MUSIC

Listening

Making Music

At school, I learnt Oboe and Bassoon and carried these on for many years afterwards. More recently, however, I have somewhat abandoned these instruments and derived a great deal of pleasure playing classical guitar and treble recorder. My limitations on both of these instruments stems from age and the bad habits of lax self-tuition and, although, I have attempted recently to be more diligent with technical practice this gets more difficult with age. None of this detracts from my primary aim of enjoying playing, however.

Guitar

I love playing classical guitar and spend many hours doing so. I am mainly drawn to early and baroque music, often transcriptions of music originally written for the lute. In this respect, my favourites are unquestionably John Dowland and Sylvius Leopold Weiss. In later music, the studies of Fernando Sor are very rewarding, as well as various pieces by the likes of Carulli, Carcassi, Aguado and Sanz.

Here are some of the pieces I play but played, unlike by me, by people who can play them brilliantly well.

Sylvius Leopold Weiss: Fantasie superbly interpreted by Asya Selyutina

Hannah Murphy playing Scott Tennant’s arrangement of the scottish ballad Wild Mountain Thyme

Christoph Denoth plays John Dowland’s Frog Galliard

Andrés Segovia playing J S Bach’s Gavotte from 4th Lute Suite on Guitar

Ciaconna for Lute by Weiss

And here are some recordings I made with my patchy but occasionally passable playing quality. I play on an Allhambra 4P guitar with D’Addario normal tension strings.

HOME by Andrew York: I love this piece with its expressive melody. The high harmonic passage in the middle is a bit sluggish but I found it very difficult to play at correct tempo.