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Minneapolis Guitar Quartet
Works by Assad, Kalaniemi, Stravinsky, Torroba, Crittenden and Funk Pearson
Brazilian-born Sérgio Assad, along with his brother and duo partner Odair Assad, is one of today's most important classical guitarists. In addition to inspiring composers to produce new music for the guitar, he has made his own contributions to the repertoire. He included in Uarekena a part for the eight-stringed guitar. From the composition's opening, with its repeated notes and pulsing meter, the piece leads listeners on a journey of irregular rhythms, cascading climaxes, and percussive interludes. The Uarekena are an indigenous people of Brazil who inspired the work's main theme, and Assad wrote this music as a tribute to all of Brazil's native groups.
Maria Kalaniemi: Skymningspolskan (Growing Dusky Polka) and Hermannin Riili (Reel of Hermanni)
These arrangements by Joseph Hagedorn introduce the music of Finnish five-row accordionist Maria Kalaniemi to the guitar quartet repertoire. An accomplished interpreter of Finnish, Karelian, and Swedish folk music, Kalaniemi has won acclaim in Europe as a pioneer of the "New Finnish Folk" movement and as a master performer on her instrument. Skymningspolskan, originally written for accordion, percussion, and acoustic guitar, is an Eastern-flavored work, at times mesmerizing and tinged with melancholy. Hermannin Riili, scored in the original for accordion, fiddle, percussion, electric guitar, and electric bass, offers a distinct contrast - a sense of energy and playfulness. It was inspired by the wildlife of the Luhtapohja region of Finland. Watch for the "funk break" in the middle of the reel.
Igor Stravinsky: Five Easy Pieces
Five Easy Pieces began as a composition for piano four-hands, with sections dedicated to Alfredo Casella, Erik Satie, and Sergei Diaghilev. Stravinsky later orchestrated the music and, along with an earlier set of piano pieces, divided the works into two suites for small orchestra. This arrangement by Alan Johnston retains the pieces in their original order but maintains the key changes that Stravinsky made for the orchestration. Stravinsky intended the final and longest piece, the Galop, as a portrait of the dancer and ballet choreographer Diaghilev, and the composer wrote that "I thought of him as a circus ringmaster in evening dress and top hat, cracking his whip and urging on a rider." It is an exhilarating end to a witty and varied set of pieces.
Federico Moreno Torroba: Estampas
Torroba's long and fruitful interest in exploring the musical possibilities of the guitar began with his collaboration with the young Andrés Segovia, for whom Torroba composed many works for solo guitar. Later Torroba wrote for other illustrious guitarists, including the members of the Romero quartet, and it was this family to which Estampas owes its inspiration. The title of the suite literally means "images" and suggests an imaginary set of small prints showing scenes of life in Spain. The first of the eight movements depicts a rural dance, and the subsequent sections provide glimpses of a pond, the harvest, a village festival, the dawn, a wedding, a mill road, and the antics of children at play.
David Crittenden: A Scottish Fantasy
Written in 1996, this piece its composer's first for guitar quartet - makes use of four Scottish folk tunes: the reels The Lass O Patties Mill and The Haggis, and the ballads The Skye Boat Song and Neil Gow's Lament for the Death of His Second Wife. Throughout the Fantasy, Crittenden takes advantage of many textural effects that four guitarists can achieve, often layering the parts in intriguing ways. In the first half of the piece, for example, three of the guitars join in a striking imitation of a hammered dulcimer. The conclusion reprises The Skye Boat Song and presents all of the tunes in counterpoint with one another. The composer has dedicated this piece to his colleagues in the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet.
Stephen Funk Pearson: Elassomorph
From its opening strain evoking an old-time fiddle tune with a "chop chord" accompaniment, Elassomorph is a piece in which the characteristic forms of North American folk music and European-based classical music happily co-exist. The title of the work itself - a combination of two ancient Greek words meaning "elastic form," with an extra "s" added to suggest the lasso of the American west - represents Pearson's aim to put fugal and minimalist counterpoint to work to transform grassroots American music. Pearson, a true eccentric who has lived in British Columbia, New Hampshire, and Jamaica, makes unusual demands on the musicians: at times they must bend notes, drum on their instruments, and strum in a muted fashion. About three-fourths of the way through Elassomorph, Pearson instructs the fourth-guitar player to perform a "bass solo" standing up with the guitar resting on a chair.
The Minneapolis Guitar Quartet began as a lark, put together for one evening in 1986, to help raise money for the Minnesota Guitar Society. Ornithologically, it has evolved much over time, perhaps into a mockingbird, with its characteristic flexibility of voice, sounding sometimes raucous like a blue jay, other times plaintive like a mourning dove. But like a migrating bird which flies over land and sea, it returns to sing high in the treetops.
In our musing over CD titles, we have had to discard many good ones in order to arrive at the final choice "Over Land and Sea." It was inspired by words from "The Skye Boat Song," one of the Scottish folk tunes that David Crittenden used in his Fantasy, which we have recorded for this CD. The title seemed appropriate given that the CD begins in Sergio Assad's Brazil, then travels to Europe with visits to Finland, Russia, Italy, Spain and Scotland. It then ends back home with the very American work of Stephen Funk Pearson.
Recorded at Wild Sound, Minneapolis, May-July, 1998
Recording engineer: Matthew Zimmerman · Producer: Jeff Lambert
Editing: Matthew Zimmerman
Cover Art & Design: Ann Wempner ·Program notes: Jack El-Hai Photography: Jim Woosley · Guitars by: Stephen Kakos
Uarekena is published by Editions Henry Lemoine (Paris); Estampas is published by Opera tres Ediciones musicales (Madrid); and Elassomorph is published by Les Editions Doberman-Yppan (Quebec). Hermannin Riili and Skymningspolskan are published by Hoedown Music. All rights for North and South America controlled and administered by Rykomusic, Inc. (ASCAP). All rights for the rest of the world, excluding Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland, controlled and administered by Rykomusic, Ltd. (PRS).
Benson K. & Mary F. Whitney, Manuel Ramirez-Lassepas & Vicky Schaefers-Ramirez, Rhonda Kuehl & David Hoiland, Bob & Laura Owen, Nancy L. Podas, Bob Collier & Helen Hansen, Karen R. Kane, Mike Jones, Thomas D. Hurwitz, Glenn & Annette Fisher, Morris N. Nilsen, Barbara A. Byers, Christine Podas-Larson
Visit the MGQ website at: http://www.4mgq.com
Alan Johnston, David Crittenden, Joseph Hagedorn, O. Nicholas Raths
The Minneapolis Guitar Quartet's first CD, "New Works for Guitar Quartet," on Albany Records, has received unanimous critical acclaim both in the United States and Europe. Their concertizing, in recital and with orchestra, has taken them throughout the United States. They are well known for their innovative programming which has included premieres of close to twenty major new works as well as many original transcriptions. In 1997, they premiered the "Cantiga Variations" for guitar quartet and orchestra written for them by Ian Krouse.
The Minneapolis Guitar Quartet
Alan Johnston, Joseph Hagedorn, O. Nicholas Raths, David Crittenden
Maria Kalaniemi (b. 1964)
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
Federico Moreno Torroba (1891-1982)
Bailando un Fandango Charro (1:43)
Fiesta en el Pueblo (1:27)
David Crittenden (b. 1960)
A Scottish Fantasy (1996) (8:48)
Stephen Funk Pearson (b. 1950)
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