DEDICATION LEO BROUWER: 6 October 2017
The Pune Guitar Society has, since its inception, attempted to bring important constituents of the classical guitar repertoire to mainstream audiences in the city. It is particularly challenging to do this with modern guitar-centered composers, who are less well-known to begin with and are not always easy for listeners to access musically.
Arguably, the Cuban composer Leo Brouwer (born in 1939) is one of the dominant personas in the modern guitar world. In a long and highly prolific career which he initially commenced with as a guitar performer, Brouwer can be credited with a truly astounding number of solo and ensemble guitar works and concerti and substantial writing for other instruments, as well as dozens of film scores. In addition to these, he has long been an acclaimed orchestral conductor, with the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Cordoba Symphony Orchestra among others.
Kuldeep and I are, admittedly, Brouwer aficionados, and we remain fascinated with his vast body of works with its tonal landscapes, his compositional phases, the implied visual character and the sheer variety of “guitarisms” that present themselves. It has long been our wish to present the music of Leo Brouwer to audiences that may not have heard of him. As players ourselves, opportunities to perform are a major motivation. We also seek to discover and bring other musicians before audiences.
The concert will begin with Un Die de Noviembre, which is derived from one of Leo Brouwer’s film scores, having been written for the eponymous Cuban film of 1972. Kuldeep regards the visual parallels in Brouwer’s music as a major ingredient and is keen about the literary allusions and the cultural background of the composer’s work. This allows him to infuse this and other short solo pieces by Brouwer, with a very original approach to interpretation.
2017 has been the most engrossing year for us with the collaboration that we have started with pianists. It was always a PGS mandate to not restrict ourselves to the guitar, but to encourage other instrumentalists to share their music and have them listen to guitar repertoire in the process. Expanding a Brouwer-themed concert to feature pianists was a natural progression, especially with the availability of piano reductions for several ensemble works. For pianists, Meghana and Tuhin, Leo Brouwer was an unknown composer and they went through their own individual processes of discovery while preparing for this concert.
The resultant program which will be presented at the Mazda Hall in Pune on 6 October 2017, represents an eclectic collection of the Maestro’s oeuvre. It is difficult to do justice to the tremendous diversity of Brouwer’s music in just one concert, but the programming does seek to convey a representative cross section.
The concert will begin with Un Die de Noviembre, which is derived from one of Leo Brouwer’s film scores, having been written for the eponymous Cuban film of 1972. Kuldeep regards the visual parallels in Brouwer’s music as a major ingredient and is keen about the literary allusions and the cultural background of the composer’s work. This allows him to infuse this and other short solo pieces by Brouwer, with a very original approach to interpretation.
We are staging the Concerto Elegiaco, which was written originally for Julian Bream and will feature a piano reduction that was arranged by the composer himself, effectively transforming it into a piano-guitar duet. This sombre and introspective concerto is a beautifully balanced example of musical writing for any genre
Guitarist Kabir Dabholkar, since he began his stay in Pune, has become known as a multi-styled and very listenable performer, with a capacity to immerse himself very deeply in any music he takes up. It was Kabir who discovered the references to the Catalan folk songs (in particular, El Mestre) in the two-movement suite Retrats Catalan, of which he will be performing the first with Meghana Dharap on the piano. The piano reduction works particularly well with the guitar and it has been most rewarding for me to hear Meghana negotiate her way with considerable sensitivity and expressive capacity through a completely unfamiliar composer’s work. There are occasional dissonances and motifs featuring contrapuntal expansion and major demands on pedal work and she emerges with a very coherent interpretation.
Kabir has also chosen to perform the Estudio XX which is one of Leo Brouwer’s didactic works. Ostensibly a technical study to build legato and speed on the left hand, this is actually a complete piece by itself, with a clear distinction between sections.
We are staging the Concerto Elegiaco, which was written originally for Julian Bream and will feature a piano reduction that was arranged by the composer himself, effectively transforming it into a piano-guitar duet. This sombre and introspective concerto is a beautifully balanced example of musical writing for any genre. Rose E on the piano has exploited a well-matched opportunity to combine her core mainstream jazz persona with the textural contrast and chordal movement this reduction provides. Her considerable ability to match a sense of spontaneity with tonal control and her wide experience across genres, builds a strong presence here for the instrument. I discovered this concerto through the excellent recordings by the dedicatee Bream, Carlos Perez and Maria Esther Guzman, among others. The experience of playing through some of the guitar motifs, with their carefully placed, deliberate hints at major/minor conflict even as the piano plays completely disconnected harmonies around them, is the most satisfying for me.
The PGS had presented the Concerto de Toronto in 2014 featuring Rose and I and this is in the program again, with Tuhin Rao playing the piano reduction this time. Working with Tuhin, even as he discovered Leo Brouwer through an intense rehearsal cycle which took him through exasperation as well as exuberance, has been an intensely fun and occasionally fiendish experience for me. Tuhin had to deal with a not-very-playable piano reduction, which he had to practically rearrange with reference to the orchestral recording. However, his delighted discovery of the underlying harmonies as well as his own musical capacity and perseverance saw him through. The Toronto is rather relentless, having been originally written for the redoubtable technical capabilities of John Williams, but there are several sections which display quiet and thoughtful developments.
The PGS will be happy to see more listeners discover music that lies outside the typically concertised repertoire lists. We have every intention of actively bringing more concerts to the stage and will also work towards doing this at other places in India.
We encourage you to frequently visit the PGS website at http://puneguitarsociety.org/.
