Zoran Dukić’ Solo Recital for Omni

Croatian guitarist Zoran Dukić (courtesy of the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts)

As was announced at the beginning of this month, last night the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts presented the first of the four solo recitals in its Dynamite Guitars series. The recitalist was the Croatian classical guitarist Zoran Dukić, who was last seen in the premiere of a recital video, which was released by Omni this past August. Last night’s program was an inventive one, exploring an engaging diversity of repertoire sources.

The first half was devoted entirely to an interleaving of Johann Sebastian Bach and Astor Piazzolla. The “spinal cord” of the set consisted four movements from the collection of Bach’s sonatas and partitas for solo violin. In “order of appearance” these were as follows:

1. The Siciliana from the BWV 1001 sonata in G minor
2. The Andante from the BWV 1003 sonata in A minor
3. The Largo from the BWV 1005 sonata in C major
4. The Sarabanda from the BWV 1004 partita in D minor

Between these offerings were the three Piazzolla compositions:

1. “Invierno Porteño,” the second (winter) “season” in Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteños, which Piazzolla originally composed for his own tango band and was arranged for solo guitar by Sérgio Assad
2. “Adio Nonino”
3. “La Muerte del Angel” in an arrangement by Leo Brouwer

These seven pieces were played without interruption, providing an engaging sense of a unified whole.

The second half of the program returned to Piazzolla with “Oblivion” in another arrangement, this time by Roland Dyens. This was preceded by three selections, beginning with Dušan Bogdanović’s “Lament” followed by “Choro da Saudade” and “Caazapá,” both by Agustín Barrios. The program concluded with Cinema Paradiso by Stephen Goss, a suite of six movements, each evocative of some aspect of cinematic history. Dukić took a single encore, which I think was his own arrangement of Duke Ellington’s “Melancholia.”

Taken as a whole, the recital was imaginatively informed and consistently engaging. I found Goss’ suite to be a bit contrived, but I still enjoyed his “Noir” movement. This was a nod to Miles Davis, who provided the music cues for Louis Malle’s film Elevator to the Gallows. However, the interplay between Bach and Piazzolla was definitely the high point of the evening.