Encantamientos - Robert Keeley
Tarantos - Leo Brouwer
Etudes - Book One - Benjamin Dwyer
Prelude: Eyes of a Recollection - Alexandre de Faria
Appassionata - Ronaldo Miranda
THE Bank of Ireland Arts Centre was full to overflowing for last Thursday's lunchtime concert. The guitarist Fabio Zanon lived up to his reputation for contemporary music with a programme, presented as part of the bank's "Mostly Modern" series, of five works by living composers.
One of the most remarkable aspects of this Brazilian's playing was his command of colour. His projection of subtlety and extremity made the guitar achieve an almost-orchestral variety of sound, probably beyond what some of the composers ever imagined. More remarkable still were his rhythmic discipline and his flair in deploying his battery of effects. Such definition makes any technical slip stand out, and there were several of these; but what never slipped was Zanon's grip on each piece.
No wonder composers write for him. Encantamientos (1996), by the Welsh composer Robert Keeley, was receiving its first performance and was dedicated to Fabio Zanon. The playing's mix of precision and atmosphere seemed ideal for this music's style - taut part-writing, non-tonal and openly expressive.
Throughout this concert of stylistically contrasted music, interpretation felt just right. This was equally true in the programme's more modernistic pieces, by Keeley, Leo Brouwer and Benjamin Dwyer, and in two pieces of more traditional vocabulary, by Alexandre de Faria and Ronaldo Miranda. Even the latter's Rachmaninov-like Appassionata (1984) sounded fresh, thanks to the player's command of the late-Romantic idiom - not typical or easy for this instrument - and his relaxed virtuosity. Zanon is a fine guitarist; but above all he is a profound musician.
