This is a sophisticated,
subtle and – at times – passionate collection
of music for four guitars, imaginatively
conceived and performed with absolute
technical assurance.
Stephen Goss is a witty
eclectic composer, the wit sometimes
humorous, sometimes perhaps better characterised
in the way the Elizabethans did, as
a kind of mental sharpness which is
alert to resemblances and which often
operates by the revelation of unexpected
resemblances and connections. Something
of the sort is at work (play?) in Goss’s
Carmen Fantasy, which opens this
programme. The five movements of the
work (Torero – Habanera – Aragonaise
– Seguidilla - Gypsy Song) naturally
incorporate materials from Bizet’s opera,
but they also draw on, for example,
Debussy’s ‘Soirée dans Grenade’
and ‘La puerta del Vino’, de
Falla’s Homenaje (Le Tombeau de Debussy)
and Horowitz’s Carmen Variations.
We are talking about far more than mere
arrangement here. Goss’s music is music
in conversation with these earlier scores,
a conversation which questions, makes
witty observations, repeats ‘remarks’
in a different tone of voice, as it
were, and plays many other serious games
with its sources. So, for example, the
opening movement takes as its starting
point Escamillo’s act two aria but inter-cuts
music from this with material from the
close of act four of the opera. The
second movement is well described by
the composer as having "a sultry, three-in-the
morning atmosphere"; the marvellous
third movement begins with some passionately
percussive work, allows a brief cadenza,
before a controlled frenzy of flamenco
influenced rasguado-work and finally
metamorphoses into a version of Carmen’s
first act aria, ‘Tra la la’. In short,
this is a delightful, intelligent piece
of music-making, and is played with
sure-fingered understanding by the Tetra
quartet.
There are more musical
conversations in the two other works
by Goss to be heard on this CD. ‘Lachrymae’
is a meditation on melodic fragments
from Dowland, a study in, sometimes
discordant, pianissimo harmonics, in
which silence is as important as the
delicate lute-like sounds produced by
the musicians. A lovely piece – there’s
no Sting in the tail of this particular
modern reworking of the great Elizabethan
master. Goss’s interplay with Satie
takes more than one form. The two Gymnopédies
are heard in fairly straightforward
arrangements, via Debussy’s orchestrations
of the originals. The three Gnossiennes,
on the other hand, are more subtly reworked,
beautifully reconceived and developed
in terms of this particular instrumentation.
Stephen Goss’s work as a composer is
by no means limited to pieces for his
own instrument, the guitar (or multiples
thereof) – bearing in mind such pieces
as, say, his Garden of Cosmic Speculation
(2005) for bass clarinet, violin,
cello and piano – but his intimate knowledge
of the instrument is certainly central
to the sheer quality of these works.
Elsewhere on the CD we
are into more straightforward arrangements
– and what genuine pleasure is to be
had from, for example, Peter Howe’s
version of the familiar ‘Ritual Fire
Dance’ or the dances from Granados
in this version by Richard Storry, both
of them seen through musical lenses,
which if not as complex in their refractions
as those deployed by Goss, certainly
allow fresh views of the music. Turkish-born
Gilbert Biberian, who studied with Elisabeth
Lutyens, is himself a fine guitarist
as well as a composer (whose own works
for guitar quartet are well worth hearing),
and his arrangement of Stravinsky’s
Eight Pieces works very well
in this particular combination of instruments
– as well, indeed, as in its original
piano duet form. The elements of parody
and allusion link the pieces to important
aspects of Goss’s work and help to give
a real coherence to this very well programmed
CD.
Throughout the musicianship
of the Tetra Quartet is admirable; the
ensemble work is perfect and the air
of spontaneity is infectious.
Glyn Pursglove
Tetra Guitar Quartet: Stephen Goss, Richard
Hand, Allan Neave, Graham Roberts 
