Isbin’s Album of New Works Written for Her

from the Amazon.com Web page for the recording being discussed

This past Friday Zoho released two new albums of guitarist Sharon Isbin. These are so different in content that they deserve to be treated separately. The title of the more conventional guitar album is Affinity, and all five of the selections were written for Isbin. Four of them are world premiere recordings, and one of those is an innovative arrangement. Isbin’s former student and duet partner Colin Davin prepared a two-guitar setting of Antonio Lauro’s “Natalia” waltz; and Davin joins Isbin for that track of the album.

There is also a solo performance of Tan Dun’s “Seven Desires for Guitar.” Mezzo Isabel Leonard joins Isbin to perform Richard Danielpour’s song cycle Of Love and Longing; and the album takes its title from a new concerto for guitar and orchestra by Chris Brubeck, performed with Elizabeth Schulze conducting the Maryland Symphony Orchestra. The only selection not being given a premiere is Leo Brouwer’s suite El Decameron Negro, which he wrote for Isbin after she won the Toronto Guitar competition in 1975.

My only opportunity to see Isbin in recital took place at Herbst Theatre in October of 2018. She shared the stage with Brazilian jazz guitarist Romero Lubambo. While each of them took a brief solo set in their respective repertoires, their “meeting of minds” made for an inventive and stimulating performance. Isbin clearly has a reputation for “playing well with others;” and her Affinity album sustains that reputation.

That being the case, I must still confess that I was particularly drawn to the Brouwer selection. I have long felt that Brouwer deserves more exposure than he tends to get. My encounters with his music have been few and far between, always leaving me curious about what else he has done. Now we have a piece of his that is likely to be older than many that listen to it, and I still find myself hungry for more.

By the same count every encounter with a composition by Tan leaves me curious about his other works. There is a potentially interesting backstory to Tan’s guitar composition. At a recital by the Beijing Guitar Duo I learned that their teacher, Manuel Barrueco, had prepared a guitar arrangement of Tan’s Opus 1 piano composition, Eight Memories in Watercolor. Apparently, Tan preferred the guitar version to his own, which may have motivated him to compose for the guitar. The results on Isbin’s album make it clear that he was the better for following that motivation, which had begun earlier with his composing a concerto, “Yi2,” for her.

I must confess that the remainder of this album did not have quite as much impact. I have had many opportunities to listen to Leonard, and I always enjoy her vocal qualities. Nevertheless, Danielpour’s approach to setting his texts, poetry by Rumi translated into English by Raficq Abdulla, never left much of an impression. Similarly, while I was struck by Brubeck’s concerto structure as three uninterrupted movements, the thematic material itself did little to tweak the mind behind the ear. That said, the offerings by Brouwer and Tan definitely make this album “worth the price of admission.”