BWW Reviews: ADELAIDE INTERNATIONAL GUITAR FESTIVAL 2014: ANDREY LEBEDEV AND SYDNEY GUITAR TRIO WITH RORY O'DONOGHUE Goes From Sublime to Ridiculous

Reviewed Friday 18th July, 2014

Andrey Lebedev is one of the new faces at this year's Festival, the winner of the 2012 Adelaide International Guitar Competition and now studying at the Royal Academy of Music in London on the Julian Bream Trust Scholarship. He already boasts an impressive list of achievements, and Judicaël Perroy, who is also appearing during this Festival, was one of his mentors.

Lebedev presented a programme of big contrasts, opening with J. S. Bach's Violin Partita in D minor, BWV 1004, arranged for guitar. A completely different approach to composition is seen in, In the Woods, by T?ru Takemitsu, an expressionist composer. Finally, Spanish classical music is represented by Torre Bermeja, by Isaac Albeniz.

It was clear from the start that Lebedev has great technical skills but, more importantly, he shows a high level of musicianship. At only 23 years of age there is considerable maturity in his playing, exhibited in his understanding and interpretation of all three works. The Bach Partita was an immediate favourite with the audience, who obviously enjoyed hearing it in an unexpected way in this guitar transcription. Lebedev certainly knows his Bach and one couldn't help thinking that a CD or two of such arrangements could be a fine addition to any collection.

The Takemitsu piece, however, took us in another direction entirely and here we saw how Lebedev was able to take a complex piece of writing and bring out all of the delicate imagery in each of the three sections, the first of which was inspired by a painting by Cornelia Foss. With the movements individually dedicated to John Williams, Kiyoshi Shomura, and Julian Bream, this was no simple exercise. There is so much contained in these three relatively short movements.

Finally, there was the excitement and fire of Spain in which Lebedev again demonstrated his high level of skill coupled with the passionate interpretation needed in this piece. This is a young man to watch as there is no doubt he will go far.

The Sydney Guitar Trio, Raffaele Agostino, Janet Agostino and Richard Charlton, brought a very different type of concert to the Festival, with the help of narrator, Rory O'Donoghue. They first drew on Dante Aleghieri's Divine Comedy, in an abridged version of a piece titled The Divine Guitar, by Richard Charlton. Claude Gagnon wrote a collection of musical pieces under the title, Alice in Wonderland, based on Lewis Carroll's novel. The remainder of the programme was composed by Charlton, with Geebung, a setting of A. B. 'Banjo' Patterson's poem about the antics of the Geebung Polo Club and, finally, Spike!, several songs that were settings of nonsense poems by 'Spike' Milligan.

The first two works were constructed from snippets of the text, each illuminated by a short section of music, while the last two were fully integrated words and music. That meant, of course, that some knowledge of the texts is needed for the full appreciation of the first two works so, while many people would be familiar with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the other requires somewhat more audience preparation since few people today would read such epic tales. A highlight was the collection of accents that O'Donoghue brought to the quirky characters that he played.

In both works there were some very clever ideas in the writing and the playing was, of course, superb, but I was not always convinced by what appeared to be rather randomly selected scraps of text and, in some instances, by the strength of the relationship between text and music. Geebung, on the other hand, was a far more integrated piece that conveyed the rambunctiousness of the tale and, again, gave O'Donoghue a chance to shine. The final piece brought it all home, with some fun accompaniments to Milligan's poems. This could be seen to connect with everybody, and the laughter and applause rewarded the group's winning decision to try something different in this blend of comedy and great guitar playing.

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