, viola. Ngaio Toombes, cello.
    Dave Mibus, piano. Lachlan Symons, bass. James Whiting, drums/percussion.
    Disc One: Total Time:  53:47
    Disc Two: Total Time: 44:53
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

    Ravello presents this two-disc set featuring composer and guitarist Campbell Ross in music that melds classical touches with a host of world music and jazz.  The first disc focuses on Ross’ own music while the second introduces listeners to the work of two brothers Ariel and Gerardo Dirie.

    The album’s title comes from the three-movement work that opens disc one.  Inspired by Claude Bolling’s Concerto for guitar and jazz piano, Ross crafted a piece that blends various musical styles from popular (blues, jazz), world music (in this case elements of Latin music), and classical (i.e. Spanish guitar) style.  These various elements are strewn across the piece.  For anyone familiar with the Bolling work, this makes for an apt companion.  It is filled with fun melodic content and humor.  The string trio adds more of an element of class to the jazz-like implications of the music.  The “concertante” aspect is addressed by transferring important solos to the different instruments along the way which lends the music some of its additional color.  While the first movement seems a bit long, the central “rumba” is very moving lyrical pause before the final little light “Allegro.”  Unique harmonic twists and spun out melodic ideas against the shifting meters make for a fine conclusion.  Many will find it a delightful discovery in that sort of crossover musical genre.

    This longer is work is followed by pieces for solo guitar.  First is the composer’s own four-movement Sonata (2011) with its nods to those of Ponce and Castelnuovo-Tedesco.  The pieces have more formal structures with an opening movement in sonata-allegro form and a concluding rondo.  The second movement takes its inspiration from Schubert with its songlike melancholy themes.  The third movement has a more intimate feel with interesting harmonic shifts.  At just under 20 minutes it is an important addition to the guitar repertoire.  To close off the album, Ross created two sets of variations, both on familiar Lennon-McCartney songs.  First is an exploration of variations based on “Norwegian Wood” followed by another on “On World Without Logic”.  In this case, one may wish to have the tunes handy at the end of each piece.  That said, these are interesting improvisation-like explorations of these tunes.

    The bulk of disc two is given over to music by Argentinian composer Ariel Dirie (1960-2010) who taught at the Conservatory in Cordoba.  His brother Gerardo had a collection of his pieces which Ross was given for this recording of premieres.  The first of these is a gorgeous little work, Mesurando Y Dalias.  It is in a traditional style.  What follows are ten delightful Estudios.  These are essentially works written to help explore different technical aspects of playing the guitar crafted here in delicate pieces that have nice melodic content and interesting rhythmic interest that includes a couple tangos, and a final Argentinean dance (the chacarera) in the mix.  The pieces maintain a traditional harmonic style with thematic ideas that make them more than just technical exercises.  Listeners more familiar with guitar repertoire will likely appreciate more the way these different combinations of fingerings and techniques will translate again and again in other more familiar music, but here they are just the means to many beautiful ends.  The end result is music that has a playful wit.  Sometimes light percussion adds extra flavor (like the country-folk style that appears in the “Allegretto”).  There are also sounds of the bush that opening and close the album and appear in a couple other places unobtrusively.  The music thus fits quite well with South American folk-influenced art music.  The final work on the album is by Gerardo Dirie (b. 1956).

    The three-movement Si un dia el Olvido is like a musical exploration of memory.  The first movement seems as if we are viewing things through a haze as ideas are introduced in smaller bits and pieces to grow into slightly more angular, or chromatic arrival points.  Motives are introduced in lines that have an almost serial outline, though the music itself tends to be more unsettling due to its ambiguity than any modernist tendency, though dissonance is an important component.  The central movement picks up the pace perhaps causing forgetfulness in the speed with which one is confronted or moving about.  This is in the traditional shifts from arpeggios and long lines that can be found throughout Spanish guitar literature.  The music here too maintains a bit of dissonance with more angular lines that seem to reference forgotten dances.  The final movement has references to the troubadour composer Ventadorn and more modern troubadours Lennon and McCartney.  With a playing time of just over 13 minutes, it is an important modern guitar work well played here by Ross.

    It is not uncommon for there to be the odd performer noise in guitar recordings and there is some of that here but nothing obtrusive by any means.  Campbell Ross is on great display here as a guitarist with the ability to play across a number of genres and his program here demonstrates this.  His own works make for engaging listening that receive compelling performances.  There is a little bit for everyone in this set from jazz listeners, to those who enjoy Latin American-flavored concert music, to modern guitar music lovers.  The album allows the listener an opportunity to sit back and enjoy the many styles and moods in well-sequenced selections.  With both discs selling for the price of one it is quite the bargain.