Kenneth Booth

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Publication Date

12-2-2007

Year of Release

2007

Note(s)

Kenneth Booth, guitar

This recital is presented in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the Bachelor of Arts degree in Music Performance. Mr. Booth is a student in the guitar studio of Dr. Julio Alves.

Program Notes

Brazilian composer

Heitor Villa-Lobos came to international prominence in the early-to-mid 1900s. His Prelude No. 3 is one of the set of five preludes he wrote for the guitar. Typical elements of Villa-Lobos’s music such as mixed meter, rhythmic freedom, and fermatas (particularly on the first notes of phrases during the first section) are easily recognized in this piece. Etude No. 8 employs chromatic harmony for color, and rhythmic accents. A prominent feature of the piece is the emphasis on sextuplet and triplet rhythm in is second section.

J. S. Bach was a prolific and successful performer and composer. His solo works for cello and lute are frequently transcribed for the modern guitar. The program features selected movements from the Lute Suite BWV 995, composed around 1730 as an adaptation of the Cello Suite BWV 1011. The Prelude is the longest movement of the piece. Its free form is consistent with the improvisational tradition of the early preludes. The cello is best evoked in the Sarabande, with depicts an expressive, meditative quality, revealed through a slow tempo, and an exposed melody. A set of Gavottes displaying a compound ternary design concludes the selection.

Argentinean composer and guitarist Maximo Diego Pujol’s Tres Piezas Rioplatenses are representative of modern Argentinean music, particularly that of Rio de la Plata region. Don Julian is a tango dedicated to Argentinean composer, pianist, and bandoneonist Julian Plaza (1928-2003) who is considered significant in the development of the tango style. The piece features a slow, reflective section between two statements of another section portraying a bright and lively character with dissonant harmonies for color. The milonga Septiembre has a lyrical, expressive quality, and evokes romance and nostalgia, as commonly featured in this song form from Uruguay and Argentina. Rojo y Negro (“Red and Black”) is candombe, a drum-based style originated in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. It is influenced by Bantu African drumming and European music. Near the end of the piece, the played is called to percussively use the finders on the soundboard, imitating the drum origins of the candombe.

Leo Brouwer’s El Decameron Negro is a three movement piece based on anthropologist Leon Frobenius’s book of African tales which carries the same name. La Arpa Del Guerrero (”The Harp of the Warrior”) is a story about a warrior who wants to become a musician. The arpeggiated figures out of which grow single note lines heavily evoke the sound of the harp. La Huida de los Amantes por el Valle de los Ecos (“The flight of the Lovers through the Valley of Echoes”) begins with a simple figure which gradually grows faster and guilds intensity. The core of this movement reveals a symbiosis between arpeggios mimicking gallops and sudden contrasts in dynamic represents the echoes. The piece is concluded by the dance-like Ballada de la Doncella Enamorada (“Ballad of the Maiden in Love”), marked by its simple character, strong rhythm, and use of artificial harmonica to bring out bell-like notes in the higher register.

Charlie Byrd was an instrumental figure in the integration of classical guitar and jazz music, playing jazz guitar music with a nylon string guitar. Three Blues for Classic Guitar was written in the late 1950s. Each piece is dedicated to one of Byrd’s friends. The bass lines between melodic phrases in “Spanish Guitar Blues” emulate the sound of the double bass in a jazz combo. “Blues for Felix” is permeated by the use of dotted rhythms and syncopations, which are evocative of jazz style. The use of staccatos and full measure rests in “Swing ‘59” provide edgy and suspenseful conclusion to the program.

Note

Jomie Jazz Forum

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities | Fine Arts | Music | Music Performance

Marshall University Music Department Presents a Senior Recital, Kenneth Booth, guitar

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