reinventing guitar!
New Perspectives in Guitar Sound
Artist: Smaro Gregoriadou
Magazine: DIFONO
Country: Greece
Issue number: 166
Month of release: December 2009
Page: 116
Department: CLASSICAL MUSIC – RECORDS REVIEWS
Writer: Liana Malandrenioti
Title: SMARO GREGORIADOU: Reinventing Guitar! (Delos International)The guitar soloist and composer Smaro Gregoriadou, with these novel interpretations, gives the listener the opportunity to come in contact with a universally acclaimed Greek invention that concerns classical guitar. Kertsopoulos Aesthetics, a pioneering musical initiative of guitarist, guitar-builder and researcher George Kertsopoulos, involves the revival of different historic types of guitar, as well as the expansion of the instrument’s acoustic potential. It aims to connect the interpreter of today as closely as possible with the authentic sound of the original works. Smaro Gregoriadou, participating in the endeavor of this revival, interprets works by Bach, Scarlatti, José, Kertsopoulos and herself, playing three instruments of Kertsopoulos’ invention and construction. A triple-double-single stringed guitar in re-entrant tuning (first world recording), a high-tuned guitar in scalloped frets and a classical guitar in ordinary and low tunings…
Listening carefully to Scarlatti’s Harpsichord Sonata L23 on a high-pitched scalloped guitar with movable back, I concede that the accurate representation of the timbre and punctuation of the original composition immediately earned my enthusiasm… The revival of the authentic sound of Bach’s Lute Suite BWV995 by a triple-double-single stringed guitar in re-entrant tuning, consisting of a very ambitious and difficult endeavor, yields a result that will definitely fascinate the listener. This innovative approach made a passionate follower of the great cantor’s sound, like me, listen to the album again and again. The title of the cd is entirely justified. What Smaro Gregoriadou is presenting here is exactly the essence of the word “reinventing”: a redefinition of the sound and technique of the classical guitar.
In the collection we also hear the Sonata para guitarra by Antonio José, a short but quite characteristic work by George Kertsopoulos entitled Some Colour’s Rhythms, and Two Balkan Dances by Smaro Gregoriadou, a composition with many virtues, that exhibit the sound qualities and possibilities of the guitar at their very best.
This album definitely offers a pioneering aesthetic idea, and I hope it enjoys the universal acceptance that it deserves
Liana Malandrenioti, writer/critic
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