Also, music by Coll, de Falla, Albeniz, Harden. Jacob
Kellermann, guitar; Christian Karlsen, London Philharmonic Orchestra;
Norrbotten NEO. BIS BIS-2485.
By John J. Puccio
According to Wikipedia, “The modern word
guitar,
and its antecedents, has been applied to a wide variety of chordophones since
classical times and as such causes confusion. The English word
guitar,
the German
Gitarre, and the French
guitare were all adopted from
the Spanish
guitarra, which comes from the Andalusian Arabic (
qitharah)
and the Latin
cithara, which in turn came from the Ancient Greek.
Kithara
appears in the
Bible four times (
1 Cor. 14:7,
Rev. 5:8,
14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp.”
So the origins of the modern guitar date back thousands of
years. The surprise is that Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo (1901-1999) didn’t
write what has become quite possibly the most-popular guitar concerto of all
time, the
Concierto de Aranjuez, until 1939. What’s more, it wasn’t even
recorded until well into the 1940’s and didn’t achieve worldwide popularity
until classical guitarist Narciso Yepes made the first of his several
recordings of it a few years later.
Today, practically every notable classical guitarist in
the world has either recorded the work or aspires to record it. The release
we’re considering at the moment is the 2019 recording by Swedish guitarist
Jacob Kellermann (b. 1984), with Maestro Christian Karlsen leading the London
Philharmonic Orchestra.
As you no doubt know, Rodrigo got his inspiration for the
Concierto
from the gardens at Palacio Real de Aranjuez, the spring resort palace and
gardens built by Philip II in the last half of the 16th century. The music
attempts to convey the feeling of another time and place by summoning the
sounds of nature.
Rodrigo described the first movement
Allegro con
spirito as "animated by a rhythmic spirit and vigour without either of
the two themes interrupting its relentless pace." Kellerman and Karlsen provide
the movement with plenty of the composer’s idea of “spirit,” while not going so
far as to make the music sound reckless or hurried. What’s more, Kellerman
conveys the temper of flamenco dance in the music, always a good move, although
Kellerman refers to it in the booklet note as “a march.” Whatever, he handles
it well.
The composer said the second movement "represents a
dialogue between guitar and solo instruments” (cor anglais, bassoon, oboe,
horn, etc.). What he didn’t say was how utterly beautiful it can be, something
audiences have been saying for more than eighty years now. At its heart the
music is a soulful, almost mournful dialogue between the guitar and various
instrumental soloists, particularly the cor anglais. Taken too slowly, this movement
can sound overly sentimental, even drippy. Kellerman takes it perhaps a shade
too far in the other direction, however, losing some of the music’s poignancy
along the way. It’s here, too, that the grandeur of the London Philharmonic
threatens to overwhelm Kellerman’s guitar work.
Then there’s a perky little closing tune, one that Rodrigo
said "recalls a courtly dance in which the combination of double and
triple time maintains a taut tempo right to the closing bar." It seems to
me it should be taut and lively, maybe a bit effervescent, sparkly. Here, we
get Kellerman in an appropriately playful mood, and he closes out the show in
good form.
Kellerman is a fine guitarist, and his Rodrigo is of a
high order. However, I still think Pepe Romero’s 70’s recording for Philips
(now on Decca) is the more well-rounded interpretation, and the Yepes accounts
carry more authority (especially the 1959 release remastered by HDTT).
Accompanying Rodrigo’s guitar concerto are several shorter
works for guitar by Francisco Coll (the contemporary work,
Turia),
Manuel de Falla (
Hamenaje), Isaac Albeniz (
Evocacion), and Pete
Harden (another contemporary piece called
Solace and Shimmer). I can’t
say I liked the Coll music as much as I probably should have; it tries too
consciously to imitate Rodrigo in a modern style I did not find attractive. The
Harden work, however, shows more promise and demonstrates the influence of
Rodrigo’s second movement. Still, why do so many modern composers eschew melody
and rhythm as if they were some kind of mutant viruses?
Producer Hans Kipfer and engineer Jens Braun recorded the
Rodrigo piece at Henry Wood Hall, London, England in October 2019 and the
others at Studio Acusticu, Pitea and Sveriges Radio Studio 3, Stockholm, Sweden
in 2017 and 2018. They made the recording in hybrid 2-channel stereo and
multichannel SACD, the regular 2-channel stereo playable on any ordinary CD
player and the SACD 2-channel and multichannel formats playable on an SACD
player. As always, I listened to the 2-channel SACD layer.
I’ve always liked the sound of BIS recordings, and this
one is fairly good, too. There is a modest reverberation in the hall that
imparts a feeling of realism, and there is enough dynamic range to convey the
excitement of the music. Most important, the guitar seems aptly lifelike, even
with the modest reverb I mentioned before. If I have any concerns about the
recording, it’s that the instruments loom a bit large, there is a little too
much evidence of multi-miking, and there isn’t a lot of distance, air, or depth
amidst the orchestral accompaniment.
JJP
To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below:
