Fiona Harrison
Sunday
18th March 2001
South Hill Park
A review by Jeremy Allison
Fiona Harrison started her concert with two pieces of early music - both classics - Mudarra’s "Fantasie" C1534 and then a Fantasia by Dowland c1610. She played the Mudarra very neatly with discreet colouring reminding us of the complicated syncopated rhythms used and intimations of the traditional sounds of the Spanish music to come in future centuries.
With barely a break she went on to the Dowland piece which I thought she played too fast; having played it myself on the Lute I thought she neglected its latent nobility and its effectiveness on the guitar is doubtful. This early section was wrapped up by one of the more guitaristic Scarlatti’s Sonata'’ c1720 - nicely played but somewhat lacking in dynamic variation.
Changing the mood, Fiona then played the "Sakura Variations" with great clarity and effectiveness. This brought the audience then to two pieces by Australian contemporary composer Philip Houghton and Richard Charlton, both painting pictures of the rainforests of NE Australia. These were excellent pieces, well played and having been there I can vouch for their authentically evocative character.
Strangely, in between these two pieces came the "Recuerdos" played with a fast tremolo but halting phrasing. (Who noticed the missing bars from the final section?). Fiona’s last piece before the interval was the highly original "Tango en Skai" by Roland Dyens, which she played romantically rather than with the usual machine gun fire approach; which I found to be very effective and enjoyable.
After the interval, Fiona played the folksy/modal/ostinato based "Sunburst" by the American guitarist/composer Andrew York in which, though I thought Fiona played the legatos very well, she didn’t bring out the gradual build up in intensity. Following a Llobet folk song arrangement the music continued with a piece by Piazolla featuring effective pizzicato but short on excitement/sensuality – and Cadiz by Albeniz- pleasant but needing to sing more, Fiona came to what proved to be her big piece "Koyunbaba" by Carlo Domeniconi.
I would presume most people were hearing this for the first time, and would have enjoyed the strong Turkish/Oriental influence and its hypnotic, repetitive short sections (ostinatos). This piece in four movements brought the best playing from Fiona, using the needed lyricism, tone and virtuosity to bring out the qualities of the piece (destined to become a modern guitar classic).
To sum up, the audience would have enjoyed this concert with its mixture of unusual but attractive music and a few favourites. My reservations would be why certain pieces were placed where they were – "Recuerdos" between two contemporary pieces – Llobet between York and Piazolla – leaving "Koyunbaba" to the end – I would also have like more dynamic variation as was shown in "Koyunbaba".
Jeremy Allison
Webmaster’s Prerogative
Excellent concert. Enjoyable variety of musical styles. Incredibly smooth and accomplished technique. Definitely hope to see Fiona again in a couple of years.