Thomas Viloteau
Les Productions D’Oz: 8 pages
This latest piece by French guitarist/composer is quirky, to say the least! Immediately this 110 beats a minute piece, opens up with a pizzicato solo line that cavorts around the bottom strings, for 8 bars before a top melody enters over it, turning into a very fast run without any note values, and a piece of percussion. The previous two voiced idea returns, this time going in a completely different direction , interlaced with runs of harmonics and leading to a 1st time ending and a repeat almost back to the beginning. The musical vocabulary is tonal but unusual, and obviously there to sound deliberately odd. At the 2nd time ending, a page and a bit of effects is introduced, described in great detail on the page below before everything starts building up to a considerable climax, both technically and musically. Then after a silent bar, a passage marked to be played as fast as possible and entitled ‘ Coda to the guitar hero!’ takes the difficulty factor to a new level, so much so that there is an instruction that it can be omitted if desired. The coda then picks up at a Vivace with multiple strums and a huge final climax again with harmonics, and special percussive details.
Personally I found it too reliant on effects, and also it was simply not very much fun, ploughing through all the tremendously hard details and finding the musical content rather lacking. However, you may think entirely differently
Chris Dumigan
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