PIAZZOLLA : Primavera Portena : ANGEL MATIAS PENA : Iyo Kailan Pa Man : VALDEZ: Fantasy of Variations on Sarung Banggi: BARRIOS MANGORE : La Catedral: MERTZ: Variations Mignonnes: TARREGA : Fantasia on Themes from La Traviata: DOMENICONI : Koyunbaba – Suite for Guitar Op19: CARPIO: Pahinungod.
Ramoncito Carpio
IPA: Independent Philippine Art Ventures Inc.
This was this Philippine guitarist’s first CD, released in 2013, with a mixture of the familiar and the not so. The opening Piazzolla immediately shows the listener that here is a fabulous player, as the piece is full of amazingly fast runs that our performer has absolutely no problem with. This is a great opening to the CD. The composer Angel Matias Pena is a new name to me, but the piece here is a lovely melodic and haunting piece that sounds fun to play. The title means Ever Yours, which explains the romantic quality of this lovely piece. Jose Valdez is another new name to me and here he has written a Fantasy on a piece Sarung Banggi , which translates as One Evening. This is a ten minute romantic styled piece and again a very pleasant and friendly sounding piece in Variation style that Carpio plays wonderfully well. Barrios famous La Catedral is next. He takes the opening section slower than I’ve heard it before. He is playing the 3 – movement version here incidentally. The second movement is as slow as the first and again has a slightly different feel to other versions. The final movement is very much as you would expect, lots of action, and about as fast as I have heard it! Mertz’s Variations Mignonnes is next, and as with nearly all Mertz is a tricky and complex piece of writing that shows you just what a great composer he was. Our guitarist makes a fine job of it. Tarrega’s Fantasia on Themes from La Traviata of Giuseppi Verdi is of course a well loved piece, very `19th Century, but great to hear played so well. Then we get Carlo Domeniconi’s famous Koyunbaba, which really did acquire a certain reputation when it first appeared, as everybody seemed to be playing it. It has not been quite as much played recently, but our guitarist’s impeccable technique doesn’t let him down, and it is one of the standout recordings of this CD, coming in at nearly 15 minutes in total. Carpio’s own piece, the same title as the CD closes this album. Beginning with a fast dancing style with a consistent repetitive note between some accented chords, it then changes into a slow almost mysterious middle section before the opening idea returns, varied somewhat with some tempo changes here and there, before picking up momentum for its final coda full of chordal strums and fast complex runs and at the last moment a pizzicato solo bass note motto to close.
This is a lovely CD superbly played and recorded, and will interest lots of guitar lovers, as every piece on it is worth hearing. Great!
Chris Dumigan
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