Omni Video Premiere: Michael Button

Guitarist Michael Butten (screen shot from the video being discussed, 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. The location for this video is the Holy Trinity Church in Prestwood, England. The soloist is guitarist Michael Butten, who, as a student at the Royal Academy of Music, won both the Julian Bream Prize and the David Russell Prize. The video was recorded in November of 2020, and Butten’s instrument was made in 1986 by Jeffrey Elliott.

The program is a relatively short one, lasting only about ten minutes. It consists of three compositions by Luis de Narváez taken from two of the volumes in his six-volume collection entitled Los seys libros del Delphin, dedicated to his patron Francisco de los Cobos. I suspect that many, like myself, will be most familiar with the opening selection, the set of seven variations on “Guárdame las vacas” (look after the cows for me). Back in my student days, this would show up on classical music radio stations frequently, probably because it was a track on an Andrés Segovia album that could serve as an appealing background for a commercial announcement! Butten’s performance of “Guárdame las vacas” was followed by “Baxa de contrapunto;” and these two pieces constitute the conclusion of the sixth of Narváez’ six volumes. The final selection was the set of six variations on “O gloriosa domina,” which begins the fourth volume.

It is worth noting that, in his publications, Narváez did not begin to compose variations works until that fourth volume. Nevertheless, there is something engagingly appealing (if not downright jolly) in his approach to the “cow theme.” Perhaps that is why commercial classical radio programs deployed it as a useful vehicle for advertising! Of course, like Segovia, Butten probably never had advertising in mind; and there is much to be gained simply in following the course of those seven variations, rather than worrying about commercial potentials!

For those that missed the premiere performance of this program, it is available on its own YouTube Web page.