Music Reviews : Swedish Guitarist Sollscher Makes West Coast Debut

When guitarist Goran Sollscher made his West Coast debut Wednesday night at Ambassador Auditorium, it was hard to determine if his brief but carefully selected program may have been too distant and cerebral.

The steady, bespectacled Swede commands a cool approach to his craft that stresses a seldom faltering accuracy and a certain understated quality that nakedly allows each composition to stand on its own. But although he ostensibly relishes each morsel of music he makes, it is a private enjoyment that doesn’t always reach the listener with the same degree of warmth.

Nonetheless, the clarity and lucidity of his phrasing and interpretation blend with striking intelligence. What is missing in tenderness is supplanted by a sturdy architecture that never succumbs to bombast or needless ornamentation.

His impressive use of an 11-string guitar added a provocative touch to his own transcription of Bach’s Sonata No. 3 for solo violin. Resisting some of the showy devices of more reknowned guitarists--such as vibrato or flashy use of extended techniques--Sollscher painstakingly placed every note, giving the music well-focused integrity.

On the common six-string instrument, a conservative, neoclassic work by Swedish composer Dag Wiren--”Liten serenade” (1964)--offered a pleasant alternative, but makes few demands on the player or listener. The music dances modestly in an innocuous tonal language without substantially communicating or exploring.

Granados’ “Danza espanola” No. 5 tested a more invigorating side to Sollscher’s playing that succeeded on a virtuosic level, but stylistically needed a more genuine Spanish flavor. Falla’s “Homenaje a Claude Debussy” provided a softer, less active study that also proved more routine than idiomatic. Ponce’s more ambitious “Sonatina meridional” similarly proceeded adequately and seamlessly. The scanty but appreciative audience summoned two encores.