OCAL
Palm Beach Daily News: Guitar foursome shines with diverse adaptations

by Charles Freeman

Georgia Guitar Quartet members performed spirited and varied selections Tuesday at the Flagler Museum. From left are Brian Smith, Jason Solomon, Phil Snyder and Kyle Dawkins.

The guitar quartet is a relatively recent phenomenon in the annals of chamber music, certainly not one to be found when Henry Flagler was building his mansion on what we know today as Palm Beach. Nonetheless, when the Georgia Guitar Quartet let loose with its high-spirited and musically adventurous program Tuesday in the Flagler Museum, one hopes Mr. Flagler would have gotten a kick out of it.

The Georgia Guitar Quartet — composed of Kyle Dawkins, Brian Smith, Philip Snyder, and Jason Solomon — came together as University of Georgia students. Their Flagler Museum program stuck mostly to transcriptions of pre-20th century works, yet the program was as lively and varied as any new-music concert.

Both halves of the program featured dances from the collection Michael Praetorius' Terpsichore, one of the highly prolific musical masters of early German Baroque. Praetorius compiled examples of dances from across Europe, which work extremely well in transcription for guitar; the light and elegant music suited for dance steps rewarded the elegant and refined style of the quartet. Similarly, the pre-Classic Quartet in D by Georg Philipp Telemann (originally for the unusual combination of four violins) shone in the hands of the quartet.

Other winning adaptations for guitar quartet followed, with Chopin's Etude, Opus 10 No. 3, perhaps surprising listeners with its ready adaptation to the format, while Domenico Scarlatti's The Cat's Fugue allegedly based on a theme created when a cat walked across the composer's keyboard, proved clever and elegant.

The guitar has long been connected with the music of Spain, so perhaps it is not surprising that the two composers connected with that country, Enrique Granados and the Classic-era Madrid resident Luigi Boccherini, shone most brightly. Granados did not typically write for guitar, but his Oriental dance from Danzas Españolas showed every bit as much the idioms of his native country that influenced guitar music as it did any Asian influences. Boccherini wrote his Introduction and Fandango for guitar and string quartet, and the relatively easy transition to guitar quartet let the rhythmic vigor of the peculiarly Spanish dance explode as the first half of the program drew to a close.

Preceding the Praetorius set after intermission was a transcription of Fugue No. 4 from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, the cruciform theme of which permeated the quartet texture with particular clarity and interpretive power. Perhaps the only false note of the evening came in two excerpts from Maurice Ravel's Mother Goose Suite. The Pavane for the Sleeping Beauty came across with quiet elegance, but Empress of the Pagodes lost too much in the transition from piano to orchestra to guitar quartet, despite fine and energetic playing.

Three transcriptions from Edvard Grieg worked extremely well, as the Two Elegaic Melodies and Anitra's Dance from Peer Gynt became extremely moving in this format.

The concert ended with member Kyle Dawkins's arrangement of an Irish folk song, The Road to Lisdoonvarna, with guitars used as both melodic and percussion instruments in the manner of a modern Celtic band. Perhaps the piece itself was not period-specific for Flagler's Whitehall, but the use of folk music in classical composition was all the rage in that day, from Eastern Europe all the way to America, so perhaps Mr. Flagler could find a way to appreciate the finale, as well as the all-around winning effort from the Georgia Guitar Quartet.

March 08, 2007