Sanel Redžić’s Omni Guitar Recital Video: Part 1

Screen shot of Sanel Redžić performing on the altar of the Kaufmannskirche in Erfurt

As was announced this past Tuesday, the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts uploaded its latest video to YouTube this morning. The video presents the first half of a solo guitar recital prepared by Sanel Redžić. This is the latest offering in the Omni On Location series, whose subtitle is Music from Historical Sites.

The site for Redžić’s performance is the Kaufmannskirche (merchant’s church), located in the city of Erfurt in Thuringia, Germany. The church has been around for about 900 years; but, over that course of time, it has experienced both rebuilding (following a fire in 1291) and a series of restorations, the most recent of which was completed on June 28, 2009. In the context of music history, this is the church where Johann Sebastian Bach’s parents were married!

With such a legacy it should be no surprise that Redžić decided to begin his recital with a Bach selection. He chose the last two (Siciliano and Presto) movements of the BWV 1001 solo violin sonata in G minor; and it would not surprise me if Redžić’s performance was based on his reading of the score as Bach had written it. To the extent that Bach may have composed this music for pedagogical purposes, Redžić chose to couple it with another pedagogical offering, three of the caprices from Luigi Legnani’s Opus 20 collection of 36 caprices for solo guitar. Like Niccolò Paganini’s Opus 1 collection of 24 caprices for solo violin, Legnani’s caprices were probably conceived to provide the guitarist with a mastery of technical skills. (Apparently, Legnani was a friend of Paganini; and the latter may have inspired the former to compose for the guitar in the spirit of how the latter had composed for the violin.)

The remainder of the video was devoted entirely to music by Astor Piazzolla. In this case Redžić played arrangements that had been transcribed for guitar by Baltazar Benítez. He began with the “Verano Porteño” (summer) movement of Las Cuatro Estaciones Portenõs (the four seasons). Redžić then concluded this portion of his recital with two of the compositions in Piazzolla’s Angel Series: “Milonga Del Ángel” and “Muerte del Ángel.”

The entire video was less than about 40 minutes in duration. While some may find this brief, the performance disclosed a wide variety of technical skills applied to three decidedly different composition settings. Through the camera work, one could appreciate Redžić’s command of those skills and his ability to endow them with his own approaches to expressiveness. Personally, he has me on the edge of my seat wondering what challenges he will confront in the second half of the program he prepared!