{"id":2627,"date":"2015-09-16T15:43:55","date_gmt":"2015-09-16T22:43:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/?p=2627"},"modified":"2015-09-16T15:47:14","modified_gmt":"2015-09-16T22:47:14","slug":"on-new-renaissance-lagq-showcases-its-affection-for-renaissance-and-contemporary-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/on-new-renaissance-lagq-showcases-its-affection-for-renaissance-and-contemporary-music\/","title":{"rendered":"On &#8216;New Renaissance&#8217; LAGQ Showcases Its Affection for Renaissance and Contemporary Music"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Both Old and New: Mark Small reviews <\/em>New Renaissance<em> by Los Angeles Guitar Quartet.<\/em><br \/>\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-2628 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Screen-Shot-2015-09-16-at-1.04.33-PM.png?resize=962%2C585\" alt=\"Screen Shot 2015-09-16 at 1.04.33 PM\" width=\"962\" height=\"585\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Screen-Shot-2015-09-16-at-1.04.33-PM.png?w=962&amp;ssl=1 962w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Screen-Shot-2015-09-16-at-1.04.33-PM.png?resize=300%2C182&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 962px) 100vw, 962px\" \/><br \/>\nWith <em>New Renaissance<\/em>, the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet glances back to historic music and then carries the themes forward to the 21st century. Bill Kanengiser\u2019s \u201cMusic from the Time of Cervantes\u201d opens the disc, with 16 short renditions of pieces by major and minor Renaissance composers. It represents the musical component of a multimedia piece titled \u201cThe Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote,\u201d for which Kanengiser adapted the storyline of Miguel de Cervantes\u2019 1605 novel for guitars and narrator. British funnyman John Cleese provided the voice for its 2009 premiere.<\/p>\n<p>The 32-minute work spotlights Kanengiser\u2019s delightfully creative arrangements of familiar vihuela pieces by Luys de Narv\u00e1ez, Alonso Mudarra, and Luys de Mil\u00e1n, interspersed with less-known works by Antonio Mart\u00edn y Coll and several anonymous composers. Kanengiser\u2019s orchestration taps all the resources four guitars can muster, including tremolo, light as well as vigorous rasgueado strumming, concerted passages played pizzicato and in harmonics, and campanella scale work, plus numerous percussive effects imitating castanets and hand drums. The constantly shifting musical moods move between upbeat rustic dances (<em>j\u00e1caras<\/em>, <em>chaconas<\/em>, <em>canarios<\/em>) to plaintive ballads, madrigals, villancicos, and canci\u00f3nes. Throughout, the quartet plays with rhythmic vitality, sensitivity, and lots of color.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EneZVjv6bD8?rel=0\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nIan Krouse, in his 14-minute \u201cMusic in Four Sharps (on Dowland\u2019s Frog Galliard),\u201d deconstructs Dowland\u2019s popular work bit by bit. Beginning with the bass line passed around the quartet antiphonally, the work slowly opens up, gaining momentum, adding rhythmic activity between the bass line, accompaniment voices, and high-register melodic snippets. Three-plus minutes in, we hear Dowland\u2019s familiar running 16th-note melodies over jaunty strummed chords and later, minimalist arpeggio figures. Rasgueado chords morph into quietly brushed chords before the meditative ambiance of the opening returns and all fades to silence.<\/p>\n<p>Another work linking the past and present is Dusan Bogdanovic\u2019s \u201cSix Ricercars on a Theme by F.C. da Milano.\u201d Bogdanovic takes Milano\u2019s melody on a contrapuntal journey far beyond its original conception, exploring variegated rhythmic interpolations. The piece\u2019s six movements (each averaging a minute in length) reveal Bogdanovic\u2019s affinity for African polyrhythms and Balkan asymmetric meters. The album closes with polyphonic settings of three brief and lovely French chansons arranged by LAGQ\u2019s Scott Tennant.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/1McuGWd\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-2629 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/614SyHGI9ZL._SX425_-300x300.jpg?resize=300%2C300\" alt=\"614SyHGI9ZL._SX425_\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/614SyHGI9ZL._SX425_.jpg?resize=300%2C300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/614SyHGI9ZL._SX425_.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/614SyHGI9ZL._SX425_.jpg?w=425&amp;ssl=1 425w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/1McuGWd\" target=\"_blank\"><em>New Renaissance<br \/>\n<\/em>Los Angeles Guitar Quartet<br \/>\nLAGQ Records<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Both Old and New: Mark Small reviews New Renaissance by Los Angeles Guitar Quartet. With New Renaissance, the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet glances back to historic music and then carries the themes forward to the 21st century. Bill Kanengiser\u2019s \u201cMusic from the Time of Cervantes\u201d opens the disc, with 16 short renditions of pieces by major and minor Renaissance composers. It represents the musical component of a multimedia piece titled \u201cThe Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote,\u201d for which Kanengiser adapted the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":2628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Screen-Shot-2015-09-16-at-1.04.33-PM.png?fit=962%2C585&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}