Tatiana Stachak
Euterpe: 28 pages
The fourteen waltzes in this book are extremely varied in style, and every one of them is a beauty of a piece. There are no elements of having heard that before, no pastiches where you immediately can think of a few pieces you have played that sound exactly like it. No, they are all different from each other, and all have this lady’s fabulous imaginative writing in them. My only regret is that I have never come across this lady’s pieces before in all my 30 years of reviewing, and I sincerely wish I had!
They can all be played by a modestly good, to intermediately advanced player, and nothing is too advanced, although it helps if you have an agile set of fingers in some instances to help make the speed of the notes absolutely the way they should be played.
I don’t intend to mention all fourteen by name but when I say that there are absolutely no duffers in this book, I really mean it! The opening piece, and the one that is the title of the book collection itself is set in C, and set at a rollicking pace of 175 to 185 beats a minute, and immediately has some individual touches that when played at the correct speed are such fun to play, and also the writer’s beautifully imaginative melodies are what stand out. The following one Waltz on a Melancholic Note is still fast (140 – 155 beats a minute) but utterly different in emotion, as is its companion the Waltz – Smile is entirely the opposite with its giocoso melody and harmonies. I particularly liked the Frosted Waltz which slides around the guitar beautifully with its winning melody and was very pleased to see a composer who could write a Venezuelan Waltz without pinching complete melodic portions from Antonio Lauro, and the such-like, as I have seen so many times other composers do, when they decide to write a Venezuelan styled waltz! There is even a waltz called The Only One Of Its Kind, where there are five sections marked A to E , and you have to start and end with the A section, but can choose any of the other 3 as the middle sections in whatever order you decide, which is quite a lot of fun to try doing.
I also have to mention the lovely colourful presentation that this fine Polish publishing house produces. This is a top class book, beautiful looking and full of waltzes destined to enrich your day, written by a fine guitarist –composer whose music I definitely want to see and hear more of!
Chris Dumigan