And now for something entirely different – a solo guitar recital

The Victorian proportions of Hampstead Lane seem pretty much perfect for a solo guitar so we are very happy that Declan Hickey (who some of you may already have heard at today’s Highgate Society lunchtime concert with saxophonist Sophia Elger) will be joining us on 16th May for a very different programme of classical guitar music.

Declan

A first class music degree from Cambridge followed by a scholarship to the Royal Academy brought Declan to London. Now based here he plays as a soloist, chamber musician and arranger while also working as a musicologist.
Under his musicology hat he has studied the early 19th century guitar craze known as the ‘Great Vogue’*, is investigating the Victorian poet-composer William Ball and working on the guitar music of Michael Tippett and his East Anglian contemporaries.  On a more contemporary note, he has performed Harrison Birtwhistle’s The World is Discovered with the London Sinfonietta Academy and  premiered works by Oliver Rudland, Declan Molloy, Jack Gionis and Archie John.
In June, with violinist Eliza Nagle, Declan will be performing at the Guitar Summit Festival at King’s Place.

The composers

The programme for May 16th takes us from the early 19th century ‘Great Vogue’ with Johann Kaspar Mertz’s Elegie – to 2007 with Leo Brewer’s Variations on a Theme by Victor Jara.

Johann Kaspar Mertz (1805-1856) was a virtuoso guitarist much feted around Central Europe in the 1840s and 50s. His guitar music, unlike that of most of his contemporaries (followers of Mozart and Haydn) was inspired by the pianistic model of Liszt, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Schubert and Schumann.

The guitar composer who we have all heard of:
Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887–1959).  A hugely popular Brazilian composer, conductor, cellist, and classical guitarist, Villa-Lobos had composed over 2,000 pieces by the time of his death in 1959.

Jean Françaix (1912–97) – a French neoclassical composer, pianist, and orchestrator, ‘known for his prolific output and vibrant style’. A virtuoso pianist, much praised by Ravel, Françaix wrote for almost every orchestral instrument and ensemble – including the guitar.

Tōru Takemitsu (1930-1996) – a largely self taught Japanese composer and writer on aesthetics and music theory. He was a founding member of the Jikken Kōbō (Experimental Workshop) in Japan, ‘a group of avant-garde artists who distanced themselves from academia and whose collaborative work is often regarded among the most influential of the 20th century’.

Jorge Morel (1931–2021) Born in Buenos Aires, Morel performed all over South America before moving to the US. Over his career  he played with jazz greats such as Erroll Garner, Stan Kenton, Herbie Mann and  Chet Atkins while  appearing at the  Lincoln Center, the QEH, the Wigmore Hall and the Suntory Hall in Tokyo.

Leo Brouwer (1939-) is a hugely successful Cuban composer, conductor and classical guitarist. He was born in Havana in 1939 but continues to play and conduct all over the world, including stints with both the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic.

Supper

The concert will, as usual, be followed by supper which – weather permitting – might even happen in the garden.

Book here –  6.30pm for a glass of wine – 7pm for the concert.

* The ‘Great Vogue’ was the craze for the guitar which swept through Europe in the early 19th century sparked by the invention of a six stringed guitar with a distinct bass and treble range. This meant that it could ‘effectively funtion as a small, but portable, piano accompanying the voice with arpeggio patterns, or playing solo sonatas and variations’. Earlier guitars, although they had been popular with all ranks of society for centuries, only had five strings and were much more limited in what they coud do.
With thanks to the Boydell & Brewer blog which you should consult to know more.

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