[Leo Brouwer]
Music Review
By Allan Kozinn
Published: April 24, 2011
“The Cuban composer Leo Brouwer has written prolifically for orchestra and chamber ensembles as well as for film. (His most famous work, to American filmgoers, is the score for 'Like Water for Chocolate.') But he is also an accomplished guitarist, and he has contributed a huge number of inspired works to his instrument’s repertory. By the mid-1970s several of his pieces — 'Elogio de la Danza' (1964), 'Canticum' (1968) and 'La Espiral Eterna' (1971) — were part of the canon, and he has continued to write generously for colleagues.
“Benjamin Verdery, the director of the 92nd Street Y’s Art of the Guitar series, rounded up five soloists and two ensembles for an overview of Mr. Brouwer’s guitar music on Saturday evening. He reserved the most famous piece for himself, offering a fluid, free-spirited account of the swirling, rich-textured 'Espiral Eterna,' in which the score’s hypnotic, rippling arpeggiations were less arresting than the (usually subsidiary) muted, percussive passages.
“Other performances were more straightforward, but no less illuminating. The Canadian Guitar Quartet opened the program with the gentle 'Paisaje Cubano con Lluvia' (1984), an involved tone painting, alternately idyllic and rumbling, that captures the imagery of the title, 'Cuban Countryside With Rain.' Later in the program the quartet gave an insistent, hard-driven performance of 'Cambío el Ritmo de la Noche' (1984).” [The Afro-Cuban composer, guitarist and conductor Leo Brouwer (b. 1939) is profiled at AfriClassical.com]
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