<<  -- 2 --  Malcolm Tattersall    SONATAS AND SONATINAS

Ponce's Sonatina Meridional suffers by following the Brouwer: the juxtaposition makes it appear quite bland in both harmony and texture. That's rather a shame, because it really is a charming, melodious work, one of Segovia's favourites and the most widely performed of the four pieces [listen -- track 7, 0:00-1:04]. Turina's Sonata, of essentially the same dimensions in spite of its more assertive title, has an attractive energy in the outer movements but the brooding slow movement is, at least in this performance, the most satisfying.

Lennox Berkeley opens his Sonatina very conventionally but begins to subvert the conventions almost immediately, first rhythmically then harmonically [listen -- track 10, 0:00-0:35]. The third movement is similarly quirky, and the intervening slow movement is an exploration of tone colours. The piece as a whole is entirely characteristic of Berkeley -- subtle, rigorous, attractive and very much of its time -- in spite of the technical challenges of writing for guitar.

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