Goethe guitarist gets standing ovation

Jim Read, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Lovers of fine music faced a cruel dilemma on Sunday evening: whether to opt for the oleaginous, Mediterranean charms, at Balai Kartini, of up-and-coming Italian tenor Patrizio Buanne (see adjacent article) or the exquisite musicianship of Uruguayan-born guitar maestro Alvaro Pierri at Goethe Haus, Central Jakarta.

Those choosing the latter need not have worried; Pierri delivered a superb performance to a highly appreciative audience, many of whom were classical guitarists themselves. His amusing, introductory vignettes of program items quickly won over the crowd and whetted their musical appetites.

The somewhat dry acoustic of the Goethe Haus auditorium was perfect for the recital. The air-conditioning, turned off at the soloist's request, allowed even the quietest passages to be heard with a clarity that is rare indeed.

The downside was that the heat and humidity were palpable by the end of each of the concert's two halves, but most in the audience would have agreed that it was well worth the discomfort that entailed.

Playing without a trademark guitarist's footstool (as is his wont), Pierri opened the recital with four pieces by rarely heard Polish composer Jakub Pollack (1545-1605). As his dates might suggest, the works were very reminiscent of lute music by John Dowland, replete with the engaging plaintiveness of that period.

It turned out that the first group of pieces were a good way of preparing both soloist and audience for the exhilaration that was to come.

Gran Sonata en La Mayor by Niccolo Paganini was written originally for the guitar, even though there were many moments in the first movement when one could have been forgiven for thinking that this was a transcription of a Haydn or Mozart piano sonata.

The second movement encapsulated the quintessential lyricism of the guitar, while the last started innocuously enough, with a perky tune that seemed somewhat inconsequential.

This turned out to be something of a Paganini "joke", for the initial theme became a series of increasingly complex variations, with fiendishly difficult scale passages played above a slow tenor/baritone restatement of the original theme.

Pierri took all of this in his stride, especially the piano -- even pianissimo -- harmonics that typified the impishness of the piece.

Pierri was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, to a family of musicians. Taking guitar lessons by the age of five, he won his first award at the age of 11 and went on to win just about every prize offered to young musicians in Uruguay and abroad.

His U.S. debut took place in New York in 1978; soon after, he was being talked about in the same breath as guitar greats Andres Segovia, Julian Bream and John Williams.

He is also an internationally acclaimed teacher. Since 2002, Pierri has been a guitar professor at Universitaet fuer Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna, Austria.

The second half of the recital comprised more modern works, by Eduardo Sainz de la Maza, Astor Piazzolla and Alberto Ginastera. The pieces were played with great aplomb, often incorporating unconventional, percussive sound effects that involved tapping or beating the body of the guitar, sliding along the strings or plucking them in extremely unusual places.

By the time Pierri was presented with the customary bouquet, it was clear that this audience would not be content with polite applause; it was not going to let him go before it had heard an encore or two, its half-speed handclap growing into a crescendo of deafening approval.

He performed two delightful cameos, moving almost seamlessly from one to the other. Despite a standing ovation from almost everyone present he did not return to the platform this time.

Speaking after the recital, Pierri said how impressed he was at the students who had attended a master class he had given the day before. "They brought such a wide variety of pieces with them, making the class a real pleasure for me," he said.

The concert was the first in a series of three, billed The Guitar Maestros. Dates that aficionados of the instrument should note in their diaries are Dec. 1, when Aniello Desiderio will play at Erasmus Huis, and Jan. 29, 2006, when the Juan Martin trio will deliver what should be an exciting evening of flamenco music.