Music Reviews : Guitarist Douglas Niedt at Ambassador

The guitar might well be the original and ultimate postmodern instrument, its whole history being one extended multicultural crossover. Unfortunately, all that diversity often manifests itself in the form of salon entertainments, as Douglas Niedt demonstrated Monday on a Gold Medal concert at Ambassador Auditorium.

The guitarist’s program was essentially a string of encores, popular or folk based. Niedt’s repertory ranged from his teacher Jorge Morel’s Bernstein and Gershwin medleys, through Giuliani’s Rossini paraphrase to Brazilian songs and dances. He balanced overly familiar offerings from Villa-Lobos, Turina and Tarrega with novelties from Edmundo Zaldivar, Fernando Bustamente and his own arrangements of out-of-the-way Copland.

Niedt played it all with firm, unflappable technique and abundant color. He began tentatively and blandly in music that cries for liberal application of personality, but warmed up to his task after intermission, introducing some notably slinky work in Morel’s “West Side Story” and Gershwin potpourris.

The feeling of sameness that overwhelmed the recital could be attributed to the one-dimensional orientation of the program as much as to Niedt’s interpretations. Conflicting approaches could sometimes be heard in a single piece, such as the odd embellishment Niedt added to an otherwise stodgy Choros No. 1 by Villa-Lobos. Potentially seductive works such as Ovalle’s “Azulao” or Turina’s Fandanguillo could prove polite and flacid, while a formulaic display like Giuliani’s “Rossiniana” rippled with fluid, zesty purpose.

In encore Niedt delivered Duke Ellington’s “Dancers in Love”--the evening’s high point of pertinent, winning flash--and Stanley Myer’s “Deerhunter” Cavatina.