Hopkinson Smith (baroque guitar); music by Sanz, Guerau and Santa Cruz
Wesley Church, February 24
Reviewed by John Button
Hearing a baroque guitar in a space with around 300 other souls is somewhat unnatural. Even with sound re- inforcement – and it was very discretely done here – one is always conscious that, in the 17th century, such a performance would have been in a small space with only a handful of listeners sitting very close.
The Wesley Church is a very dry space acoustically so the small sound and the music itself took some getting used to.
The audience was dropped into the musical world of the time – a fascinating experience more intense than in a choral or instrumental group experience.
We were guided by the masterly playing of Hopkinson Smith, one of the great lutenists who is also, quite clearly, a master of the baroque guitar.
The instrument itself looks like an oversized ukelele but has 5 strings, not 4 like the modern guitar, and is tuned rather differently. Obviously, a player of the modern instrument would find difficulty in mastering it.
So it is players of the immensely difficult lute who are attracted to the baroque guitar and, if the first half of the programme only rarely offered the novice any insights into the instrument, there were many musical treats of a quiet nature.
But the second half, devoted entirely to Gaspar Sanz, opened up a bit – logical but clever programming – and we heard not only more moments of display, including the sort of strumming that was to become the flamenco we know, but some quite modern dissonances and melodies that seemed familiar as well.
Yes, they were familiar melodies from the 20th century – Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez and his Fantasia para un Gentilhombre spilled out from this 17th-century composer. Wouldn’t Sanz have loved the royalties
The large audience loved it all, not the least Smith’s lovely dry explanations of just what he was going to play.
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