Morgan Szymanski
St. George’s Bristol
John Packwood, B.E.P
26/11/04
****

Morgan Szymanski, who paid his first visit to Bristol for this lunchtime series recital, is a talented guitarist with a great future before him.
He opened the concert with a work by the British composer Alec Roth, who based his piece on a picture by a Brazilian artist, The Unicorn in the Garden.

Moving from the lower to the upper register of the instrument in rapid succession, the soloist showed a range of colour in his excellent interpretation of this interesting composition.

The Mexican composer Manuel Ponce wrote six Sonatas for Guitar in the styles of different composers. Number three certainly has the Hispanic sound of his own country. It leads in with a gentle tune in the top compass followed by a delightful Chanson, after which the Allegro moves along in the minor key before ending in quiet solitude.

Two contrasting pieces by the Italian Simone Iannarelli firstly offered a charming tune in waltz-time the bell-like sounds in Cancion para Beatriz. They were both given sympathetic readings by Szymanski, who was given a chance to show his exceptional skills in Cuban Landscape with Bells by Leo Brouwer.

The second piece by Alec Roth was Cat Dances, which is a description in music of the antics of four different cats encountered by the composer. The feeling shown varied from
light and airy to sombre and finally hilarious with the Cheshire Cat. These images were brilliantly portrayed.

As an encore we were treated to the exquisite Capricho Arabe by Francisco Tarrega.