Guitarist Ricardo Gallén Previews New Album

Ricardo Gallén making full use of both hands in performing one of Sergio Assad’s Colloquial Preludes (from the YouTube video of that performance)

Two days ago the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts released its latest video on a YouTube Web page. This was a solo guitar performance of Ricardo Gallén playing music by Sergio Assad. The music can be found on Gallén’s album Preludes and Dances from Brazil. The first twelve tracks on the album are from Assad’s Colloquial Preludes with each major key followed by its complementary minor. The remainder of the album is devoted by Heitor Villa-Lobos, beginning with the five W419 preludes followed by the six-movement Suite populaire bresilienne.

The video is only a little more than two minutes in duration. Gallén plays the penultimate of the Colloquial Preludes, composed in the key of E major. For a brief work, the video provides a rich account of Gallén’s command of a plethora of technical challenges. As might be expected, this account of the guitarist’s intricate technique and the sonorities emerging from it have piqued my curiosity for Assad’s composition. I am not sure when I shall have the opportunity to listen to the full canon of Assad’s preludes, but I suspect that Gallén’s album would be a good candidate for providing that opportunity.