GIULIANI: Grand Overture Op61 : SOR : Variations on a Theme of Mozart Op 9 : PURCELL : Suite No2 in Gm(trans Goldort) : DEBUSSY: Arabesque No1; Valse ; Golliwogg’s Cake - Walk : RODRIGO : Sonata Giacosa: LENDLE: Variations Capricieuses d'apres Paganini.: TERZI: Carillon.
Mischael Goldort
Studio U-Sound 94012 (CD)
Having recently acquired a copy of this truly virtuosic recording from 1994, I thought it only fair to put my thoughts down. The title of course refers to the composers encapsulated within, although it could just as easily refer to our performer, who indeed does show just how talented a player he is.
This Russian player opens up with a really tricky piece to bring off successfully, and he romps through the Giuliani as if it were a grade 3 piece.
The Sor Op9 is of course hugely popular and played by a myriad of different players, and to be honest I thought he took one or two liberties with some of the timings that personally I would have preferred to have heard differently, but this after all is just the player’s own interpretation of it, and you might heartily disagree with me.
The Purcell Suite is set in four movements, a Prelude, Almand, Corant, and a final Saraband and is widely recognized as Purcell’s finest Suite, and Goldort does a fine job of placing it onto the guitar and then performing it admirably.
Regarding the three Debussy arrangements I have mixed feelings .The performances themselves are stunning and his solo arrangement of Golliwog's Cakewalk receives a wonderful performance that loses nothing when taken from the piano original. The Arabesque No1, however, marvelous playing though it is, does lose something when put on the solo guitar as the arpeggios that are so smooth on the piano, aren’t as legato on occasions, when placed on the guitar. Some are fine, but others don’t work so well. Moreover in the introduction at the point when he does a run up to a high A, just prior to the main theme, he plays a D natural, instead of the correct D# , both up and down, which, if his original piano manuscript he arranged from said as such, then it deviates from any I have seen over the years .The Valse , La Plus Que Lente, is an achingly beautiful piece that works very well mostly , although again there is a mis – read in the second section, when at the beginning he plays a number of chromatic runs, one of which has a couple of wrong notes in it, at least compared to any version of the piece I have seen.
The famous Sonata by Rodrigo is a hair- raisingly difficult piece to bring off successfully, and the separate movements of this Sonata work extremely well, although there is a cut in the first movement that Goldort doesn’t perform, that is on my manuscript.
The piece by Wolfgang Lendle is the same Paganini piece that Rachmaninov made into the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, but there the similarity ends as Lendle’s piece is a huge ( almost 13 minutes) array of some of the most difficult music ever written for the guitar. It is virtuosic in the extreme. And whilst one admires the way Goldort manages to play it , it makes for difficult listening.
The Trezi Carillon that closes the CD is beautiful and consists of harmonics married with left hand only hammer – ons and pull – offs. This short piece makes you realise just how good a player our guitarist is.
So in summation the playing is stunning, and Goldort is obviously a Russian guitarist we should have heard more of here, as he certainly deserves it. There are one or two areas ,I have already mentioned that didn’t work as well for me , but generally this is a wonderful CD and worth trying to get your hands on if, 27 years on, you still can !
Chris Dumigan
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