Screen shot of Reade Park playing the first movement of Antonio José’s guitar sonata in the Barbro Osher Recital Hall on the top floor of the new building of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music overlooking the dome of City Hall (screen shot from the video produced by Matthew Washburn)
Today saw the release of the latest video in the Midweek Melodies series of performances produced by OMNI on-Location. The guitarist was Reade Park, and his program was a little more than ten minutes in duration. He began with two movements, the first and third, from the “Sonata para guitarra” by Antonio José. This accounted for about half of the program; and the other half was devoted to an arrangement of one of the piano preludes of Sergei Rachmaninoff, the fifth, in the key of G minor, from the Opus 23 collection of ten preludes.
Only the second of these selections was familiar to me. It is one of Rachmaninoff’s most familiar compositions, and I have long appreciated the recording that Victor/RCA made of him playing it. In many ways one might say that it was Rachmaninoff at his most pianistic, but Park managed to provide a convincing account of the theme itself and the twists and turns through which Rachmaninoff embellished it.
The José sonata, on the other hand, was a “first contact” experience. Park played only the first and third movements, the latter being a particularly engaging “Pavane Triste.” It should go without saying that Park’s account was convincing enough to leave me hoping for an opportunity to listen to a performance of the sonata in its entirety. Granted, the entire program was presented as a Mini Guitar Concert; but it left me hoping that Park would return to present a full-length recital program (hopefully before an audience) in which he could give an account of José’s sonata in its entirety!
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