Thomas Dunford in a French setting (courtesy of San Francisco Performances)
Last night St. Mark’s Lutheran Church hosted the latest recital presented jointly by San Francisco Performances and the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts Dynamite Guitars concert season. The recitalist was Thomas Dunford; but his instrument was a lute, rather than a guitar. Because some of the selections on the program were composed as songs, he also added vocal work where appropriate.
The program began with a set of English works, including songs, by John Dowland and concluded in Italy with one selection each by Girolamo Kapsberger and Joan Ambrosio Dalza. All of the other selections were arrangements by Dunford. The most ambitious of these was the entirety of Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1007 suite for solo cello in the key of G major, which Dunford transposed into the key of C major to accommodate his instrument. This was preceded by two works each by Erick Satie (the first selections in both the Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes series) and Marin Marais (“Les voix humaines” and “L’américaine,” movements from suites originally composed for viol). The encore selection was “Blackbird,” composed jointly by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
The entire journey was short enough to be played without intermission. Dunford’s delivery was engaging and affable, interjected by commentary when he thought it was necessary. Every now and then, he would offer a bit of witticism. The most obvious gesture came when he injected Lennon’s “Imagine” as a “coda” to the Satie “Gymnopédie.” Nevertheless, his focus was almost entirely on the music for its own sake. He offered his audience an ambitious journey; but, by the time the recital completed, there seemed to be almost unanimous agreement that it had been a journey worth taking.
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