{"id":10476,"date":"2018-07-30T20:11:24","date_gmt":"2018-07-31T03:11:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/?p=10476"},"modified":"2018-09-07T14:47:43","modified_gmt":"2018-09-07T21:47:43","slug":"recent-albums-by-otto-tolonen-duo-tenebroso-and-kevin-j-cope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/recent-albums-by-otto-tolonen-duo-tenebroso-and-kevin-j-cope\/","title":{"rendered":"Recent Albums by Otto Tolonen, Duo Tenebroso, and Kevin J. Cope"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some weeks we take a peek at recent albums or sheet music releases. Here are three of the CDs that have come into the\u00a0Classical Guitar<\/em>\u00a0office recently.<\/p>\n

If you have a CD you\u2019d like to submit to us, here\u2019s our address:<\/p>\n

Classical Guitar
\n501 Canal Blvd. suite J
\nRichmond, CA 94804-3505<\/p>\n

Some of the albums we talk about online will be reviewed in the magazine, some not. But we want to at least mention most of them here. You can listen to some of these on various of streaming services, but we always encourage you to support the artists by actually\u00a0buying<\/em>\u00a0anything you like! Obviously we cannot research and report every outlet or online business where these albums are sold, so check your favorite places that sell CDs and downloads!<\/p>\n

To see links to our previous album listings\/reviews, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2014Blair Jackson<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
\nRetratos<\/strong><\/em>
\n Otto Tolonen<\/strong>
\n(Alba)<\/p>\n

I have to admit to a certain amount of trepidation before I saw Finnish guitarist Otto Tolonen play at GFA in 2017. Quite honestly, I was not fond of his last album, Royal Winter Music<\/em>, which consisted in its entirety of his versions of two mammoth late 20th century works, Henze’s\u00a0Royal Winter Music<\/em> and Britten’s\u00a0Nocturnal After John Dowland<\/em>, both originally popularized by Julian Bream. Oh, there was surely nothing wrong with Tolonen’s playing; back then I simply did not like either of those pieces. A lot of it surely\u00a0 was a matter of exposure. My inexperienced, untrained ear\/brain had tremendous difficulty appreciating such abstract, dissonant, difficult music. Since then, repeated listening to the Nocturnal<\/em>, both in concert and CD (including Tolonen’s), has led me to seriously re-evaluate my view of that piece; finally, I “get it.” I’m still wrestling with Royal Winter Music;<\/em> for me it’s a tougher slog.<\/p>\n

Still, when I saw Tolonen perform at GFA and he opened with two movements from Royal Winter Music<\/em>, I enjoyed seeing him tame those parts of that work, and then, as I wrote at the time, I was totally won over by “the ‘old school’ classical of Regondi\u2019s\u00a0R\u00eaverie\u2013Nocturne<\/em>, which includes a lot of serious tremolo work (perfectly executed) that sounded at once Spanish and Italian.<\/p>\n

“Then it was back to the modern with a bizarre piece by the contemporary Italian composer Alvaro Company, called\u00a0Las Seis Cuerdas<\/em>\u00a0(The Six Strings), written in 1963. Tolonen warned that the piece was ‘extremely experimental’ and explained that Company included detailed notation on the angle of the nail in some parts, the exact spots to hit the guitar in some percussive passages so exactly the right timbre is produced, where on the strings certain notes should be plucked, etc.\u00a0 The seven short movements definitely delivered the promised experimentation, and it was engrossing in its oddness. Again, Tolonen was so committed to the piece, I was able to transcend my conservative aesthetics and just go with it completely.”<\/p>\n

Well, lo and behond, the Regondi and the Company are both on Tolonen’s new Recital<\/em> CD. I still love the Regondi, but I have not really warmed to the Company; watching him play it at close range live evidently gave me an appreciation for the work that hasn’t translated for me in an audio recording. Each of the short sections feels like an incomplete sketch to me, and no amount of technical pyrotechnics\u2014using a slide of some sort, percussive tapping, “prepared guitar” intrusions, and such\u2014pull it all together for me.<\/p>\n

What does<\/em> work well for me (aside from the wonderful Regondi) is splitting Piazzolla’s Cuatro estaciones<\/em> (arranged by S\u00e9rgio Assad) into its four component parts and spreading them throughout the album, opening with Primavera Porte\u00f1a<\/em>, putting Verano<\/em> after the Regondi, Oto\u00f1o<\/em> after the Company (a surprisingly natural juxtaposition), and dropping Invierno<\/em> right before the beautiful closing number, Ariel Ramirez’s Alfonsina y el Mar<\/em>. It’s an interesting way to present Piazzolla’s piece; I feel it actually adds to its overall power to see each turn up in different contexts.<\/p>\n

I’m going to go back and try the Company again. I want<\/em> to like it. I do<\/em> like Tolonen and appreciate his adventurous spirit. So I’m willing to believe he’s right and I’m probably wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time; won’t be the last.<\/p>\n

Primavera Porte\u00f1a<\/em> (Piazzolla, arr. Assad); Nocturne\u2014Reverie<\/em> (Regondi); Verano Porte\u00f1o<\/em> (Piazzolla, arr. Assad); Las Seis Cuerdas<\/em> (A. Company); Oto\u00f1o Porte\u00f1o<\/em> (Piazzolla, arr. Assad); Due Canzoni Lidie<\/em> (D’Angelo); Invierno Porte\u00f1o<\/em> (Piazzolla, arr. Assad); Alfonsina y el Mar<\/em> (A. Ramirez)<\/p>\n

Retratos<\/em> can be heard and purchased through Amazon<\/a>, iTunes\/Apple Music<\/a>, and Pro Studio Masters<\/a>, and streamed on Spotify<\/a> and YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n