Category: Reviews

Album (& Book!) Review: Danzas Puertorriqueñas – Juan F. Acosta by Hermelindo Ruiz Mestre & Friends

Nicole NealLeave a comment

If you swung by the blog last week you’ll know that I posted up a Q&A with Puerto Rican guitarist Hermelindo Ruiz Mestre.

If you missed it, click here and check it out.

Well, today I have for you a review of Hermelindo’s project, comprising a CD and accompanying sheet music book, of the music of little-known Puerto Rican composer Juan F. Acosta (1890 – 1968) – Danzas Puertorriqueñas.

As the name suggests this project presents a series of Acosta’s Puerto Rican dances, ten in all, each with a slightly different flavour. The decision to choose which of the dances to present in this project must have been a tricky one as Acosta apparently wrote 752 of them!  Without knowing any of the other pieces, mostly written as study type pieces for piano in their original form, I’d say that Hermelindo has selected well.

Each of the dances, as I said, has it’s own flavour and feel. They’re all fantastic little pieces around 3 to 4 minutes in length – a great length of piece to probably actually dance to funnily enough! And just enough to snare your interest, have you tapping your toe along, before rounding off and heading into the next tune. Seriously good Latin American melodies and dance rhythms. The sort of stuff I really love.

One of favourites on the album include album opener Ojos de ensueño. A lovely tune that leads you in oh so gently, before leading us into a wonderful dance that I defy anyone not to sway their body to (or least tap their toe!). Another top choice for me from the album is Rosarito y Luis, a lovely piece with just the slightest bittersweet melancholy flavour to it, lulling us along before launching headlong into a lively pulsating dance. And you can listen for yourself here:

My favourite track (after much deliberating and serious amount of listening!) is Bajo la sombra de un pino. It’s a little bit sultry, swaying and and dare I say, just a little bit sexy (ooh la la!). I can imagine myself in the Caribbean just sitting back listening to it!

In selecting the pieces to present on the album and the book Hermelindo says that “I noticed that the writing for this instrument is fairly simple and limited of pianistic effects. What I deducted from this was that the composer, as a teacher and conductor, always thought of these works as small studies that he could later orchestrate for other musical ensembles.”

And this is precisely what Hermelindo has done with this project, transcribing each of the ten dances as a duet for two guitars. Wonderful! I shall certainly be taking a look at a few of these (especially the Bajo la sombra de un pino) with my duet partner!

In all of this I’ve neglected to speak of Hermelindo’s playing. Well, I can confirm it’s absolutely top of the class. Hermelindo works a beautiful, full and rich tone from his 2011 Garrett Lee guitar.

An absolutely wonderful offering from a very fine player, presenting the world music that would otherwise remain buried. Bravo Hermelindo!

And don’t forget to head over Hermelindo’s website to pick up your own copy of this fantastic album and duo transcriptions: http://www.hermelindoruiz.com/2/Acosta2

Crossover Artist Lindsey Saunders

Nicole Neal1 Comment

Welcome to part two of Crossover Week here on Classical Guitar n Stuff. In case you missed part one you can check it out here: CLICK HERE!

As you’ll know (well, those of you who’ve been here more than a handful of times) I’m quite the music fan, not just a classical guitar nut. I’m also quite partial to other forms of guitar, including our steel stringed acoustic and electric cousins. I’m a big believer in cross-fertilisation, listening to, learning from and taking the best, juiciest bits I fancy from other forms of guitar music, and other music in general really!

You’ll also know however that to get a gig on the blog, as it were, as a non-nylon string player is quite a rare thing. There are plenty of websites and blogs and so on out there on the tinerweb dedicated to electric guitar, rock music and so on, so I like to keep this as our classical guitar enclave! Big up to the nylon string! However, reverting back to what I said above I think it’s very healthy to explore other musics within the guitar family and beyond. It all gets a bit incestuous otherwise!!

As you may imagine I get requests a-many to feature all sorts of artists on the blog, so it does take a little something to coax me away from purely (more or less) classical guitarists for the above-mentioned reasons. I was introduced a couple of weeks ago to a young artist by the name of Lindsey Saunders, and this young woman’s original acoustic steel string music was one of those rare moments inviting me outside of the nylon string realm.

Released just this week (4th November) is Lindsey’s first instrumental composition, Miles Before Sleep,  written for a contemporary dance production in Chicago last summer.  The recording is comprised of four movements –   Task, Decision, Questioning  and  Acceptance.

I’ll admit it takes me a while to get my ear into a purely steel string recording, as it’s quite a different sound palette and texture to the nylon string classical guitar. Once you atune the ear into the bright, piercing nature of the steel string you can really begin to appreciate some of the more subtle nuances of the playing style.

Lindsey’s style is very much an indie pop-rock style with inflections of country, chord driven melodies and infectious toe-tapping strumming  – and I should mention delivered with a mixed plectrum and plucked right hand technique (the first artist with a plectrum on Classical Guitar n Stuff!!).

Miles Before Sleep Revision

So here are my thoughts on Miles Before Sleep…..

Task is a lovely, melodic opener to the recording, starting out gently, quietly, simply, building in volume and intensity throughout. I can imagine someone singing along with it. A kind of song without words.

Decision could be in contention for my favourite on the recording. Lovely use of harmonics. Creeping melody, leaving us hanging wondering what’s coming next and continuing in this vein, leading us to an “ahhh” moment when the fantastic steel string chordal playing comes into full effect.

Questioning  is in fact probably my favourite of the four tracks. I love intricate-sounding finger work in the middle before it moves into a quasi-country stomping strum before then giving away to more loose, magical sounding chord progressions that really do sound as if they’re questioning something as the title suggests.

And after all that questioning comes the final Acceptance. In its major key and lyrical style it really does feel like a great close to the recording – its clearly an acceptance of something, an understanding, a resolution to the almost aching qualities within the music that preceded it.

Check out Lindsey in action and that interesting right hand technique with a clip of Decision:

Lindsey Saunders recording Miles Before Sleep is available from all good digital music outlets worldwide.