Eduardo Fernandez Strums Modern Composers
Eduardo Fernandez
CLASSICAL GUITARIST Eduardo Fernandez, a native of Uruguay, performed about an hour’s worth of rarely heard compositions by 20th century composers from South and Central America and Russia. Last Tuesday, the College of Charleston‘s Department of Music and the International Piano Series co-sponsored this internationally known artist whose repertory ranges from J.S. Bach to the most cutting-edge contemporary composers.
Fernandez, also a noted composer, author, and teacher, left no doubt as to his extraordinary technical skill and highly developed musicianship. Listening and watching this master perform these technically difficult works was a rare treat. Subtly using rubato and dynamics, coupled with exquisite voicing, Fernandez made the music sound all too easy to perform. It isn’t.
Unfortunately, his chosen music for this concert at the Simons Center Recital Hall left something to be desired for those of us who are not students of the instrument, but are familiar with the melodic concert choices of a guitarist like Andres Segovia. Fernandez opened with “Preludios Americanos” by Abel Carlevaro (1916-2001), with five movements which sounded like variations on more familiar tunes, from Romantic to distinctly modern, though hard to decipher. Carlevaro, a teacher of Fernandez, was a performer, composer, and teacher greatly admired by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos and Segovia.
Four short pieces by Colombian composer and guitarist Gentil Montaña (1942-2011) followed. The music was more in a popular vein, say from the 1940s: not serious works with profundity.
Following a brief intermission, noted Mexican composer and conductor Carlos Chavez’s “3 piezas para guitarra” were on a more sophisticated plane. Chavez (1899-1978), whose many compositions include some of the more adventurous of 20th century musical creations, was down to earth and accessible.
Jaures Lamarque-Pons (1917-1982) was a distinguished pianist and composer. His three-movement “Sonatina” was decidedly more modern than anything else we heard and somewhat atonal. It was the only work on the program where Fernandez performed with a score in front of him. No recognizable tunes here.
Underground Russian composer Edison Denisov (1929-1996) wrote his “Sonata,” also in three movements, with an obvious debt to Bach, at least in the first movement, “Toccata.” His final movement, “Souvenir d’Espagne,” sounded Spanish enough, but like all of this “Sonata” few real melodies were clear, despite the composer’s search for inner beauty, such as “…understood by mathematicians or by Bach or (Anton) Webern…”
Denisov is quoted as saying, “Beauty is the principal factor in my work. This means not only beautiful sound, which, naturally, has nothing to do with outward prettiness… The most important element of my music is lyricism.’ Well, maybe so. But on my first hearing, I did not detect either beauty or particular lyricism. It was intellectually stimulating.
After a standing ovation from the smallish audience, Fernandez encored with an “Elegie” by Johann Kaspar Mertz (1809-1856), the foremost Austrian guitarist/composer of the mid-19th century. This piece was the type I wished Fernandez had programmed more of, or maybe some Bach. Yet the opportunity to hear such a well-reputed instrumentalist was more than welcome.
