Saturday 15th March 2025
St Paul’s Church, Bristol
Despite being a well known advocate for new music, Pavel began his recital with a cornerstone of the classical guitar repertoire, Villa-Lobos’ Cinq Préludes. Looking at this choice in the context of the concert as a whole, it can be seen that not only did the Préludes provide him with a marvellous vehicle through which he was able to exhibit his flawless touch, assured virtuosity, and mastery of tone, but the Préludes’ stylistic variation are also in keeping with the unique mixture of poetics, tradition, mystique, searching exploration and experimentation that Pavel’s playing communicates.
Moving on from the visionary boldness of Villa-Lobos’s expansive Préludes, Pavel’s natural delicacy of touch enabled him to play Dowland’s intimate and poetic fantasias with a beguiling warmth and sensitivity. Pavel’s conjuring of the imaginative realm of Dowland’s Elizabethan England provided a fitting passage to his next offering, Pure Imagination, a modern fantasia constituted by delicious discordant chords and floating harmonics that hypnotised the audience.
The Italian composer Domeniconi’s Koyunbaba (“Koyun” = “sheep”, “Baba” = “father”) is a piece that is obviously very important to Pavel, not only because it is about a region of Turkey — a country which neighbours his homeland of Bulgaria — but also because it is a work filled with a sense of native tradition and culture, of otherliness, akin to much of the music of Villa-Lobos. And like in his performance of the Préludes, in Pavel’s skilful hands the rhythmic intensity of Koyunbaba evoked a captivating aura of mystery and legend.
Following the interval, Pavel played his own transcription of Bach’s monumental Chaconne from the Partita for Violin. Described by Johannes Brahms as a piece containing “a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings,” Pavel’s performance amply illustrated that he has both the technical ability and musical sensitivity to present Bach’s vision to stunning effect.
Following this Pavel/Bach vision, the audience was treated to another one — this time that of Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint, arranged by Pavel. Relying upon pre-recorded backing tracks against which he played classical guitar, Electric Counterpoint was a truly immersive experience. Indeed, commenting upon Pavel’s recording of his minimalist work, Reich himself praised it for its “combination of clarity and extremely rich ringing overtone texture.”
Pavel closed his concert with one of his own compositions, Wave 1, a piece which, as he explained, was inspired by particle physics — specifically Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, which shows how we cannot know a particle’s position and momentum at the same time; a principle which points to the ultimate mystery and unknowability of matter, of life. Like much of his playing tonight, Wave 1 was thought-provoking and enigmatic, delivered with delicacy and grace.
Given his ability to conjure up worlds through his playing — be they that of the native Brazilian, one of Elizabethan longing, sheep-farming in the rugged landscapes of the Middle East, the pure music of imagination or of Bach, or, indeed, those of synthesised electronics or even vibrating particles — John Williams’ characterisation of Pavel Ralev as “a poet of the guitar” is spot on. Like exemplary poetry, his playing stops us in our tracks, lifts us out of the mundane, transports us to new, other-worldly places, from which we can view, and re-appreciate, both music and life.
Programme
Cinq Préludes – H. Villa-Lobos (1887–1959)
- No. 1 Homenagem ao sertanejo brasileiro
- No. 2 Homenagem ao Malandra Carioca
- No. 3 Homenagem a Bach
- No. 4 Homenagem ao Indio Brasileiro
- No. 5 Homenagem a Vida Social
Awake, sweet love, thou art return’d – J. Dowland (1563–1626)
- A Fancy P5
- A Fancy P6
Pure Imagination (arr. Ant Law) – Newley, Bricusse & Hannon
Koyunbaba – Carlo Domeniconi (b. 1947)
- I. Moderato
- II. Mosso
- III. Cantabile
- IV. Presto
INTERVAL
Partita for Violin No. 2, BWV 1004 – J. S. Bach (1685–1750)
- Chaconne (trans. Ralev)
Electric Counterpoint – S. Reich (b. 1936)
- I. Fast
- II. Slow
- III. Fast
Wave I – P. Ralev (b. 1991)