{TABLE} Espana e Irlanda ............................ Albeniz/Grundy/Tarrega Voyage of Maeldun ........................... Andrew Shieis Introduction, Theme and Variations, Op 46 ... Sor 3 Preludes .................................. Villa-Lobos 3 Impressions on Platero y Yo ............... Castelnuovo-Tedesco/Sainz de la Maza Sonata for Solo Guitar ...................... Donal Hurley {/TABLE} THE opening recital of Dublin Guitar Week was given by Alan Grundy in the Instituto Cervantes last night. It is to be followed by 12 more recitals by artists from France, Germany, Britain, Ireland, Lebanon, Italy and Spain.
Grundy began with two well known Spanish pieces: Albeniz's Rumores de la Caleta (arranged for guitar) and Tarrega's endearing tremelo study, Recuerdos de la Alhambra, sandwiching between them his own composition, Tango Uhimo, which was inspired by a poem of Lorca's. The dark sounds of this piece made a fitting tribute to the poet and showed that the guitarist has learned from the Preludes of Villa Lobos, three of which he played with impressive gusto later in the recital.
The Voyage of Maeldun by the Irish composer Andrew Shiels is a short suite based on four episodes from the old epic. Programmatic in intention, the music seems to need a more versatile instrument than the guitar to tell its story. Only in episode three, The Island of the Little Cat, was it possible to envisage what was happening.
Sor's Op. 46 is an uncomplicated theme and variations, very much of its time (the 1830s), and it made agreeable listening, though not as agreeable as the three charming pieces inspired by Platero y Yo, the book about the poet and his donkey by Juan Ramon Jimenez. These three very atmospheric pieces, two by Castelnuovo Tedesco and one by Sainz de la Maza, are a marvellous evocation of a prelapsarian world.
Donal Hurley's Sonata, specially written for Alan Grundy, makes use of a variety of styles and effects in its three movements, with the result "that it is hard to see it as other than three pieces adventitiously joined together. Subtitled a Homage to Segovia, it is a tribute to the great guitarist's technique rather than his musical taste.