Classical review: Simon Thacker, Paxton House

By CAROL MAIN
Published on 19/07/2012 00:26

WHETHER to do with the relentless rainy weather or possibly just a bit too esoteric a programme, the audience for Simon Thacker’s recital last night as part of the Music at Paxton festival was disappointingly smallish. Those who braved these dual elements were far from disappointed.

Thacker is a classical guitarist of consummate skill, intuitive musicality and impressive agility in his dexterous finger work. As he faced Allan Ramsay’s portrait of Lady Caroline d’Arcy with her guitar in Paxton House’s acoustically well-suited Picture Gallery, Thacker approached Ponce’s Sonatina Meridianal with lots of fine, delicate detail. Technical assurance was the vehicle for rustic, Spanish colouring before the more fragile, enigmatic sounds of Japanese composer Minoru Miki’s Ballade No 2.

The Chaconne from Bach’s D minor Partita, written for violin, took on a gentle gravitas in its guitar version, beautifully yet simply stated through Thacker’s impeccable precision. Even more challenging was Britten’s Nocturnal after John Dowland, an extended exposition of the song Come, Heavy Sleep. Its fiendish demands culminated in a monumental passacaglia.

In repertoire spanning over 250 years, Nigel Osborne’s mysteriously atmospheric After Night, of 1977 was the most recent. His only piece so far for solo guitar, it is one with which Thacker has especially close affinity. Perhaps even more virtuosic was Ginastera’s guitar masterwork written one year earlier, which called for all sorts of weird and wonderful techniques across the strings and body of the instrument.

Rating: ****