Courtesy of Columbia Artists Management Inc.
Isbin's technical ability and delicate style soothed audiences. Percussionist Thiago de Mello accompanied Isbin in the second half of her concert.
OLD GOLD AND BLACK REVIEWER
Classical guitarist and Secrest artist Sharon Isbin, in a joint concert with Brazilian percussionist Thiago de Mello, played beautifully last Saturday night in Brendle Recital Hall. The evening, however, was not an opportunity for virtuosity, nor even for "great" music. It was an opportunity for sanctuary.
I have written upon these pages before about the cacophony which I feel pervades contemporary life so thoroughly. Nearing this century's end, it seems the world has gained such an unprecedented inertia of accessibility, of quantity, of volume, of sheer population, that all we may receive from the cultural rumble is a mind-numbing roar.
Life at present is extremely amplified, and any hollering from us will simply generate more distortion within what is rapidly becoming a Totalitarian Dictatorship of Noise.
What we need now is certainly not more noise. We need silence -- an active silence, some black-watered lake of Druidian stillness which by its profound quietude gives meaning to the smallest pebbles thrown upon it.
Classical guitar concerts at their best have a powerful ability to instill this kind of active silence, perhaps because the classical guitar, among all other contemporary instruments, is simply the quietist. Thus, in the hands of a true musical artist, can the guitar invoke an unparalleled intimacy, a musical privacy of great weight which cannot be found elsewhere.
When Sharon Isbin played through Francisco Tárrega's famous Capricho árabe early in her concert, she was providing an invaluably beautiful moment of refuge from all that noise outside.
The concert hall, entirely dark save a lone spotlight upon the musician, became Isbin's own black-watered lake, off which rippled Tarrega's infinitely delicate melody, intoxicatively sad in its Moorish pathos, sentimental but convincing.
The whole piece touched on the tip of the inaudible, yet it possessed such an aural magnetism that the entire audience seemed connected to Isbin's spun melismas by some invisible filament. Each inflection of the musical line, every crescendo, every sighing pause, gave a collective tug to the motionless crowd.
While other such moments came close to this effect of artistic hypnotism, Isbin's performance of the Capricho was undeniably the crystalline heart of the whole concert.
Issac Albeniz' Asturias, also performed during the first set, was given a fierce edge and an almost obsessional drive, and Enrique Granados' Spanish Dance No. 5, while lacking a characteristic dirtiness, provided another opportunity for Isbin's inimitable lyricism.
Isbin alternated one solo set on each half of the program with another devoted to duos with Thiago de Mello. De Mello lent a wonderful warmth to the evening, possessing an earnest informality and benevolence that almost made one forget how fine a percussionist he truly is.
De Mello's accompaniments were never intrusive; rather, they murmured along seemlessly, like rhythmic lullabies. He had a delightfully exotic array of instruments to choose from, which he often did in an improvisational fashion.
De Mello would agilely shift from authentic Amazonian whistles to a gourd made by his mother, from a berimbao (similar to an archer's bow with a small resonance bowl), to a tortoise shell (whose original owner, de Mello sadly confessed, was eaten), to the extraordinarily evocative rain stick.
The percussionist's chief instrument, the "jungle's mouth," consisted of nothing more than a large box he had constructed himself; this tribute to economy gave rise to a wondrously varied array of sounds.
De Mello's own composition for guitar and percussion, Four Chants for the Chief, maintained an unmistakably Brazilian tone, and provided a soft, lulling tone, though occasionally the music extended beyond facile comfort into banality.
The performance level remained high, but chemistry between the performers, though not without moments of great poetry, highlighted a disparity between the two musicians, rather than an intimate dialogue.
This occasional awkwardness may have resulted simply because two musical worlds were colliding: Isbin adhered quite stiffly to the rigors of a fully notated score, while de Mello, maintained the comfortable sovereignty of a born improvisor.
Despite these sporadic moments of discomfort, Isbin and de Mello were able to maintain a surreal unity of atmosphere throughout the evening, providing many a moment of lyrical momentum and harmonic suavity.
Still, I found myself yearning for the concert's beginning, when Isbin sat alone, solitarily rippling the gentlest of lines off the dark resonant hall, achieving a paradoxical intensity of volume through her concentration. Those moments, brief but boundless, offer an indescribable solace for those willing to bring themselves in from the noise outside, and simply listen.