"...with a musicality that reminds of legends like Bream." - Jan Westerlund
The Visit - First performance of Björn J:son Lindh's guitar concerto
Nora kyrka, 2017, 21 June, 19:00
The spark that lights the flame
Since I first met the guitar, the fiery passion of the Spanish master composers has been the very spark of life for me. The Spanish temper and the cool, Nordic summer mists have always found ways to equilibrate within me. Over the years I have come to create a deeper understanding of balance between the flaming passions of the guitar and the cool of my heritage, and now as I see them come together at new levels, I feel an urge to share a newly awakened passion with you, my audience.
Sharing my passion with you
To let you have a glimpse of what I feel, see and sense, I have compiled a program of selected pieces that express exactly the balancing forces of the heat, darkness, cool and light of my two sides. Welcome to my world!
Me & my guitar
The guitar I play is a Paulino Bernabé. Paulino Bernabé is considered among the rare elite of guitar makers. His instruments, widely used by concert and recording artists, are sought after for their uniquely powerful, clear, and sustaining tone.
Born in Madrid on July 2, 1932, Bernabe studied the classical guitar with Daniel Fortea, a pupil of Tárrega. It was during these years that he developed an interest in guitar construction.
In 1954, the young guitarist became an apprentice guitar maker, and eventually head artisan in the famed Ramírez workshop, during the time when Segovia began to play Ramírez guitars. In 1969, Bernabe left Ramírez and founded his own workshop in Madrid.
While rooted in the generations old "Madrid School" of guitar making, Bernabe is an innovator and experimenter who has evolved his own strutting systems and construction methods. The sound of his guitars is unique in that they have robust basses, strong trebles, and a wide palette of tone colours; a true "concert grand" among guitars.
Bernabe began his quest for his sound ideals in the early 1970's with a radical 5-strut bracing system of the soundboard, later modifying this number to 7. More recently he developed a relatively complex multi- strutted layout that includes four struts working outward from the soundhole, as well as three fan braces at varying heights and thicknesses, and an innovative back design. The result is an instrument with a sweeter tone while still maintaining the original clarity and focus.
Bernabe has also used woods that are not common in classical guitars. In addition to his vast stock of rare, aged rosewood, Bernabe has used flamed maple, pear and even camphorwood, to further sculpt the instrument's sound capabilities.
Touché I is the name of Magnus Gutke´s debut record, which was released in 1997. The selections are weighted toward Spanish composers like Tárrega's Adelita and Mazurka, followed by Maria. The intensity rises with Johann Sebastian Bach and the Prelude in D-Minor. Two preludes by Villa-Lobos are followed by Moreno-Torroba's Fandanguillo. Yet another pearl is the beautiful Campanas del alba. We may also listen on this CD to compositions by Fernando Sor, Andrés Segovia, Federico Mompou and Manuel de Falla.
Touché II - this recording represents the culmination of more than ten year's work with pieces that date from Magnus Gutke's studies in Paris with the maestro Alberto Ponce and contain, besides Sainz de la Maza´s Platero y yo, Antonio José's Sonata.
His work offers subtle melody and tonality in pieces such as Pavana triste and invites us to an explosive Finale with rapid scales and rasgueados. Together with the Frenchman Maurice Ohana we are transported yet further away from the tonal and listen to two movements from Si le jour paraît. We are offered Aube; a work with caustic tones and quarter tones and the virtuoso movement Jeu des quatre vents. A work with impressionistic stamp, Solilioque, by the Frenchman Henri Sauguet, forms an elegant conclusion for this album.
On the cd Silver och jag (Silver and I/Platero y yo) the actor Jan-Olof Strandberg together with the guitarist Magnus Gutke gives their interpretation of the suite Platero y yo by Eduardo Sainz de la Maza.
The text reading is in Swedish. Sainz de la Maza, who is considered to be one of the most prominent contemporary composers for the classical guitar, composes in a jazz influenced style inspired by composers like Debussy and Ravel. This suite is inspired by the Nobel laureate Juan Ramón Jiménez and his prose Platero y yo from 1914.
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