John Williams: Still Seriously Virtuosic

John Williams remains one of the most reliable classical guitar virtuosos on the scene, a stalwart for nearly four decades now. One can reasonably expect pristine, focused performances whenever he shows up, an expectation fulfilled at his appearance in the Philharmonic’s Celebrity Recital series Wednesday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. He makes playing a difficult instrument sound effortless and makes serious music flow smoothly.

This night, though, something was slightly amiss in the program’s pacing. Williams peaked early, and with early music--sonatas by Scarlatti, played with a crisp, luminous approach. Next, he took on Bach’s Chaconne, from the Violin Partita No. 2 in D Minor, a familiar staple in the guitar repertory, and treated it with uncommon depth. Here, the work’s sweeping drama unfolded clearly, with no undue force. Williams on Bach is impressive indeed.

What remained of the concert seemed almost breezy by comparison, however well-rendered and understood. He sailed through well-known pieces by Isaac Albeniz--the delicate “Cordoba” and the ardor-filled “Asturias,” full of liquid tremolo. The second half began with a bold reading of Cuban composer Leo Brouwer’s “El Decameron Negro,” by turns sweetly folk tune-ish and enigmatic, colored with earthy dissonances. Williams closed with six pieces by the eccentric Paraguayan guitarist and composer Austin Barrios Mangore (1885-1944), whose romantic, colorful music Williams has helped rescue from obscurity.

For encores, Williams pulled out the crowd-pleasing Scott Joplin chestnut “The Entertainer,” the harmonic color of which revealed a surprising kinship to the Latin Americana before it. He also played an arrangement of the theme to the film “Schindler’s List,” by that other John Williams.