Spatula (a scrambled pastiche)

The daftest thing about this piece is its title Spatula, which seems to have no bearing whatsoever on the musical content, which is in the form of a sort of pastiche, hence the sub-title. The music within is great fun, jolly hard to play correctly and easy to play absolutely wrongly if you get my meaning for there is a lot of little detail here, which could easily be misread, and thus misplayed.
The form of the work is very original and a real one-off, which immediately grabs one's interest. The composer describes the work as an autobiographical homage to the guitar and one in which he could portray many varied guitaristic elements that showed of the instrument to its fullest extent. So he begins with the introduction based on one of his best-loved guitar pieces Tárrega's Capricho Arabe. It does begin exactly the same only gradually varying its little details as it goes further on, but as it winds down into what ought to be Tárrega's main section, you are suddenly dragged bodily into a banjo-esque bluegrass idea. This then makes way after a little while into a habanera style, a violent contrast you may realise, only to accede to the bluegrass idea a little way on. From here on in things get a little bizarre as styles and moods change thick and fast but eventually become a somewhat bizarre mix of the two styles all at once! At this point there are various violent interruptions of rasgueado chords amongst other things that try to disrupt the entire affair, only to be met with dogged persistence on behalf of the habanera that refuses to give way. The section marked Grotesque aptly portrays this battle, which, after all this is «won« surprisingly by the bluegrass theme that one had almost forgotten about, and which slides in and takes over the coda to the astonishment of all concerned.
Very difficult technically in a lot of places, this very humorous slice of the fantastic and bizarre is like nothing else I have come across before and as such would probably be the highlight of a concert should any brave individuals give it a try. Great stuff.
Chris Dumigan (Classical Guitar Magazine)