Customer Reviews

John Williams: The Seville Concert from the Royal Alcázar Palace

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've long been weary of complaints of Williams's supposed lack of expression. Ridiculous. Williams simply plays with great strength and evenness of tone and is stoic and dignified; he gets out of the way of the music and allows it to speak for itself and determine its own effect upon its audience.

The music on this disc is mostly Twentieth Century Spanish (Albeniz and Rodrigo) or Baroque (Bach, Scarlatti and Vivaldi), but at the center of the program are the "Sakura" variations by Yokoh and the "Usher Waltz" of Nikita Koshkin. The Japanese piece does a convincing job of mimicking the koto without actually doing anything that a koto would do. Williams nails it, as usual. The Koshkin starts tamely, becomes disoriented and works up into a tizzy. It's rather vulgar and some take offense at its nerve, but I like it. The Paraguayan Agustin Barrios's "Sueno en la Floresta", piggy-backing on the Spanish theme, is done here with a great deal of verve; its tremelo is both astonishingly smooth and propelled by its melody rather than its bass.

Another reviewer on this site claims that JW's performance of Albeniz's "Sevilla" is slow. What? Compared to whose? This is plenty quick.

All these SEVILLE CONCERT selections, with the sole exception of the "Usher Waltz", are available on previous Williams recordings. I'll admit to liking all of those earlier recordings a little better than these, but this IS a magnificent recital. In fact, one forgets that it's a live performance; Williams is so steady and sure that this whole thing sounds like a studio recording.

The CD closes with four bonus-track numbers from the 1981 LP, ECHOES OF SPAIN, which was comprised solely of transcriptions of piano music by the greatest of all of Spain's composers for that instrument - Isaac Albeniz. Williams's playing is brilliant - especially of "Torre Bermeja" and "Cadiz" which is just gorgeous. "Granada" is also striking; it's lyrical and lovely and (in JW's then-new and unusual arrangement with the altered fifth string tuning) sounds more natural than it ever has in the Tarrega/Segovia manner. Williams's "Cordoba" is always remarkable.

This is a beautiful album.

I'd never heard this artist before but found his performance to be beautifully executed and seemless. I felt the music and believe it to be "food for the soul". I would pursue more of his music.

Like the majority view here, I adore this album and have little to add to those who have praised it. Just thought I would add a note of an oddity -and wonder if others have experienced it - Playing my copy through Real Player, I watched the "album information" notes that come up - and was amused to read that Williams was for many years "conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra" plus several allusions to his compositions for the screen...talk about mistaken identity!
Does anyone know how that works - is this a Sony problem, or a Real Networks player problem, or what? Not that it matters much, though I suppose if it happened with lesser-known names people could end up misinformed.

The previous reviewer complains about Williams' lack of expressiveness, though acknowledging the artist's accurate playing. Well, I kind of feel that way about Williams in general. His skill highlights accuracy, in my opinion. Where I like Williams most is on the couple of CD's on which he and Julian Bream play together. Never-the-less, the cd under review has its merits and I enjoy some its pieces.

1. Sevilla (Sevillanas)
--This popular guitar piece is usually played slow and without a strong direct rhythm, such as Williams plays here. While Segovia was responsible for taking the quite mediocre flamenco song and making it more expressive as a classical guitar piece, Williams improved on all those extra notes Segovia put in, by restoring the original dance rhythym (sevilla means dance).

2. Prelude to the Fourth Lute Suite.
--This piece is extremely complex, full of notes and usually satisfies the average listener because it doesn't repeat phrases as much as the other songs in this set. Beginning classical guitarists will hear this and immediately go get the sheet music or tablature for it to start learning it. They are doomed too. The piece is far too advanced. Williams' version here is popular because of how utterly note-for-note flawless it is, in spite of being so complex and difficult that Segovia even said it was impossible to play on guitar!

3. Andante
--I think Amazon.com has mistitled this piece. It is the exact same song as "Sonata in D minor" on the regular CD. But anyway, again, Williams plays flawlessly a difficult piece, but this one is more mellow than the Prelude.

4. I. Allegro Giusto
5. II. Largo
6. III. Allegro
--I personally thought these three movements sounded slightly "rushed", especially the slower second movement "Largo".

7. Sakura Variations
--Williams plays this traditional popular Japanese song several times, each being a different style of the same tune. Nice way to keep things interesting.

8. Usher Waltz, Op.29 (After Edgar Allan Poe)
--This song appears to be nothing but "smart noise", as I like to say. It requires technical feats of skill, but it seems to just spin it's wheels, and would do little more than draw comical smiles if played at a restaurant or club for an audience.

9. Asturias (Leyenda)
--This is a popular piece that just says "spanish pride" all over it. Those who never heard it before would swear this is a soundtrack to a film about wars in old Mexico. While this version is tight, Williams recorded this song back in the 80's on an album called "Spanish Guitar Music", and this earlier version I feel has more power and gusto, while the version on this Seville Concert Album doesn't quite have that earliers gustoin spite of it's own praiseworthy traits.

10. Sueno En La Floresta
--I am a true dedicated fan of John Williams, and I don't like seeing people say he doesn't play with soul, etc. However, while this advanced virtuosic tremelo piece composed by Barrios is technically perfect, it sounds "rushed"; and those small pauses and breaks that give a piece "soul" are all but absent here. He should have slowed it down just a bit. Did Williams ever play this piece with soul? Yes. In 1978, found on his album "John Williams plays barrios".

11. Adagio
--Otherwise titled "Concerto de Arajaunez", guitar + symphony piece composed by Joquin Rodrigo, and intended to highlight the guitar, by giving it most of the limelight. This is very different from the orchestra concertos in songs 4, 5 and 6 on this same album. Williams gives the guitar true color and expression in each of the solo spots.

12. Torre Bermeja
--Some songs just have a very thick authentic "Mexican" sound to them more so than others, and this would be such one. It was Segovia who popularized the notion that no classical guitarist should play one song the same way all the time. I personally feel that the earlier version Williams recorded back in 1958 when he was 17, despite the lessor quality clarity in the recording, is much more expressive. That was when Williams was fresh out of Segovia school.

13. Granada
--A soft and moving Spanish piece, the one you'd want to have playing when your girlfriend walks in the door to eat the gourmet dinner with you under soft lights. This is the stuff I listen to when everybody is out of the house and I can just sit back with nothing but this album and a six-pack of beer and just *V E G* for a precious 3 minutes. Or I'll put the CD player on repeat and turn it into an hour.


14. Cadiz
--A rather lively swashbuckling piece that didn't do a damn thing for me personally. I am a classical guitarist, and this one will never be in my repetoire.

15. Cordoba
--A very expressive piece with a slow beautiful yet haunting beginning, evoking images of the Mosk in Spain. The main body of the song requires some of the most impossible guitar fingering, and yet Williams brings it out without buzzing strings or squeaks. In the video "The Seville Concert", Williams introduces this piece by saying that Cordoba is his personal favorite.

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Overall, while the extra songs on this special edition CD are interesting, they are not sufficient to justify the extra price, and IMO it is only Cordoba which justifies the increased price. The average person, whether amatuer guitarist or not should be satisfied with what amounts to a culmination of Williams' unbelievably accurate playing. This album however will not satisfy guitar enthusiasts who prioritize feeling and soul more than technical perfection. He simply just doesn't "take his time" often enough for that crowd of listeners.

If I had produced this album, I would have shelved "Cadiz", and put William's latest recording of "Recuerdos de la Alhambra" on it instead; the famous tremelo piece by Tarrega which is the "most" Spanish sounding piece in all the guitar literature in guitarist majority opinion. Cadiz is simply awful. I never thought any noise could be worse than "Usher Waltz". Boy was i wrong!