Jacarande ClassicalGuitarqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqMay 1997

FRACTAL REFLECTIONS

Brad Richter
with Jennifer Hambrick, flute* and Arturo Guzman, guitar**

The Harvest
Fractal Reflections
When the Caged Bird Sings...*
Eight Preludes
Meditation and Chant
Artemis and Apollo**
Harmon Records

Brad Richter is a guitarist composer currently based in Chicago. His compositions are an eclectic mixture of an identifiably American background with decidedly 'educated' musical style that introduces sonorities, harmonic ideas, and structural issues that take the music into original areas of musical thought. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London, and both his compositional and performance abilities are highly developed.

This is the most satisfying of quite a number of such CDs I have heard recently. Richter has the right idea in many areas of the discipline; good ideas which he doesn't give away too easily; a firm grasp of contemporary musical discourse; an always accessible manner even in passages of non-tonal writing; a neat and technically fluent playing style. All these are probably best summed up in the Eight Preludes, originally Etudes, which were written in partial fulfillment of the requirements of his M.Mus degree at the RCM. The pieces each take their inspiration from an emotion or feeling; musing, desire, doubt, frustration, anger, regret, solitude, elation. What
could very easily be a regrettably sentimental or over-obvious portrayal has been handled very sensibly by Richter, who imparts each with a clear notion of the overt idea but also works in plenty of more subtle musical discourse as well. Interestingly, these Preludes/Etudes feature a graphic form of notation which specify right hand position much more precisely than the standard "pont" or "tasto" which most composers live with, and the intention is that these specifications should be integral to the compositional process. Whether this is the case or not I am not entirely sure, but it does show one aspect of the composer's enquiring mind and unwillingness to be bound by the usual habits of notational usage.

Suitably enough, the opening title is most obviously 'folky' American, inspired as it was by a visit home to Oklahoma farm country. Most of the recording however resides somewhere between this extreme and the more abstract ideas found occasionally in the Preludes.

A disc that warrants repeated listenings, and grows richer and more impressive each time.

This recording is available from GSP (San Francisco) tel 415-896-1144 (10am to 5pm Pacific time)

-Stephen Kenyon-