{"id":12916,"date":"2019-05-08T19:16:19","date_gmt":"2019-05-09T02:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/?p=12916"},"modified":"2019-05-08T19:16:19","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T02:16:19","slug":"from-the-archives-david-russell-on-playing-baroque-music-a-2014-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/from-the-archives-david-russell-on-playing-baroque-music-a-2014-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Archives: David Russell on Playing Baroque Music; a 2014 Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY TH\u00c9R\u00c8SE WASSILY SABA from the JANUARY 2014 ISSUE OF CLASSICAL GUITAR\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

David Russell<\/a>‘s recording and concert output continues to be refreshingly inspired and<\/em> inspiring, with a depth of musical understanding that includes his wit and sense of drama, expressed through his remarkable technical control in beautiful tone colors. In the first issue of Classical Guitar<\/em>, published in September\/October 1982, Colin Cooper wrote in his review of David Russell\u2019s Purcell Room recital: “Clarity, incisiveness, simplicity, power\u2014any of these in combinations of one, two, or even three can carry a recital, but David Russell can combine all four in a way that makes him one of the most exciting young guitarists on the scene.” Thirty years-on and 30 recordings later, he is still “one of the most exciting guitarists on the scene.” His Telarc albums\u00a0Air on a G String: Baroque Masterpieces by Bach, Couperin, Saint-Luc and Weiss,\u00a0<\/em>his witty all-Giuliani recording, Music of Giuliani,<\/em>\u00a0and his all-Alb\u00e9niz recording, Isaac Alb\u00e9niz\u2014Spanish Music for Classical Guitar<\/em>, with 70 minutes of Alb\u00e9niz, all received great critical acclaim. His Aire Latino\u2014Latin American Music for Guitar<\/em>\u00a0won the 2005 Grammy award for best instrumental soloist. I spoke with David Russell about his latest recording, The<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>Grandeur of the Baroque,<\/em> and more.<\/p>\n

Classical Guitar:<\/strong> The Grandeur of the Baroque<\/em> has some superb works by Bach and Couperin, but what I found extra-exciting is this new recording of the Handel [Suite No. 7<\/em>, HWV 432], which you recorded many years ago.
\nDavid Russell:<\/strong> Yes, I did record it before, so this is the second recording of a piece which has been really important for me. When I recorded it the first time, I think it was one of my best achievements, certainly my best transcription up to then, and it was a big challenge technically and musically to play the piece.<\/p>\n

CG:<\/strong> When was that the first recording made?
\nRussell:\u00a0<\/strong>The first recording was made around 1984.<\/p>\n

CG:<\/strong> In the sequence of solo recordings, would that have been about your third recording?
\nRussell:\u00a0<\/strong>If we include the duo record with Dennis Milne, and one or two other things, it was the fourth recording I did, so I was kind of a beginner at it. What really happened was that I felt that I wanted to play the piece again. It\u2019s a challenging piece to play and at the same time, it\u2019s very rewarding. I toured with the piece several years ago and then I decided I would like to try to improve some of the details that I thought I could now do better than 25 years ago, because some parts of my playing have changed and so also has my attitude to the music itself.<\/p>\n

CG:<\/strong> I imagine that it is the attitude more than anything.
\nRussell:\u00a0<\/strong>I think so. We get older and we perhaps have more time; I hope that maybe this new recording is more thoughtful. Perhaps it\u2019s less brash because I\u2019m 25 years less brash than I was then! I love to listen to the early recording, but it has some parts that I don\u2019t really enjoy any more.<\/p>\n

CG:<\/strong> Do you often listen to your early recordings?
\nRussell:\u00a0<\/strong>Well, I had to when I was going to do this one. In this particular case, of course I listened to my old recording of the Handel Suite, as I wanted to keep the good things and try to improve on the aspects that I felt could be better. As far as listening to my own recordings is concerned, I sometimes do it, but for many different reasons: choosing repertoire for concerts, listening to the sound when I am preparing for a new recording, and so on.<\/p>\n

CG:<\/strong> I imagine that it is inevitably a different version when you record a piece for a second time\u2014even you could not reproduce an identical version of yourself, even though every other guitarist might be trying to do it!
\nRussell:\u00a0<\/strong>I didn\u2019t really want to make it identical, although if you listen to both versions, there is going to be a similarity. I didn\u2019t want to replicate what I did before; I wanted to improve on it and to do some things better.<\/p>\n

CG:<\/strong> Aren\u2019t they two different interpretations and therefore neither one is necessarily better than the other? I would be happy to even have a third version!
\nRussell:\u00a0<\/strong>Well, I would only do it a third time if I wanted to make some kind of radical change. I don\u2019t think I am going to be doing that piece again. I\u2019d love to be able to play it for the rest of my life, because if you can play that, you can basically deal with everything, as it\u2019s a really hard piece to play.<\/p>\n

There are very few pieces that we get a chance to record twice. I\u2019ve recorded Capricho \u00c1rabe<\/em> by T\u00e1rrega twice.<\/p>\n

CG:<\/strong> Are your two versions of Capricho \u00c1rabe<\/em> very different?
\nRussell:<\/strong> The first recording was part of an all-T\u00e1rrega CD, and then there was a later album that I was asked to make with popular pieces on it, so I put on Capricho \u00c1rabe<\/em> and Recuerdos de la Alhambra<\/em>. I also have two recordings of the Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuez<\/em>. The opportunities came up: one was in Poland and it is on a CD that is no longer available, and the second one was for Telarc.
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

CG:<\/strong> In the case of concertos, the orchestra and conductor make a big difference to the final result, don\u2019t they?
\nRussell:\u00a0<\/strong>Oh yes, the result is more different than when you record a solo piece.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I listen to my old recordings and it surprises me that it\u2019s not so different. I thought after 30 years I would have changed a bit, but the change is not so enormous.<\/p>\n

CG:<\/strong> What about with regard to the ornamentation you have used, because that is quite a distinctive part of the Handel? Did your style of ornamentation change?
\nRussell:\u00a0<\/strong>I\u2019m much better at it now than I was when I first recorded it. At the time of the first recording was really when I was developing that kind of ornamentation and those kind of trills. Of course, I\u2019m not the only one to do them, but for me they were a new kind of technique, so some of them were just flung in all over the place. Now I know what I want with them and I\u2019m much more confident in my knowledge than I was at that time. In the Couperin that is on my new CD [from Vingt-Sixi\u00e9me Ordre<\/em>], there is a lot of ornamentation\u2014a lot more than I could have done at that time, because I know how to do it better now.<\/p>\n

CG:<\/strong> You didn\u2019t record any Couperin at the beginning of your career, did you?
\nRussell:\u00a0<\/strong>No, I discovered him later in life.<\/p>\n

CG:<\/strong> This is a new, luxury item that we all love!
\nRussell:\u00a0<\/strong>There are many works by Couperin that can be transcribed successfully for guitar and they sound wonderful on our instrument.<\/p>\n

CG:<\/strong> The four Couperin pieces on the recording are not the pieces that I have been hearing you play in concert recently, are they?
\nRussell:\u00a0<\/strong>No, those ones that you\u2019ve heard in concert I recorded a couple of years ago on a CD called Air on a G String<\/em>. They were Les Silvains<\/em>, Les Barricades Myst\u00e9rieuses<\/em> and the Les Tours de Passe-passe<\/em>. Those pieces I recorded four years ago. Couperin wrote his pieces in Ordres<\/em>, like suites, and with these ones, the whole suite has five movements, but there was one movement that I couldn\u2019t fit onto the guitar and it\u2019s not actually a very pretty movement anyway. So I recorded four movements from the 26th Ordre<\/em>.
\nRussell plays two by Couperin:<\/em>
\n