Search - David Starobin, Daniel Druckman :: David Starobin: Family Album (New Music with Guitar, Vol. 7)

A brilliant gem from a unique and versatile artist

Paul Cesarczyk | Brooklyn, NY | 12/18/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Being familiar with all of David Starobin's records I sense that Family Album represents the artist at a new peek of creative energy not only in the debut appearance of his own compositions but also in the breath and scope of the album's narrative programming and it's subtly refined playing, perhaps the most satisfying and remarkable in Starobin's discography. Family Album is the seventh volume in the "New Music with Guitar" series and as the title suggests is the most personal of Starobin's records, bringing together pieces and composers with a particularly special meaning for the guitarist.



Family Album has all the features that mark a Starobin recording: impeccable production quality, crisp articulations, rhythmic virtuosity, charm, pure and subtle expressivity and of course the feeling that you're listening to something new and exciting. Whereas so many classical records these days have a dry and impersonal quality, Family Album recreates the feeling of opening an old picture book and being drawn into a contemplative mood around the memories of people and places on the images. Something in between pensive and playful William Bland's six preludes are character pieces in the true sense of the word. Along with Paul Lanksy's Semi-Suite and Tania Leon's Bailarin, Bland's miniatures seem to explore temperament and personality traits from the intense to the wistful captured by touching but unsentimental playing. To me Bailarin evokes an image of an eccentric dancer skipping wildly around a studio indifferent to shocked onlookers. The atmosphere is intense and brilliant. Poul Ruders' New Rochelle Suite and Starobin's own Three Places in New Rochelle are less concerned with meditative impressions than with "being there", more precisely with a friend (in this case amazing percussionist Daniel Druckman). I really love the circus-like intensity of Ruders' Suite and Starobin's first recorded compositional effort is a warm nod to both Ives' masterpiece and his hometown north of New York City. To anyone familiar with Starobin's collaborations with George Crumb, at least part of Three Places will feel like homage to Crumb's delicately textured and intimate sound world.



David Starobin is widely known for challenging the formality of the concert classical guitar with respect to design, sound and even playing position. Exploring how a guitar impacts the realization of specific music is a particularly attractive aspect of his discography. Although for the Ruders, Leon and his own works he uses the familiar Gary Southwell guitar, I found it interesting that he reached into the 70's and guitars by Brune and Ramirez for the Bland and Lansky pieces. The complex and rich toned Ramirez gives Lansky's slow movements a poignancy and resonant sustain that is often quite moving. Brune's equally beautiful and balanced instrument (owned and played by Andres Segovia in the 80's) allows for a clear separation of lines in the more melodic Bland preludes.



This is a highly recommended, top five, must-have recording by this versatile and unique artist."