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Recital
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Recital
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Symphony
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RECITAL REVIEW

Guitarist Paul Galbraith

TRANSCRIPTIONS ABOUND IN GALBRAITH'S GUITAR RECITAL

by Gary Digman
Saturday, September 14, 2019

Master guitarist Paul Galbraith’s artistry was much in evidence Sept. 14 in his Sebastopol Community Church recital. Attendees in the Redwood Arts Council events were initially bothered by the afternoon’s heat in the church, but it was of small importance when the Cambridge, England-based artist began to play.

Acoustics were overly dry for solo guitar due heavy carpeting, but these problems were overcome by Mr. Galbraith’s idiosyncratic way of holding the instrument and his stage setup. He played an eight-string guitar with an endpin and holds it much as a cellist would hold a cello. The endpin rests on a resonating box on the floor.

The program began with Bach’s Prelude, Fugue and Allegro (BWV 998) that was originally composed for lute on a keyboard called a lautenwerke. The artist’s arrangement for guitar was true to the original, and in these kind of pieces the tendency of performers is to play in a bravura style with fast tempos, exaggerated dynamics and novel phrasing. Mr. Galbraith’s version was slower and more delicate, and on his eight-string instrument more evocative of the lute itself.

In most performances of Bach’s works for solo strings the player pauses between movements, but here the performer segued from on movement to the next.

A bevy of Scriabin preludes followed, transcribed from piano scores by the performer, and though quite short the delightful music was well suited to the guitar. They included Op. 2, No. 2; Op. 16 (3 and 4), and Op. 11 (3, 17, 6, 21). Albeniz’ Catalunya, also in the performer’s arrangement, came next, and although authoritative and accepted transcriptions exist, Mr. Galbraith remarked that he felt his transcription was truer to the original for piano. Another Albeniz work, the popular repertoire piece Sevilla, was played after the Catalunya, and both had ample authority and grace.

After intermission came a modest surprise – two Haydn piano sonatas, of course in transcriptions, and a single encore. It’s noteworthy that in the entire recital no compositions that were originally composed for the guitar were performed.

As the guitar repertoire is small in comparison to other instruments, performers such as Julian Bream and Sharon Isbin have attempted to expand it by commissioning modern composers. Mr. Galbraith has mostly chosen to arrange works for his instrument from other instrumental works, though the Spanish virtuoso Andres Segovia both commissioned and transcribed.