Dusan Bogdanovic
Doberman-Yppan: 8 pages
This pair of pieces in written not only for our normal guitar , but also the micro – tonal guitar , as evidenced by Mike Kudirka’s performance on YouTube. There are some performance notes on the score that helps to clarify things with regards to the different guitars. I have personally never played a micro – tonal guitar, and they do look really unusual, so I congratulate anyone that can cope with them, but sound – wise, I personally have a hard time not finding certain notes, to my ears at least, slightly out of tune, used to, as I am, to an instrument that does in fact compromise on its tuning, like nearly all other usual instruments. Whatever you may think, the recording is there for anyone to listen to and make their minds up about this particular form of guitar.
The two latest pieces by Bogdanovic, are as uncompromising as his other works that I have seen. The note values are immensely complex and just a glance at the score will set the alarm bells ringing notes as small as hemi – demi – semi – quavers are common here along with groups of 5 , 6 and 7 notes to the beat. Add to that the fact that part - writing is continuous throughout, and that in No2 there are two staves for the majority of the work, and you realise that this is extremely complicated, and a great deal of work will no doubt be required to get it playable.
The musical style is heavily chromatic, bordering on almost atonal, so players need to be able to cope with the music’s tonal as well as its technical difficulties, but nevertheless this composer has multiple numbers of followers who will no doubt enjoy getting to grips with this latest pair of pieces.
Chris Dumigan
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