David Russell’s Omni Recital for This Year

Thanks to the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts, guitarist David Russell has been a regular (if not annual) visitor to San Francisco. I do my best to keep up with these performances, because each one inevitably leads me down a new journey of discovery (if not several of them). The major work on last night’s program, performed at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, was a collection of pieces compiled by Federico Moreno Torroba compiled under the title Castillos de España (castles of Spain).

I first became aware of this music through an Andrés Segovia album, where it was the third of three selections and the only one for solo guitar. (The other two were performed with the Symphony of the Air conducted by Enrique Jordá: the “Fantasia para un gentilhombre” by Joaquín Rodrigo and the “Concierto del Sur” by Manuel Ponce.) What I only recently learned was that Torroba’s collection was only the first of two volumes. Segovia had recorded the first volume shortly before it was published in 1970. This consisted of eight “reflections” on Spanish castles, and six more would be composed for a second volume in 1978.

Russell observed that there is no castle associated with the “Redaba” movement in that second volume! He said little more by way of background other than observing that the castle in Zafra (one of the locations found in the second volume) was used in the filming of Game of Thrones! In addition, he provided his own ordering of the movements, interleaving the selections from the two volumes as seemed appropriate. Thus, to some extent, the overall performance was a journey of dispositions, reflecting different aspects in the different castles being reflected.

The other major structural element in the program was the coupling of two sonatas from the Baroque period, both originally composed for flute and continuo. Russell provided his own transcriptions of both of these selections. The one in the first half of the program was taken from Benedetto Marcello’s Opus 2, a collection of twelve sonatas. Unfortunately, neither the number of that sonata nor its key was announced. When it came to Johann Sebastian Bach, in the second half of the program, Russell was more specific: BWV 1034 (which is in the key of E minor). Both of the transcriptions were faithful to their sources and to their rhetorical foundations.

The one living composer represented on the program was Francis Kleynjans. He had dedicated his “Arabesque en forme de Caprice” to Russell, who performed it along with two short barcaroles by the same composer. The overall program, however, was framed in the nineteenth century, beginning with José Brocá’s “Pensamiento Español” and concluding with the “Gran Jota” by Francisco Tárrega.

Naturally, the audience would not let Russell leave without an encore. He introduced it by observing that, while he now lives in Spain, he was born in Scotland. He therefore chose a traditional Scottish tune, whose title was not particularly clear to me. (All I grasped was that it was the Scottish version of “The Irish Washerwoman.”) Details aside, the spirit was enough to send us on our way outside, where, fortunately, the rain had ceased!