Music Reviews : Guitarist Tennant Opens Series at Research Society

The California Harp, Lute and Guitar Assn. is the newest concert-producing organization to throw its hat into the crowded local ring. Saturday evening guitarist Scott Tennant kicked off the association’s inaugural recital series with a potent program in the comfortable, intimate Philosophical Research Society Auditorium on Los Feliz Boulevard.

A USC alum, Tennant may be best known as a member of the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet. He has, however, ample solo credentials, which his tough program thoroughly tested.

The only transcription on the agenda was a substantial one, Bach’s Violin/Lute Partita in E, BWV 1006a. Tennant embellished it with individual, distinctive, occasionally effortful care. Despite a memory lapse in the Loure, he revealed a generally persuasive fluency, though the Bouree brought him down to the level of sheer mechanical survival.

The other pieces of the first half--Rodrigo’s “En los Trigales” and an Introduction and Rondo by Dionisio Aguado--also seemed intermittently stiff. Tennant always got the job done, but the music usually sounded every bit as difficult as it was.

After intermission, though, he displayed both power and grace in supple, colorful accounts of Leo Brouwer’s “Tres Apuntes” and “Danza del Altiplano.” Tennant backed interpretive flair with bold, elegant playing, no matter how voluminously Brouwer spilled out notes.

The virtuoso, folkloric Variations on a Turkish Theme by the contemporary Italian composer Carlo Domeniconi and Rodrigo’s Sonata Giocosa completed the printed program in fine fashion, engaging in spirit and assured in technique.