Music
Guitar and Harp Department
RCS, Glasgow
Michael Tumelty
Three stars
YESTERDAY’S collection of music played by students from the guitar and harp department of the Royal Conservatoire was a mixed bag, with not everything necessarily working successfully, though these matters are very often a question of taste. I know many Bach buffs who would not have liked at all the transcription, or arrangement, of the Presto from the First Violin Sonata played on harp. I rather enjoyed Teresa Barros Romao Conceica’s fluid performance, though I admit I was seduced by the halo of arpeggiated sound that embraced me.
On the other hand, I have to say I just couldn’t see the point of the two players’ own arrangement of Bartok’s Romanian Dances for mandolin and guitar. I have no doubt that Callum Morton-Teng and Roberto Hernan Kuhn Versluys worked hard at their arrangement, but somewhere along the road, the meat, bite and spirit of Bartok’s mini-masterpieces got lost. Anna Carolina Marcelino’s sumptuous harp playing of Perozzi’s Divertimento on I due Foscari ravishingly caught Verdi’s colours and glorious tunes, while Nicole Stefani’s stunning viola playing in her performance of the Allegro from Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata was simply the best playing of the afternoon. This girl, who was accompanied yesterday by Nestor Beveridge on guitar, has a rock-solid technique, flawless musicality and a wonderful, throatily-mature sound that would make a cello curl up with envy.
The rather odd feast concluded with a dash of glitz in Elias Alvars’ Concertino for Two Harps, which was a bit short on high-quality musical inspiration, though with plenty of fun and glamour in the performance by Nana Sotirova and Ewelina Brzozowska.
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