Omni Video Premiere: Duo Evocaciones

Guitarist Pietro Locatto and cellist Martina Biondi (courtesy of the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts)

This morning the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts released the latest video to be added to its Omni On Location series. As was the case with the last video in this series, the performance involved the pairing of a guitarist, Pietro Locatto, with another instrumentalist, this time cellist Martina Biondi. This time the video was recorded in Villa Ala, an eighteenth-century villa located in the Italian town of Rivalba. The performance took place earlier this year on February 20.

The performers call themselves Duo Evocaciones. As they put it, their objective is to “‘evoke’ the expressive colors of the main protagonists of the Spanish national school which developed between the 19th and 20th centuries.” Only one of the works on the program was explicitly composed for the cello, “Requiebros” (compliments), by Gaspar Cassadó, written for cello and piano in 1934. (As might be guessed, Cassadó was, himself, a cellist.)

The entire program was framed by arrangements of two instrumental compositions. It began with the “Intermezzo” from the one-act opera “Goyescas,” composed by Enrique Granados; and it concluded with the “Danza ritual del fuego” (ritual fire dance) from the one-act ballet “El amor brujo” (love, the sorcerer), whose music was composed by Manuel de Falla. The remaining works on the program were arrangements of music originally composed for solo piano. The first of these was “Granada,” the opening movement of the first collection that Isaac Albéniz entitled Suite Española. The other two were selected from the collection of twelve Spanish dances compiled by Granados.

Those of my generation are likely to associate at least some of these selections with solo performances by guitarist Andrés Segovia. Others might associate these performances with the recent cello-piano recital presented by LIEDER ALIVE! at the end of last month. Personally, I found myself easily drawn into the cello-guitar arrangements of music that I had previously known from guitarists and/or pianists. Duo Evocaciones has clearly established their own approach to repertoire; and I would have no problem with encountering them a second time, perhaps when they embark on a tour of the United States!