What I Saw in the Water
ChromaDuo
Naxos 8.574578 (arkivmusic.com/products/assad-bogdanovic-brouwer-iannarelli-kavanagh-what-i-sa)
Five 21st-century works by five guitarist-composers are lovingly performed by Canada’s ChromaDuo, guitarists Tracy Anne Smith and Rob MacDonald.
Simone Iannarelli (b.Rome 1970) says his Siete pinturas de Frida Kahlo “tries to recreate the images, atmosphere, inside feelings or background of these works of Frida,” beginning with the rippling, impressionistic Lo que vi en el agua, the source of the CD’s title. The flamenco-flavoured Unos cuantos piquetitos is followed by five mostly inward-looking pieces which offer pleasant listening but are considerably understated compared to Kahlo’s flamboyantly phantasmagoric paintings.
The remaining works were written expressly for ChromaDuo. The Circle Game by guitar icon Leo Brouwer (b.Havana 1939), inspired by Margaret Atwood’s poetry collection of the same name, enigmatically mixes minimalist pulsations with fragmented phrases, interrupted by sudden silences. The four-movement Sonata No.2 by Dušan Bogdanović (b.Belgrade, 1955) offers brief hints of Indian music, some jazzy riffs and tantalizing snatches of several near-recognizable old pop songs.
In the warm-hearted, ballad-like tone poem, The Ghost of Peggy’s Cove, Op.14, Dale Kavanagh (b.Halifax 1958) depicts the Nova Scotia legend of a woman whose ghost haunts the shore where she drowned herself after seeing her husband die when he fell while dancing on the rocks.
This multifaceted CD ends with the three-movement Dyens en trois temps, a tribute by Sérgio Assad (b.São Paulo 1952) to his friend, Tunisian-French guitarist-composer Roland Dyens (1955-2016), echoing, in turn, Dyens’ treatment of jazz, French songs and the music of Brazil.
