Daniela Rossi : John W. Duarte Guitar Music Volume 5 – Duarte Homages, Works for Solo Guitar : CD

DUARTE: Sonatina Lirica Op48; Sua Cosa Op52; Three Valses Op83; Nuages Passants Op102; Idylle pour Ida Op93 ; Epitaph for Manuel M.Ponce Op7; Partita II Op104 ‘ Relazione’: GILARDINO: A Quiet Song: HOUGHTON: Elegy (Habanera): BOGDANOVIC: In an English Garden: USHER: Epitaph for Manuel M.Ponce .

Daniela Rossi

Brilliant Classics : 97470

The fifth album in what is a fabulous set of albums heralding the wonderful music that John Duarte wrote for the guitar, now is subtitled Homages and not only pieces by the man himself but also this time homages to him from other composers, a lovely idea.

The album opens with the Sonatina Lirica a three – movement piece that was a Homage to Mario Castelnuovo – Tedesco, a great friend of Duarte and also a brilliant composer himself (I have a huge mass of his pieces in my collection!) Immediately this piece is most definitely very lyrical from the outset. Yes, there are still plenty of Duarte’s musical style in each of the movements , with the occasional note or chord that surprises and plenty of passing notes that are often unexpected but everything is beautifully captured by Daniela Rossi .The second movement is very sad and emotive, and beautiful too, whilst the final movement  is fast and full of moving parts  at the outset before quieting down in the middle section.The opening ideas then returns for one more time before a very quirky final phrase brings this piece to a great close.

Angelo Gilardino’s A Quiet Song is dedicated ‘To the Memory of John W. Duarte’ and is actually a beautiful arrangement of the folk – tune Barbara Allen set at times as a counterpoint. This is a lovely piece I hadn’t heard before.

Sua Cosa, Duarte’s homage to the memory of Wes Montgomery is next and is a work full of jazz elements, a fitting tribute to the great man, and a really fun work to hear and to play too!

Three Valses is his tribute to the great Venezuelan composer Antonio Lauro, whose guitar music is loved by many. Here Duarte copied the hemiola 6/8 – 3 / 4 cross over rhythms and in doing so makes these pieces sound very authentically Venezuelan!

Next comes a piece by Mark Houghton, a very old friend of mine, and his tribute to Duarte written only a few days after his death in 2004.The Habanera rhythm is beautifully captured and yet the piece is sad adn emotional and really works well as a tribute to the great composer.

Next comes Nuages Passants (see a review of the sheet music elsewhere on my site) which is Duarte’s tribute to Django Reinhardt’s famous Nuages. This is a substantial piece of over 15 minutes and is a set of variations with a Theme at the beginning and a lengthy Finale at the close. This is a really major piece of writing that any lover of Duarte’s music should get to know.

In an English Garden is a Homage to Duarte by Dusan Bogdanovic  set in three short movements, and written in a semi – baroque style, full of those sort of harmonies one might find in Bach, and is a pleasant and interesting piece to come across, with a very fast final movement that sounds like it takes some playing, not that Daniela Rossi has any problems in that respect, because she really doesn’t!

Duarte’s Idylle our Ida is his tribute to the wonderful guitarist Ida Presti who sadly died far too young. This is a lovely evocative piece that was a suggestion of Alice Artzt and has a number of different ideas in it that mimic Presti’s personality.

The next two pieces, Terence Usher’s Epitaph for Manuel M. Ponce, and John Duarte’s piece of the same title, were written as a pair in 1948 to be played as such a short time after Ponce’s death. These are a beautiful pair of pieces that are new to me, but deserve hearing more often.

The final work is the 4 movement Partita II , the subtitle of which Relazione relates to the fact that the movements and thematically related .The movements are Prelude, Plainte, Perni and a final Toccata and yet again another new piece I have not come across before that deserves to be played more often.

This album is a fine tribute to all concerned, but Daniela Rossi’s playing of these technically difficult pieces is exceptional, and the sound is very clear and close and definitely an album for you ‘wanted’ list.

Chris Dumigan