John Williams : Homage to Barrios : Doberman – Yppan

John Williams

Doberman – Yppan : 7 pages

John Williams the guitarist (not the film music composer)Is the person behind this latest piece, although the tribute to Barrios , should also have told you that!

He explains in the Foreword how much Barrios changed his musical life and that decided him to write this little piece in Homage. He tunes the 5^th string to G and the 6^th to C for this piece as it is in C major, and C minor throughout, and those open bass notes come in very useful during this.

Of course this is far from an easy piece to play as he has written it very much with his own technique in mind! Beginning in C minor the brief introduction leads to the main theme in two voices but with numerous chords as well. The melody moves around the fingerboard considerably before turning into C Major for a fast paced set of bars all in semi – quavers .This then returns to the minor key for a varied return to the opening theme before a cadenza like number of lines without a time signature take us to a new section in the major key. The writing is very cleverly done with many places that will catch the player out, until he gets to grips with where John Williams puts all the parts. Then finally the introduction returns, again slightly different to the opening, before a brief coda closes the work in the home key.

Interestingly there is a recording on YouTube of John playing this piece, but the actual final coda is a bit longer on this than on the sheet music! Other than that this is a melodic work with many adventurous moments that are well worth getting your hands around, providing you can cope with it!

Chris Dumigan