Day One: Concert Marcin Dylla
After a nice meal at home, I returned in Enschede well before eight: if you want to have a parking spot, you must be quick, particularly now the Enschede local council has quite a lot of existing parking space built over with the Muziekkwartier, an ambitious and quite (over) expensive project to upgrade the northern part of the town centre.
The evening recital would be given by the Polish guitarist Marcin Dylla, a considerable runner-up in the guitar world, who made a name with many recitals and prizes from guitar contests. The website of Marcin Dylla provides more information.
He started nicely classical with La premiere Grande Sonate by Fernando Sor. It’s a piece with a little political-ridden background, because Sor dedicated it to the controversial politician Manuel Godoy, a man who counteracted Spanish national feeling with his clear French sympathies. Godoy strove to bring the Kingdom of Spain in the sphere of influence of Napoleontic France, he was a member of the party, Sor did choose himself as well. The Spaniards did not like Sor’s Gallophilia, so that Sor was forced to flee to Paris at a certain time after Napoleon lost the war. In Paris he made his name as a guitarist and composer, and in Paris he still rests on the Cimetière Montmartre.
Marcin Dylla played the Sonate joyfully and virtuoso. It stroke me what a nice pause the Minuet appeared to be after all this virtuosity of the first two movements of the Sonate. Not for long however, because Dylla played the Trio to the Minuet at dazzling speed, an approach which surprised me.
As his second piece, he played Sonate Op. 47 by Alberto Ginastera, a quite impressive modern piece which took me quite some effort to remain concentrated. I included a story about this piece in the Guitarities section of this site, so I will not repeat it here.
After the break Mr. Dylla came with a surprise: a try-out of an unknown and hence unpublished Toccata by Joaquin Rodrigo. The piece was retraced in some archive and the Rodrigo Foundation had asked Mr. Dylla to play the piece in Madrid as a world premiere.
It was a technically advanced piece, but I missed the Rodrigo-specific sound, like in his Tonadilla. ;-) I guess my knowledge of Rodrigo’s music is limited.
Marcin Dylla concluded his recital with a Sonata by Antonio José, again a modern piece. Well, Mr. Dylla performed it without flaws and with great passion, but my head was still full of Ginastera’s complex structures, so i did not get the point with Antonio José. My apologies: the limitations of a musical simple mind: I was overloaded.
As with Mr. Horna, I found Marcin Dylla’s finishing touch and precision phenomenal. If you compare recordings of the old players with modern classical guitar play, one can say that the classical guitar playing techniques have matured quite a bit.