Cristián Alvear - Seis Pequeñas Piezas Para Guitarra (Zoomin' Night, 2019)
Cristián Alvear - Seis Pequeñas Piezas Para Guitarra (Zoomin' Night, 2019)
Repetition is often thought of as a dirty word in music. It's
true that it was temporarily made fashionable by minimalists like Steve Reich
and Philip Glass, but more often than not when people speak of repetition in
music they're complaining about its laziness. One of the greatest defenders of
repetition in contemporary music is Chilean guitarist and composer Cristián
Alvear. Where other composers may use repetition to drive home a point or dig
at some idea, Alvear seems content to just let repetitions exist on its own –
and the results, as we see on Seis Pequeñas Piezas Para Guitarra, are
absolutely wonderful.
Many experimental music fans will recognize Cristián Alvear as
a performer of contemporary and reductionist music. Although relatively new to
the scene, he's released many fantastic albums of pieces by some of today's
best reductionists like Michael Pisaro, Taku Sugimoto, Ryoko Akama, and Mark So
– and has quickly became one of my favorite performers in that genre. His style
has always been simple, focusing on the soft and simple textures and harmonies
of the acoustic guitar and little else. In an unsurprising turn of events, 2018
saw Alvear's interest turn to composition with the albums Pieza Para
Guitarra Afinada and Tumo Plays Cristián Alvear. Seis Pequeñas
Piezas Para Guitarra, released on the Chinese Zoomin' Night label, marks his
third release as composer.
The composition was dedicated to fellow Chilean musicians Nicolás
Carrasco and Santiago Astaburuaga, was split into 6 untitled tracks, and was
performed (similarly to Pieza Para Guitarra Afinada) by the composer. Each
track follows more or less the same structure – Alvear strums a simple chord or
a brief melody. And then he waits a brief moment and strums it again. And again,
and again, and again. Gradually another note or string is added, or one is
slightly changed, but the focus is never on the specific addition of that note,
but of the effect that it has on the dynamics of the repeated section as a
whole. You notice the small differences in timbre as the notes begin to, or
more often fail to, harmonize against each other – the fact that the music has
become more or less complex is completely forgotten. And then at some point,
some minutes later, he stops. The piece is over, and that's that.
It might be slightly unfair to think of Cristián Alvear as a
successor to Japanese guitarist-composer Taku Sugimoto, but it's no coincidence
that Pieza Para Guitarra Afinada, Alvear's first recorded guitar
composition, was dedicated to Sugimoto. Without going into too much detail,
Sugimoto's music around the turn of the century was some of the most
revolutionary guitar music being recorded (if you're unclear what I'm referring
to, I recommend checking out 1998's Opposite and, my personal favorite,
2005's Live in Australia). He effectively stripped guitar music back to
the bare essentials – begone melody, begone harmony, begone song structures and
even a fair regard to the listener's attention span! It may seem like Alvear's
music is much more complex than Sugimoto's was, but in reality it's just
fuller. Instead of leaving the listener to patiently wait in silence for the
next event to occur as Sugimoto did, Alvear simply repeats the last event. An easy
note of praise to this approach is that it makes the music far more listenable,
but it also makes for a more meditative listening experience. Despite the
avant-garde intentions of the composition, it works beautifully as simple mood
music. Perhaps, returning to Sugimoto, the best frame of reference for the
piece is to Sugimoto's overlooked composition 13 & 14 for Guitars
which had Sugimoto and Tetuzi Akiyama strumming simple repetitions on their
electric guitars with ambient guitars effects – creating an awkward yet
beautiful space somewhere in between the comfortable and the challenging. Despite
simplifying his tools, with Seis Pequeñas Piezas Para Guitarra Alvear
has created much the same effect.
Using Sugimoto's music for contrast once again, we can see something
interesting in the intent of this music. When Sugimoto gives the listener a
long period to wait before the next event, the listener starts thinking about
what the next event might be, what the last event was, and how they might relate
to each other. When that event finally comes, the listener finally feels
relief. In Alvear's music the sound never stops, it's held by repetition until
the next event occurs – that event being a slight variation on what we've
already been hearing. No relief is needed, because Alvear denies Sugimoto's
tension. By doing this, Alvear shifts the listeners focus from the events and
to the timber, or perhaps better put, from the music to the sound. Alvear's
intention becomes less about progression, or even about the music or
performance itself, and more about understanding the complexities of the
acoustic guitar under the lens of different tunings. In intent the music
probably has more to do with exploratory jazz music than it does with actual minimalist
composition.
One last point I'd like to make about the album refers to
the specifics of Alvear's playing. Despite the music being so simple and
subtle, Alvear's playing is full of personality. Although the music is simply
repeated, Alvear's playing is hardly uniform. The spacing between notes subtly changes
with seemingly no logic – whether it be by accident or intent is unknown. An accidental
note may sneak in here or there, or a chord may be louder or quiet on one
repetition than it was before. They're little things, but Alvear leaves these
signs of life in his performance which adds some comforting warmth which is
often missing in contemporary music. As impressive as the technical precision
of the tunings, chords, and harmonies they create may be, it's that personality
and warmth behind the guitar which always makes me excited to hear the next
recording.
As I said earlier, this composer-performer stage of Alvear's
career hardly comes as a shock to me – but it's still a phase which I'm excited
to follow. Between Seis Pequeñas Piezas Para Guitarra and Pieza Para
Guitarra Afinada it's clear that Alvear is going into this with a strong
vision, as well as a good grasp of where he excels as a performer. I won't deny
that this doesn't quite hit the heights of some of his earlier recordings, but I
am very excited to see where this stage will bring him next.
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