Thomas Viloteau
Les Productions D’Oz: 7 pages
Thomas Viloteau is a French guitarist who is greatly in demand as a virtuoso player who has won many competitions, played over a large porti0on of the globe, made a number of recordings, and generally is one of our most outstanding guitarists, so an Etude by this man should really be something.
Certainly one glance at the score tells you that this really is a tour de force, as the entire score is 103 bars of almost entirely semi – quavers played at the frightening speed of 170 dotted quavers a minute, and consists of a non –stop arpeggio that changes pattern a number of times whilst never giving the player a break from its extremely difficult and very individual set of patterns.12/16 is the common time signature but there are also moments of 15/16, 9/16, and 18/16 interwoven too.
Part of the main difficulty is the ease with which repetitive notes in the patterns are to be played without any technical difficulty at the speed required. Put it this way, if you wanted a piece that would definitely sort out any problems with your right hand fingering s and general individuality, this piece is almost certainly going to sort it out.
However, you do have to be a wonderful player to do it justice. Just look at the composer’s alarmingly brilliant version on YouTube, and then decide if you are ever going to be able to manage to play it the way he does, and it really is faultless! So if a study that makes the Villa – Lobos studies look like Three Blind Mice is what you require, this piece could very well be it !
Chris Dumigan
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