Jean Marie Raymond
Les Productions D’Oz: 8 pages
Jean Marie Raymond is one of France’s most consistent writers of beautiful music for the guitar, and here he has written a moving Elegy to the children of Ukraine that is very timely and appropriate.
Marked ‘With deepness’ it begins with a brief solo artificial harmonic line before the main theme proper enters in the treble with long held bass notes and a chord or arpeggio middle voice that is all to be played ‘molto legato’. All the harmonies, as always with Jean Marie Raymond are friendly, with only gentle dissonances on occasion. The main theme in C Major has a number of elements to it, before moving briefly to A Minor and then traversing, still in the arpeggio/ three voices style, to the twelfth fret before moving then to E Minor for a variation of the A minor section. Here the music travels around variations of the preceding themes before it returns to A minor again. After one more time through this section the E minor section returns and then becomes the coda with a close on the dominant chord.
This is a pleasant and quietly moving piece of writing that many will find lovely to play. I have never seen anything by this composer that hasn’t been superbly written and involving to play, and this latest piece is no exception.
Chris Dumigan
Comments