Saturday 14th March 2026

Although Central and South America has furnished the world with a vast and celebrated output of music for the classical guitar, Jack Hancher’s recital was a rich and enjoyable reminder of the music that has grown up – and is still growing well, as this concert attests – within Europe. Jack’s ‘European’ concert drew upon both music originally composed for the guitar and music written for other instruments and transposed for the guitar.

He opened tonight’s recital with two movements from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Partita No. 1 in B minor, BWV 1002. Composed in 1720 for solo violin, each of the four movements of this piece contains in effect two parts, hence the ‘Double.’ The Double offers a musical elaboration of the chords used in each of the four movements. It was a beautiful way to open the concert. Jack’s Sarabande/Double was silky smooth, like flowing water, whereas his Bourree/Double was full of nimbleness and sparkle.

Composed 250 years after Bach’s Partita, the Englishman Malcolm Arnold’s Fantasy for Guitar offers a highly contrasting contemporary, but nonetheless, highly structured, piece of music. Commissioned by Julian Bream and written in 1971, Arnold not only wrote it for Bream, for his style of playing, but, as Arnold wasn’t a guitarist himself, it was created in close collaboration with the maestro. In introducing the piece, Jack described it as having a pyramidal structure, with the Fughetta acting as its top and centre movement, and the three movements either side mirroring each other. It is a wonderful guitaristic piece, with Jack really wringing out from his lovely instrument every ounce of full-bodied resonance in the opening and ending sections, as well as a floating, dreamy, meditative lightness of expression in the central Fughetta.  

Jack ended the first half of his recital with a piece by Laura Snowden. Placing it here in the program brought to the fore the complex web of relations involved in guitar history as well as musical composition: the Bream for whom Arnold composed his Fantasy was a direct mentor to Snowden, from whom Jack commissioned The Memory Garden. And as Jack explained, the inspiration behind Laura’s piece are her experiences of walks and talks and stories with her grandmothers as a child. In his performance of Laura’s beautiful piece of music, Jack very ably conjured up a feeling of loving togetherness, of play and innocence, of time and distance, and of circular repetition; as if the musical itself embodied the experience of having a cherished memory.   

The entire second half of Jack’s concert explored the work and interplay between 20th century French and Spanish composers, as well as the interplay between the piano and guitar. He opened with Debussy’s much cherished La Fille Aux Cheveux Lin (The girl with the flaxen hair). Composed in 1910 and forming part (Prelude No. 8) of Book 1 of Debussy’s significant 24 preludes for solo piano, La Fille Aux Cheveux Lin is a very beautiful piece of music. One would be forgiven for assuming that this piece was composed for the guitar: as Jack’s performance of it illustrated, his instrument’s superlative dynamical range, tonal colour graduations, and harmonical effects imbued Debussy’s music with magical charm.

Jack followed this with Spanish Falla’s 1920 tribute to Debussy (following his death in 1918). Homenaje pour Le Tombeau de Claude Debussy was Falla’s only piece written specifically for the guitar. Widely appreciated as a masterpiece for the guitar, it is a piece that interweaves French and Spanish musical elements, reflective of Falla’s residence, and musical development, in Paris from 1907-14. In his performance of this piece, Jack illustrated a wonderful boldness in his execution of the deep and resonant open chords, prior to returning to his exquisite gentleness of touch for its ending. Finishing this trio of pieces, Jack returned to one of Debussy’s compositions for piano, his earliest one in fact – from 1880 – providing for us a very robust, earthy, and lively recital of Danse Bohémienne.

Composed in 1912-13, Ravel’s À la Manière de Borodin (In the way of Borodin) is another offering from Jack that foregrounds the rich cross-fertilisation of composers, cultures, people and instruments – specifically the piano – in early 20th century Europe.  In collaboration with the Italian Alfredo Casella (1833-1947), the French composer Ravel created four musical pastiches for piano in the style of important contemporary composers. Alongside this one in the style of the Russian composer Borodin, Ravel also composed a pastiche in the style of Emmanuel Chabrier. At about one and a half minutes long, it’s a lovely miniature with a dense dance (waltz) -like feel, very suited to Jack’s ability to play in a beautifully understated way.

Also originally composed for piano is Catalonian Frederico Mompou’s Canción No. 6. It comes from his Cançons i Danses, a collection of 15 songs and dances composed across much of the composer’s lifetime, between 1918 and 1972. Like most of the collection, Cancion No. 6 was composed for piano, and was dedicated to the great Polish-American virtuoso Arthur Rubinstein. It is a hauntingly beautiful piece, and, in Jack’s very capable hands, is suited exceptionally well to the guitar. Further elaborating his web of European musical connections and interrelations, Jack ended his trio of pieces composed for piano with Spanish Albeniz’s  Capricho Catalán (one connection here being the celebration of the region of fellow composer Mompou’s Catalonia). 

Jack ended his recital with a masterpiece of 20th century music written for the guitar. Composed in 1933 (just three years prior to his death by firing squad execution), Antonio Jose’s Sonata for Guitar illustrates this composer’s unique voice. His work was highly admired in his lifetime, with Ravel (another French connection) commenting that Jose ‘will become the Spanish composer of our century’. The Sonata is a brilliantly crafted work with four well-defined movements unified by recurring harmonic-thematic elements, demanding a virtuosic ability by the performer. Jack rose to the occasion admirably, providing us with a tour de force at all levels. It was a wonderful way to end his fascinating program of European music.

Despite giving us so much already, Jack was generous enough to respond to the audience’s desire for an encore. Traversing one more time back over the Pyrenees, to France, and back to a work originally composed for piano, in 1893, Jack treated us to Erik Satie’s Gnossiennes No. 1. Being Satie’s most well known work, not only is it a very beautiful piece, and one that works wonderfully on the guitar, but it also has the understated, dreamy and mesmeric atmosphere that Jack is so brilliant at creating, as he showed us again and again in this uplifting recital.

Programme

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
From BWV 1002

Sarabande/Double
Bourrée/Double

Malcolm Arnold (1921–2006)
Fantasy for Guitar

Prelude
Scherzo
Arietta I
Fughetta
Arietta II
March
Postlude

Laura Snowden (b. 1993)
The Memory Garden

Interval

Claude Debussy (1862–1918)
La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin

Manuel de Falla (1876–1946)
Homenaje pour Le Tombeau de Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy
Danse Bohémienne

Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)
À la Manière de Borodin

Federico Mompou (1893–1987)
Canción No. 6

Isaac Albéniz (1860–1909)
Capricho Catalán

Antonio José (1902–1936)
Sonata for Guitar

Allegro Moderato
Minuetto
Pavana Triste
Finale

Thursday 12th March 2026

It was an honour and real treat for BCGS to host Johan at one of our Thursday, monthly meet-ups. His recital focussed upon music written for guitar in Victorian London during the middle of the 19th century – arguably the high point of classical guitar playing in the UK. Contrasting with the deep resonance and sustain of a modern (post-Torres) guitar, Johan’s use of an original 1850’s parlor guitar propelled us back in time to the Victorian Salon.

That Johan is a committed teacher of the guitar was evidenced in tonight’s concert by his mixture of playing, presenting and reflection. Through his presentation he conjured up a colourful image of the players, composers, as well as the guitar scene, of ‘Pratten’s London’. Interestingly, although all the composers cited in tonight’s concert lived for a time in England (indeed, Nuske, Pratten, and Regondi all died in London), they were all born outside of the UK.

The same is also true for Swedish born Johan.

Johan opened his recital with a brilliant rendition of the Russian-born Nuske’s Fantasia in C Major, Variations on ‘God Save the King’. From this, it was immediately apparent why Johan uses a guitar made well over 100 years ago: this little, relatively quiet, guitar is capable of producing an astonishing variety of colour and dynamism, an effect that exudes a unique character. This was amply illustrated in Nuske’s fantasia. Johan’s performance provided not only a masterclass of playing on a Victorian guitar, but also highlighted Nuske’s exceptional ability as a composer of music for the guitar.

Johan treated us next to a small selection from the vast compositional output of Catharina Pratten. Moving with her family to England when she was a small child, Catharina was the daughter of the German guitarist and music teacher Ferdinand Pelzer, with herself becoming a leading figure in the guitar world. As a player, not only did she start touring at the incredibly young age of 8 years old, composed over 250 pieces for guitar and voice, and taught widely – including to the daughters of Queen Victoria – she also wrote highly respected teaching methods. Providing us with printed excerpts from Pratten’s method, Johan commented on their remarkable level of detail. In the three pieces he played, Johan very ably demonstrated all of the techniques taught by Pratten: the tonal effects of moving the right hand position in the melancholic A Lost Love; left hand slides, the use of tremolo, harmonics and rasgueado in Forgotten; and the harmonizing of voice and guitar in Twilight. Taken together, these pieces, played by Johan with impressive skill and style, provided striking evidence of how and why the young virtuoso Catherina Pelzer developed into the towering Grande Dame of the Victorian classical guitar, Catherina Pratten.

The next piece Johan played was by the Spaniard Huerta. Huerta was a celebrated guitarist, nicknamed ‘the Paganini of the guitar’ and referred to by Berlioz as one of the three best musicians of his time. Lola Montès was a wonderful dance-like, driven piece, with a bouncy bass line, full of Spanish color, augmented by lavish use of tremolo, arpeggio, pizzicato, and rasgueado.

Johan ended his recital with the virtuosic classic of 19th Century guitar repertoire, Introduction et Caprice, by the Swiss-born Giulio Regondi. Two years Pratten’s senior, like her, Regondi was also a child prodigy. However, his youthful concertizing earned him the great honour of having a
piece of music (op. 46) dedicated to him by no less than Fernando Sor. As in the other offerings from Johan tonight, he performed this very challenging piece with seeming ease, along with huge verve and charm. To hear this wonderful piece performed with such skill and musicality on an original guitar – dating from the period during which it was composed – felt like a privilege and a dreamy time-travel back to a very high point in the history of the classical guitar.

Programme

Johann Abraham Nüske (1796-1865)
Fantasia in C Major: Variations on ‘God Save the King’

Catharina Pratten (1824-1895)
A Lost Love
Forgotten
Twilight

Francisco Trinidad Huerta (1800-1874)
Lola Montès; Boléro Favori et Original Op. 54

Giulio Regondi (1822-1872)
Introduction et Caprice Op. 23

Saturday 15th November 2025

Dressed in smart black jacket and trousers, black polo-neck sweater, polished shoes, and with no introduction other than a courteous bow, Ian Watt opened this recital with the clear trebles and ringing basses of Villa Lobos’s Prelude No. 2. It was immediately impressed upon the audience that here was an extremely capable musician with a confident precision (his eyes were mostly closed) and clarity of sound. Sections 1 and 3 of its ABA structure were played with a charm fitting to ‘the Rascal of Rio’ referred to in its subtitle; yet its middle section had a rhythmic intensity appropriate to its war-dance origins. Ian played Prelude No. 3 with an equal yet different intensity, this time one fitting to the Baroque grandeur of the soundworld of Bach, to whom Villa Lobos dedicated this piece. This was created via the use of slow, deep resonating chords and by ending musical phrases with a strong vibrato. Prelude No. 3 ended with a mesmerising gentle touch that returned us to silence; followed by an enthusiastic applause.

Staying in South America for the whole of the first half of the recital, Ian followed Villa-Lobos’s Preludes with a selection of pieces by the Paraguayan composer, Augustin Barrios. Prior to playing, Ian introduced himself as well as the next composer, referencing Barrios’s flamboyant character and self-conscious aura of mysticism. Ian grouped the first three pieces together, which worked very well, moving from the colorful and highly melodic Madrigal-Gavota; to a yearning, introspective Prelude in C minor, to a technically brilliant Contemplacion. Following these, he introduced his next two pieces by Barrios, both of which are very highly acclaimed both within and beyond the guitar world: the Peruvian waltz, Vals No. 3, and the romantic barcarolle, Julia Florida. Both of these pieces are respected as masterworks of composition for the guitar, yet also offering much interpretational latitude. Ian’s renditions were infused with musical virtuosity and emotional depth. Taken together, these five pieces by Barrios illustrated not only Ian Watt’s mastery of the guitar, but also remind us of the incredible sophistication, range, and quality of Barrios’s compositional output.

Ian ended the first half of this recital with a masterpiece and staple of the classical guitar repertoire: Barrios’s La Catedral. Although it’s hard to imagine La Catedral without its deeply nostalgic and melancholic opening movement, introducing it Ian explained how it was originally published as a two movement piece in 1921, with a third (the initial) movement being added in 1938. I never tire of hearing La Catedral. It is simply stunning, with each player offering it in a slightly different hue. Ian’s rendition was powerfully muscular, robust and virtuosic, with a grandeur that evokes both the Montevideo Cathedral which inspired Barrios in the conception of this piece, as well as the intense, colourful polyphony of the music of his hero, JS Bach.

Opening the second half of the recital, Ian talked about the work of the late John Mcleod, a composer with whom Ian (a fellow Scot) was personally acquainted. Although Mcleod started composing for the guitar only towards the end of his life, his contribution is distinctive and notable. Ian’s performance of Three Mythical Pieces was a real treat: fascinating music that seems to fit Ian’s style of playing perfectly. It’s astonishing that Mcleod was not a guitarist – or maybe it’s due to Ian’s expressive abilities – as these very contemporary, atonal pieces were multi-layered with colour, texture, and technical sophistication, inspiring all sorts of sounds and effects from the guitar. Moving from the rich, resonating harp-like quality in Amphion’s Lyre, to the percussive, insistent, jarring discords of Salamander, to the mysterious, searching quality of Ariadne’s Thread, this was an intense and very pleasurable guitaristic experience.

Guiding us out from Mcleod’s mythical sound world, Ian’s next offering took us back to the centre of modern classical music, by way of Debussy’s much cherished Prelude No. 8, The girl with the flaxen hair. Composed in 1910 and forming part of book 1 of Debussy’s significant 24 preludes for solo piano, Ian Watt’s transcription and playing of this piece not only foregrounds the music’s very charming and innocent beauty, but also the guitar’s ability to render these qualities through its distinctive dynamical range, tonal colour graduations, and harmonic effects. Ian played Prelude No. 8 with much gentleness and care, allowing the music to breathe and radiate. His next piece, also from book 1 of Debussy’s 24 Preludes, Prelude No. 12, Minstrels (transcribed by Castelnuovo-Tadesco), had a very different feel and effect: a more tightly-knit, choppy, almost claustrophobic, rhythm and melody; but nevertheless, it was a piece that changed and developed, or even experimented, in a fantasia-like way. Taken together, these two pieces from Debussy’s 24 preludes, provided a glimpse of this very influential composer’s brilliantly poetic, variable, sketch-like style. They also aptly demonstrated how the enormous versatility of the guitar can render his music with aplomb.

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco was very prolific. Writing over 100 pieces for the guitar alone, he is celebrated as a great composer for this instrument. His Capriccio Diabolico (“diabolical caprice”) is a homage to the legendary violinist and composer, Niccolo Paganini. Fittingly, it seems to be a devilishly difficult piece to play, with virtuosic mastery of the guitar being mandatory. Ian played Capriccio Diabolico with incredible agility, yet never lost sight of musicality. Indeed, alongside its frantic passages, this piece has grace and beauty. It was a phenomenal performance, amply rewarded by loud applause from an uplifted audience.

Saving us from the allure of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s devil music, Ian transported us to the spacious wilderness of the Sergio-Leone’s wild west, via his transcription of Ennio Morricone’s film score C’era una Volta il West (Once Upon a Time in the West). Its elegiac, heart-warming nature was heightened by Ian’s gentle tempo and floating harmonics. Ian ended this recital with his own transcription of Isaac Albeniz’s Spanish dance, Seguidillas. It was played with a repeated, conspicuously jaunty rhythm, interspersed with pleasant chord progressions and pleasing gradations of tonal colour. With its sparkling harmonics towards the end, the effect of this final piece in the concert was to leave the listener with a smile on their face.

Ian indulged the audience’s sustained-applause request for an encore with another Spanish dance, composed by Albeniz’s contemporary Enrique Granados. Played with the same skillful musicality as Seguidillas, Ian’s performance of Granados’s Danza No. 5 only served to add further, contented satiety to listener’s fulfilment, perhaps inspiring a skip in their step upon departure from the concert venue.

Programme

Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959)
Cinq Preludes
Prelude No. 2 in E major – “Melodia capadócia”
Prelude No. 3 in A minor – “Homenagem a Bach”

Agustín Barrios Mangoré (1885-1944)
Madrigal – Gavota
Prelude in C minor
Contemplación
Vals No. 3, Op. 8
Julia Florida
La Catedral
i. Preludio (Saudade)
ii. Andante Religioso
iii. Allegro Solemne

John McLeod (1934-2022)
Three Mythical Pieces
Amphion’s Lyre
Salamander
Ariadne’s Thread

Interval

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Préludes, Book I
No. 8 “La fille aux cheveux de lin” (The girl with the flaxen hair) (tr.: Watt)
No. 12- “Minstrels” (tr.: Castelnuovo-Tedesco)

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968)
Capriccio Diabolico (Omaggio a Paganini), Op. 85

Ennio Morricone (1928-2020)
C’era una Volta il West (tr.: Watt)

Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909)
Seguidillas, Op. 232/5 (tr.: Watt)

Composed in 1774, just prior to the birth of the first great classical composers for the guitar, such as Fernando Sor and Mauro Giuliani, the opening piece of this recital provided a fine example of how beautiful music written originally for the piano accumulates new dimensions when performed on guitar.

Mark Eden’s transcription of Mozart’s Sonata No. 4, together with Eden–Stell Duo’s performance of it, made vivid the music’s strongly dialogical character, wherein each voice is pitted against the other in a — by turns — loving, dancing, teasing, and competitive match.

Composed in 1962, almost two hundred years after Mozart’s Sonata No. 4, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Les Guitares bien Tempérées (1974) is a masterwork of composition for two guitars. Inspired by, and a tribute to, J. S. Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier, it has been described as the longest and most important cycle of works ever composed for two guitars.

In the piece as a whole, there are 24 prelude–fugue pairs, and tonight we were treated to the initial six. If Eden–Stell’s opening piece brought out the dialogical character of Mozart’s Sonata, in this series we had an intense, searching conversation, wherein the two voices were engaged in an almost continuous interlacing, interpenetrating, harmonic exploration and development.

Given that Les Guitares bien Tempérées was written for the Duo Presti–Lagoya, it is fitting that it was followed by a piece composed by Ida Presti. As well as being celebrated as a virtuoso performer, Presti is also considered a first-rate composer for the guitar. Eden–Stell’s wonderful performance of Étude Fantastique intimated both: not only is the music fantasia-like, fascinating for its constant shifts in rhythm and changes in melody — whilst integrating a range of stylistic influences — but it also required, and exhibited, a flawless interweaving of playing wherein the musicians seemingly merged into one living, breathing source of sound.

Eden–Stell opened the second half of their recital with the oldest piece in their program. The Concerto in D is of both eminent and unique provenance: J. S. Bach’s 1715 composition for harpsichord was in fact a transcription of an Oboe Concerto by his contemporary Marcello; which Chris Stell, in turn, arranged for guitar duet.

The long journey this music took to the guitar was worth it:
the Andante was played with a gorgeous alternation of firm touch and singing lightness (spiccato);
its haunting Adagio was imbued with a profundity due to the extent of colour contrast offered by two guitars (one of which — Chris’s — has a deep bass provided by a 7th string);
and its Presto rang out and flowed with the wonderful resonance of sound that is unique to spruce-topped guitars.

Turning to a very different sound world, Eden–Stell’s next offering was a selection of pieces by the 20th-century Armenian composer Arno Babajanyan. From Bach’s formal, Western European Baroque, we were invited into a quiet reflective space, rich in human emotion and Middle Eastern culture.

The pieces selected were from the beginning (Prelude, Impromptu) and end (Elegy) of Babajanyan’s output. Although each of these short pieces was meditative and hypnotic, the last one was filled with a powerful sense of loss and mourning.

To end their program, Eden–Stell stayed within the 20th century, but this time within the atonal sound world of André Jolivet. With their program nodding once again to their esteemed forebears, Sérénade pour deux guitares (1956) was commissioned by Duo Presti–Lagoya.

Eden–Stell described the Sérénade as “unique in its sonic originality, showcasing Jolivet’s command for the guitar’s harmonic scope, tone colour, texture, and articulation … in short, it is a masterpiece of extraordinary originality.”

The deep respect Eden–Stell have for both Jolivet’s composition, as well as Duo Presti–Lagoya’s contribution to the history of the guitar, could be seen, heard, and felt in every note of their performance of the Sérénade.

Indeed, Eden–Stell’s rendition of Sérénade constituted the final part of a masterclass concert of exceptional skill and verve, dedication to the guitar and its history, and teamwork coordinated at the level of breath.

For the audience of this wonderful recital, it allowed for a celebration of enormous musicality.

Programme

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)
Sonata No. 4 K282 (arr. Mark Eden)

• Adagio
• Minuet I / Minuet II
• Allegro

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895–1968)
Preludes and Fugues from Les Guitares bien Tempérées

• Prelude and Fugue I – G minor
• Prelude and Fugue II – D major
• Prelude and Fugue III – A minor
• Prelude and Fugue IV – E major
• Prelude and Fugue V – B minor
• Prelude and Fugue VI – F♯ major

Ida Presti (1924–1967)
Étude Fantastique

INTERVAL

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
Concerto in D BWV 974 (after Marcello, arr. Chris Stell)

• I. Andante e spiccato
• II. Adagio
• III. Presto

Arno Babajanyan (1921–1983)
Three Pieces (arr. Chris Stell)

• Prelude
• Impromptu
• Elegy

André Jolivet (1905–1974)
Sérénade pour deux guitares

• I. Preludio e canzona
• II. Allegro Trepidante
• III. Andante Malinconico
• IV. Con Allegria

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)