University of Virginia Library

Byrd Performance 'Disastrous'
In Tuesday Evening Series

By Barry Smith

Guitarist Charlie Byrd gained his
reputation in the early sixties
because of the album "Jazz Samba,"
recorded with Stan Getz, first
introducing Bossa Nova to the
United States. On Tuesday evening,
Byrd attempted to step out of his
usual Bossa Nova-Jazz style of
music to play a classical oriented
concert to a near capacity audience
in Cabell Hall Auditorium. The
attempt, however, was a disaster
and the only rewarding moment of
the evening was the encore in which
Byrd and flutist Mario Darpino
stepped back into their style and
performed a superb arrangement of
Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Coreovada."

The concert opened with "Three
Pieces for Guitar Solo" (Sonatina,
Minuetto, and Allegro) written by
Niccolo Paganini. The first has a
simple, but pretty, melody and in it
Byrd displayed some excellent
guitar technique. At times, however,
the performance of this piece
became "choppy" and the flow of
the music was broken.

Minuetio was performed fairly
well and Byrd exhibited some very
quick and clean scaler runs with
beautiful changes from the high
frets of the guitar to the lower
register.

Tasteful dynamics in the bass
part marked the Allegro. Byrd
entered the bass softly underneath
the melody line and then built it to
sound as if two guitars were
playing. Unfortunately, this selection
was marred by sloppy guitar
work.

Mario Darpino assisted Byrd on
the flute for Antonio Vivaldi's
"Sonata for Flute and Guitar." The
Andante began with the flute
carrying the melody and Byrd
playing background. The Lento
began with Byrd strumming chords

before the flute entered. Other than
that, little can be said about the
piece. There were absolutely no
dynamics or tonal changes on
Darpino's behalf and because of
this, the selection became monotonous.
I cannot help but believe
that a rehearsal might have done
some good.

The performance of Sixteenth-Century
Vihuela Music was proceeded
by an informative explanation
of it being the earliest known
printed music for the guitar. I wish
more musicians would do as Charlie
Byrd and take the time to talk
about the music with the audience,
who often know little about the
individual piece being performed.

Discussing Vihuela Music and
playing it are two different things,
however. In Luys de Narvaez's
"Theme and Variations," Byrd
displayed some very sloppy and
clumsy guitar work. Missing notes
and runs, he presented to the
audience a disjointed and ragged
performance of the work.

"Fantasia," by Alonso Mudarra,
was played a little better. This is
technically a very difficult guitar
piece and Byrd handled the long
stretches on the neck well. Although
many notes were missed,
the performance was successful.

Almost everything that could
possibly go wrong in a concert
appeared to do so in the performance
of George Handel's "Sonata
for Flute and Guitar." Here it
became more than apparent that
Darpino and Byrd had not rehearsed.
The first movement was
slow and flowed along with the lack
of dynamics and tonal changes that
had plagued the Vivaldi composition.
At the end of the first
movement, there was a slight
mix-up on what page the flutist was
on. At the end of the second
movement, the flutist again had
difficulty in finding his music.
Unfortunately, when the fourth
movement started, the flutist had
no idea where he was and sat
staring nervously at his music stand
as Byrd began playing. After a brief
pause, a short discussion, and a
nervous laugh from the audience,
Byrd began the movement again
with the flutist on his proper page
and finished a very poor performance.

The intermission was followed
by four pieces by Hector Villa-Lobos.
"Etude No. 1" saw Byrd
attempting to play harmonics.
When he succeeded it was beautiful,
but when he missed it was fatal.

By the time Byrd began playing
"Etude No. 7," he had become
quite polished at covering his
mistakes. He missed one guitar run
three consecutive times, stopping
and starting it over after each
failure but, at the same time,
pretending that the mistake was a
written part.

Moderately exciting performances
were given to "Leyenda"
and "Granada," two pieces by Isaac
Albeniz. In both, Byrd displayed
excellent guitar technique and musicianship
and he showed himself
capable of handling the bursting
runs of "Granada" well.

"Danza No. 5" by Enrique
Granados was, perhaps, the best
performed piece on the program.
With beautiful chording and an
excellent use of harmonics, Byrd
had gotten himself together. The
composition was executed with
brilliant dynamics and was received
with a good audience response.

The flutist returned for the final
selection, a piece written by
Jacques Ibert entitled "Entr'acte."
The guitar and flute were much
tighter on this piece and both
played fairly well. But the damage
had been done and these two final
selections could not make up for
the poor performance of the
evening.

Charlie Byrd is a good jazz and
bossa-nova guitarist. He attempted,
Tuesday night, to play a different
element of music and failed. He
cannot stand up to the Masters,
such as Andres Segovia, and I have
to question his motives in attempting
an unrehearsed concert of
works that only they can play.